“I don’t feel guilty at all,” she insisted as Sebastian continued to gaze at her expectantly. Grabbing him a bone out of the sack, she threw it under the wagon and set about lighting the fire. Once it was done, she fetched herself a blanket and wrapped it about her head and shoulders, hoping the growing shadows and the folds of the cloth would hide her swollen eye.
I saw deeds to a respectable house … Yet you, he sees fit to drag from one immoral cesspit to another. Lizzie closed her eyes as she remembered her uncle’s words. When first she’d married Benedict and seen the wagon, she had assumed this had been his home. It seemed now that was not the case at all.
Or was it? She pulled her blanket about her, feeling more and more confused. Maybe he had lied to the Andersons and then tired of all the subterfuge and that was why he had broken things off with Betsy? Certainly, her cousin would not have lasted more than twenty-four hours in this life. Then again, maybe if Benedict had married Betsy, he would not have expected her to live this life at all. Her mouth twisted. There was no ‘maybe’ about it.
To her astonishment, she felt the tear running down her cheek and angrily swiped it away. She certainly wasn’t going to sit here crying about the fact her husband might had deceived her.
A heavy footfall had Sebastian starting up from under the wagon and Lizzie half turning in her seat.
“There you are!” Benedict exclaimed. “I’ve been twice around the field looking for you! What made you come back here without me?” He surveyed her bundled form with concern and crouched down before her. “Feeling ill?” His hand was at her brow before she could answer.
“I’m not ill.”
He drew back and looked at her searchingly. “You’re sure? You don’t look yourself.”
She shook her head and he frowned. “Have you eaten?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Tell me what’s wrong,” he said narrowing his eyes. “You look like you’ve been crying.”
But all Lizzie would do was shake her head. After a moment, she heard him move away. When he returned, he did so with a pan of water which he set over the fire before fetching more wood for the fire.
Lizzie supposed she should go and fetch the tea things, but for some reason she remained huddled where she was, her eyes trained on the fire.
“Is it your woman’s time?” he asked in a low voice as he threw logs on the fire.
This startled Lizzie out of her torpor. “No!”
“Is this about Banbury, then?” he persisted.
Banbury? Lizzie gazed at him blankly a moment before remembering this particular bone of contention. “Nothing is wrong!” she lied and made as though to stand. “I’ll fetch the teapot.”
“I’ll get it.”
It was while Benedict was brewing up that Sebastian bounded up and started barking. He stopped as soon as he saw Jack appear around the side of the wagon.
“They’ve gone, upped sticks and left!” Jack announced. “Ma and Daphne both. Took both the wagon and the brown mare.”
For a moment, Benedict’s gaze met her wordlessly over the fire, and she remembered that he already knew about Ma leaving the previous day for Shropshire. Silently, Lizzie cursed the fact she had blabbed to him about that. However, when he spoke, it was only to offer Jack a cup of tea in the blandest of voices.
“Didn’t you hear what I said?” his youngest brother remonstrated, dropping down onto a convenient seat.
“I did,” Benedict admitted as he spooned sugar into a cup. “Daphne was at the boxing tent earlier,” he pointed out slowly.
“She was,” Jack agreed. “But I never saw her after five and that much I’ll swear.”
When Benedict squeezed the last of a lemon into her cup and held it out to her, Lizzie roused herself to speech. “When was the last time you saw your grandmother?” she asked, accepting the cup and avoiding Benedict’s eye.
Jack rubbed the stubble on his chin thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t like to say for sure,” he admitted. “I saw her yesterday alright, but I couldn’t swear I even clapped eyes on her today.”
Benedict grunted. “You got any notion why they’d take themselves off?”
“None,” Jack said. “I wanted to ask the same of you.”
“It’s nothing to do with us,” Benedict said coolly. “Ask Frank.” Then something seemed to catch his eye for he tensed up and stepped around the fire, whipping away Lizzie’s blanket and dragging her to feet. “What’s this?” he asked sharply, tilting her head and looking fully into her face. “Someone’s struck you!”
Sebastian gave a warning growl, and Lizzie spoke to him sharply. “Sebastian!” He lowered his head to his paws and lay back down.
Jack gave a low whistle. “That’s going to be quite the shiner tomorrow, Lizzie my girl.”
“Don’t call her that, she’s not your girl!” Benedict snapped making his brother chuckle. “And it’s no joking matter.” He turned back to Lizzie. “When did this happen? In Connie’s tent? Some customer got rough with you?” His face grew grim. “You should have fetched me if there was any trouble. I want the name of the bastard that hit you.”
“It wasn’t there. You’ve got it all wrong,” Lizzie said struggling to free herself from his grip.
“Tell me how, then?”
“Benedict … ” Jack started but halted when his brother swung around to look at him.
“Do something useful, can’t you?” Benedict bit out. “Go and buy me a raw steak.”
