and plunged it into his trousers. She tried to pull away but he gripped her tightly, forcing her against him until she felt her arm would snap in two. ‘You should count yourself lucky. Ugly little cow like you, no other man would ever look at you.’
He suddenly yanked her arms back, pinning them above her head as he thrust himself clumsily against her. All the fight gone out of her, Dora could do nothing but blank her mind. She turned her face to stare at the crack of dim lamplight between the faded rose print curtains, listened to the distant sound of June Riley’s screeching voice, and told herself it would all be over soon.
Chapter Three
IF THINGS HAD gone as her grandmother had planned, Lady Amelia Charlotte Benedict should have been celebrating her engagement by her eighteenth birthday. The Dowager Countess of Rettingham had even taken the trouble to draw up a list of the most eligible prospects, starting with the son of a duke and ending with a minor baronet from Lincolnshire – not ideal, but better than nothing, as she’d pointed out.
And yet here Millie was, on a November morning six months after her nineteenth birthday, standing in Matron’s office yet again. It was simply too tiresome.
Matron obviously felt the same. ‘So, here you are once more, Benedict,’ she said with a heavy sigh.
‘I’m afraid so, Matron.’
‘Do you realise you are the only one in your set to have failed Preliminary Training?’
Millie stared down at the parquet floor. ‘Yes, Matron.’
‘Do you know why you have failed, Benedict?’
‘I think so, Matron. But it was an accident,’ she added quickly. ‘If that soap enema solution hadn’t exploded in my hands—’
She saw Matron’s forbidding expression and stopped. A student was not supposed to speak to her superiors unless spoken to. Even making eye contact with Matron was discouraged. Millie knew some pros who hid in the sluice room during her ward rounds so they wouldn’t have to be in her presence.
Which was a shame, really. Matron looked as if she might be rather fun, once you got to know her.
Not that there was much chance of a humble student ever doing that.
‘The soap enema incident was . . . unfortunate,’ Millie could have sworn she saw Matron’s mouth twitch, ‘but it is not the only reason you failed PTS. According to your tutor Sister Parker, your general attitude leaves a lot to be desired.’ She consulted her notes. ‘She says you’re easily distracted, you chatter in class, and you spend a great deal of time daydreaming. Sister Sutton also says you’re untidy and you have a lax attitude to the rules of the nurses’ home. I see you’ve been caught by the night porter on two occasions returning after ten o’clock, and without a late pass?’
‘Actually, it was three times, Matron.’ Millie could have bitten off her tongue as soon as she’d said it. Her grandmother always said honesty was one of her biggest character flaws, and she was right.
‘Is that so?’ Matron’s brows rose. ‘Are you trying to set some kind of record, Benedict?’
‘Indeed not, Matron.’
‘I’m very glad to hear it.’ Matron regarded her steadily. ‘Well, Benedict, I’m afraid all those late nights and gadding about have cost you dear. While the rest of your set are commencing their training on the wards, you are back to square one, having to repeat your twelve weeks’ Preliminary Training . . .’
Millie gazed past Matron’s shoulder and out of the window at the wintry grey sky, tinged yellow by smoke belching from the factories. Winter seemed much bleaker in London, where the creeping damp made your bones ache, and a thick, acid fog rolled up off the river, clogging your lungs and leaving a metallic taste in the back of your throat.
It wasn’t at all like the winters in Kent, where the air was crisp and clean and refreshingly cold, smelling of nothing more than bonfires and damp earth and leaves. She loved to go out riding then with her father, galloping across the bare fields, shorn of their crops, the naked trees silhouetted dramatically against the vast, empty sky.
Most people assumed a girl wouldn’t be interested in the land, but Millie knew every one of Billinghurst’s five thousand-odd acres, and the tenants who farmed them.
Naturally her grandmother didn’t approve.
‘She is your daughter, not your son and heir!’ Millie had overheard her scolding her son. ‘Really, Henry, isn’t it hard enough for the girl growing up without a mother to guide