She lowered her head to stare down at her hands as if they were the only thing in the world at that moment, and it made Scotty want to pull her into his lap and hold her until all her pain went away. Part of him wanted to tell her to stop talking, not to tell him any more, but he didn’t and simply waited.
“He may have been a kind man, but no man likes to be laughed at,” Beth said finally. “And I don’t know if it was whatever they’d given me, or maybe hysteria, but when he stripped off his clothes and straightened, I thought him the funniest thing I’d ever seen.”
Grimacing, Beth glanced up briefly as she admitted, “I’d never seen a naked man before. The closest was me father in his nightshirt, but even that hid everything except his hairy feet. But this . . .” Beth shook her head and lowered her gaze again.
“He was like a rooster, a sagging chin, narrow shoulders slouching into a big fat belly over short skinny legs, and for some reason, I just started to laugh. And then I couldn’t stop, which infuriated him. He wasn’t particularly kind or gentle because of it, I suppose, but at least he was quick and left me to cry myself to sleep.”
Scotty watched her take a deep breath, and she seemed stronger as she said, “Of course, once I’d been bought and raped, my value dropped considerably. In fact, I was no longer useful to the brothel.” Glancing his way, she explained, “This particular establishment only kept the most beautiful women.”
“Ye’re beautiful,” he said almost too softly for her to hear him, but she did.
“Nay. I have red hair,” Beth told him as if he might not have noticed.
“Yer hair is beautiful.”
“The English don’t like red hair,” she countered.
“The English are idiots,” Scotty growled.
“They also found my freckles unfortunate.”
“I love yer freckles.”
Ignoring that, Beth said, “I simply didn’t measure up. Unfortunately, I also wasn’t behaving myself.”
Scotty couldn’t help noticing she said that with satisfaction.
“Much to their displeasure, I kept trying to escape,” she announced with pride, and then grimaced and added, “So I was auctioned off again, this time to a roomful of bullies.”
“Dear God,” Scotty breathed.
“The winning bidder was a man named Danny Olsen. He had three girls already. I was number four. He broke me in, which translates to he raped me for three days straight, and then he locked me in a room that he only unlocked for customers. I wasn’t a very willing girl, ye see, despite his breaking-in. So he sent in the ones who didn’t mind the fight in me . . . and for an extra quid they could bruise me as they liked so long as they didn’t scar me permanent-like.”
Scotty fisted his hands and briefly stopped breathing as rage flowed through him. He was angry, and hurting for her, and feeling so damned helpless because it was too late to change what had happened. Yet she was now telling it all rather emotionlessly, like she was recounting some tale she’d heard. It was as if Beth had separated herself from the events she was describing, and that just made the hearing worse.
“We girls were warned not to run away. Danny said he’d told the children on the streets that he’d pay a quid if they warned him when we ran away and told him where to find us. I was very nice to those children,” Beth assured him. “I gave them whatever coin I could manage to squirrel away. The men would tip on occasion, you see. Usually it was the rougher ones. The rougher they were, the more the guilt, and the more likely they were to toss a coin or two extra on me battered body on the way out. I gave every one of those coins to the children on the street. I was hoping that when I tried to run away they would keep their mouths shut.” Grimacing, she shrugged. “But it’s cold on the street, and those children were always hungry, and in the end, a quid is a quid.
“Every time I ran away, they got a quid and I was dragged back, beaten viciously and locked in the room again. Still, I continued to try. I think I was seventeen when I made my last attempt.”
“Seventeen,” Scotty breathed with dismay. She’d been locked in a room, beaten and raped for seven years, he realized with horror, and then blinked and asked, “Ye think?”
“Time began to blur in that room,” Beth explained with a shrug. “I’m not sure how old I was that last time I managed to escape. Seventeen is my best guess.”
Scotty swallowed again.
“Anyway,” she continued, “Danny’d had enough by then. He was tired of hunting me down, tired of the trouble I caused. Besides, by that time he had thirteen of us girls and figured he’d hardly miss one . . . and I would serve as a fine example to the others of what to expect if they caused him too much trouble. So, when he caught me that night, he told me flat-out that he intended to beat me to death and leave my corpse in the alley for the rats to feed on, right where the girls would see me out their windows.
“Fortunately,” Beth continued as Scotty buried his face in his hands, “Dree happened along then. She didn’t know me, and didn’t know Danny intended to kill me, but she saw him beating me and intervened. She tore him off of me like he was little more than a toddler, which infuriated him and probably scared him spitless. Foolishly, he pulled his knife and . . . well, that was a mistake. Dree just grabbed Danny and tossed him away up the alley like he was so much trash. He landed on his own knife and died almost instantly.
“When Dree then scooped me up and asked where to take me, the only place I could think was the brothel where the other girls were. She carried me there.” Smiling wryly, she said, “I expect she thought she could just leave me and someone would tend my wounds, allowing her to go about her business. Instead, she found a house full of beaten and broken women, most of whom were younger than even me at that point. None of them knew what to do about my injuries. She had to stay and tend me herself.
“I think the other women shocked her,” Beth admitted. “Dree probably thought they’d be grateful to be free of the man. Instead, they were frightened and panicky. They were terrified by the fact that our pimp was gone. Even a bad pimp was better than no pimp to their minds, and they blamed her for his absence. Instead of thanking her, they ran around crying, ‘Who will protect us now?’”
Beth paused, pursed her lips and then said, “Except for Mary. Mouthy Mary, Dree used to call her, but affectionate-like,” she assured him. “That first night Mary just stood up and announced that, seeing as how Dree had killed our protector, she’d just have to take his place.” Beth grinned at the memory and admitted, “Basically the girls guilted Dree into acting as our protector and, by the time I healed enough to get out of bed, everything had changed.”