“What about Ma and Daphne – ” Jack began, but again did not get to finish for his brother had skewered him with a furious glance. “Alright, alright,” he said, raising his hands and backing away. “I’ll leave you to tend the wounded.”
Benedict turned back to her with kindling eye. “Tell me now,” he rapped out in clipped tones. “But I may as well say it straight, you’re never to set foot in that tent again – ”
“It wasn’t anything to do with Wonderous Females!” Lizzie protested. He opened his mouth, but she cut him off. “It was Daphne,” she admitted. “But – ” His violent swearing cut off her words. “Benedict!” she gasped and clapped her hands to her ears. When he moved as though to fling away, she reached out and caught hold of him. “Where are you going?”
“To have a little word with Daphne,” he gritted out.
“She’s gone, remember?”
That caught his attention. “Gone?” He scowled. “Thought to save her own skin, I suppose.”
Lizzie surveyed the murderous look on his face with alarm. “Benedict … Calm down. People pummel you every day and I do not fly off the handle like this.”
“That’s my job, Lizzie. She had no right to lay a finger on you.”
Lizzie plucked at the sleeve she still grasped tightly. “I told her what I had done. Written to Maggie, I mean,” she admitted. “That was what incensed her.”
“Sit down,” he urged, lowering her onto the three-legged stool. “I’m going to fetch water and a clean cloth.”
Lizzie murmured some agreement and exchanged a wary look with Sebastian as her husband took off muttering darkly under his breath. She could not imagine that one swollen eye could merit all this fuss and felt frankly embarrassed by the whole business. Sebastian ducked his head and did a fake looking yawn, clearly unwilling to admit his own role in proceedings.
Benedict returned with a bowl of cold water and dabbed at her eye with a cloth to clean it. When next he spoke, it was in a low terse voice. “You should not be exposed to such company. I was mad to bring you here.”
It was uncanny how closely his words echoed her own uncle’s. Lizzie tipped her head to one side. “I disagree – ”
“No, I’ve learned my lesson,” he cut her off. “I’ll write to Edwards on the morrow and get the tenants out of Winchester Street.”
Lizzie caught her breath. “Winchester Street?”
He turned abstractedly. “It’s the house I own.”
Lizzie almost reeled. “House?” Now, he saw fit to
mention this alleged house? “I thought the wagon was your home.”
He ignored this. “As soon as I can, I’ll have you installed as mistress there.”
Inexplicably, Lizzie felt a surge of panic. “Don’t I get any say in this?”
“I’ll have to finish up the season here, but I can join you later. I’ll speak to Frank and Jack about buying me out of the booth.”
“Now just a minute, Benedict!” Lizzie interrupted him hotly. “Don’t you think we should discuss this with cooler heads?”
His eyes refocused on her and took on an exasperated expression. “Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said?” he demanded. “This is what I should have done at the very outset. I was mad to drag you into this life.” He snatched up the cloth and started wringing it out with a savagery that surprised her.
“No, it isn’t, Benedict!” she protested. “Is this the house you told Betsy you had bought for your married lives together?” she asked stiffly.
He froze. “What?”
“She mentioned something about it, but I thought you must have deceived her.”
“I never – ” he broke off. “She never even saw the place!”
Lizzie shook her head angrily. “Well, I don’t want to live there!” she burst out mutinously.
Benedict ground his teeth. “Fine, I’ll sell that house and buy another, then. Tell me what sort of house you do want.”
“I don’t know that I care to live in any house when my husband continues to tour.”
It was at this point that Jack appeared carrying a brown paper parcel done up with string.
“Got your steak,” he said, presenting it with a flourish. “How’s the patient?”
“Your brother is making an inordinate amount of fuss about naught but a tiny scuffle,” Lizzie said, with a kindling eye.
“Hold still!” Benedict scolded her, taking the raw steak from his brother.
“You solved the mystery yet? Of how it happened?” Jack asked him humorously.
“I have. Daphne belted her and then took off into the night.”
“What?” Jack was thunderstruck. “Daphne did? Why in God’s name?”
“What are you doing with that piece of meat?” Lizzie asked with misgiving as Benedict cast the paper and string into the fire.
“Hold still.”
Lizzie recoiled from the wet, cold press of the steak against her eye, but Benedict’s firm grip would not allow her to retreat from his ministrations.
“So, the two of you came to blows?” Jack said scratching his head. “Maybe we should put her in the ring, eh, Ben? The fighting Toomes’ and no mistake.”
“The only one she fights with is me,” Benedict said through gritted teeth. “And that’s with words, never fists.”
“Benedict wants to send me away!” Lizzie burst out angrily.
“What?” Jack’s face fell. “Then what was the point in Daphne clearing out?”
Benedict turned sharply to his brother. “That vicious bitch would have stayed over my dead body!” he said with such seething anger that even Jack fell back a step.
“Yes well,” his younger brother said hastily. “That may be so, Ben, but you can’t deny she was damn useful to us about the place, cooking and cleaning. Not to mention drumming up business for the tent. But well, if she’s gone now, then that’s all there is to it.”
“You haven’t even asked me who it was instigated the fight,” Lizzie pointed out in an odd voice.
Benedict’s eyes flickered a moment. “That’s because I don’t care,” he admitted.
Jack spluttered. “Ben!”
“So, was it you who started it?” Benedict responded, a challenging gleam in his eye.
Lizzie’s gaze fell before his own. “I – well, I provoked a verbal fight with her,” she admitted.
“That’s not the same thing and you know it,” he responded and unscrewed a bottle of ointment which smelled very pungent.
“Why did you quarrel?” Jack asked her curiously.
“Because of Maggie,” Lizzie responded. “Ow! That stings!” Benedict was applying it to a spot on her temple that she hadn’t even realized was grazed.
“I know it does, sweetheart,” Benedict replied gravely. “But I want your face to heal.”
His tone was so tender that Lizzie caught her breath and Jack backed away with alarm. “Right,” he called back in a cheerful voice. “I’ll head back and er – leave you to it. I’ll fill Frank in with what’s happened with the womenfolk.”
“Goodnight,” Lizzie called after him, though she kept her eyes on Benedict’s face. “I’m not being sent away to some house I’ve never seen while you finish the year touring with your brothers.” It was hard to sound firm and reasonable when she had a piece of raw steak stuck to half her face, but she attempted it anyway.
“We’ll talk about it later.” He refilled the kettle over the fire and fetched her cloak from the wagon, tucking it about her. “I’m going to fetch us some food,” he said abruptly. “You’re going to eat it, and then we’ll turn in early. Don’t take that off your eye.”
Lizzie fumed silently as he tilted her head back to the angle he thought necessary to keep the meat applied to her eye and then walked away. “Outrageous!” she muttered, kicking her foot against a pail of water. “As though I have no say of my own!”
Sebastian’s ears went back, and he flashed her a sheepish look as he lowered his muzzle onto his front paws. “You weren’t much help either!” she grouched, leaning across to test the weight of the teapot. When she’d determined there was another drop to be squeezed out of it, she helped herself to another cup and navigated sipping it with some difficulty with her head tipped back.
Hearing approaching footsteps, she squinted into the darkness and saw Frank approaching, a troubled expression on his face. Sebastian bounded up and circled around the newcomer making huffing noises which Lizzie recognized indicated excitement more than hostility. Clearly Frank thought so too, for he did not look concerned by the dog’s attentions.
“He’s gone to fetch us some supper,” Lizzie explained, seeing Frank look about for his brother. She thought he looked a little relieved to hear this as he patted distractedly at Sebastian’s head. The dog tolerated this for a moment only before returning to sit beside the fire.
“Can I see?” Frank nodded to her face as he crouched down beside her.
“It’s really nothing,” Lizzie said, as she lifted the steak momentarily to reveal her eye.
He flinched, his expression growing even more grave. “I can’t believe Daphne did that,” he said, swallowing. He looked away a moment as though steeling himself for bad news. “Can you explain to me – the remark you made to Jack.”
“Which remark?” Lizzie stalled, though she could guess well enough.
“About why this happened,” Frank continued doggedly. “Jack said, well he seemed to think that … ” he trailed off as though unable to continue. “That it was something to do with Maggie.”
“I confronted Daphne about what Ma told me yesterday.”
Frank’s eyes flew to hers in painstaking enquiry. “What did Ma tell you?”
“That your father decided to replace Maggie with Daphne, so they fed your wife a bunch of lies.”
Frank collapsed down onto the seat Benedict had vacated. He passed a shaking hand over his brow. “Pa did that?” he croaked and then lapsed into heavy silence. “He told Maggie that me and Daphne – ” Lizzie nodded. “And he told me the people were talking about how she was carrying on behind my back.” His voice rasped until it sounded like his throat closed over.
“Yes, so I gathered from what you told me the other day. He worked on your pride, I suppose. Your grandmother said Jedidiah Toomes had first messed up Benedict by letting him go into the workhouse and then you by getting rid of your wife.”
Frank started violently at her mention of the workhouse. “For God’s sake,” he said hoarsely, looking about. “Do not mention that place to Benedict. Sh
e never should have told you of that.”
“Of course, she should!” Lizzie said briskly. “Benedict’s secrets are safe with me. And besides, he will tell me of it himself, with time. After all, he says that no one is closer to a man than his wife.”
Frank stared at her a moment before covering his face with his hands. “I can’t believe – ” he started in a choked voice. “That Maggie thought I played her false. And with Daphne.”
“Well, Daphne is a very handsome woman,” Lizzie said, taking a final sip of cold tea.
“You never met my Maggie. Daphne couldn’t hold a candle to her.” He brooded a moment in silence. “All this time, I thought it was that plain-faced friend of hers turning her against me, never my own father.”
“Aggie?” asked Lizzie with interest. “The human skeleton?”
“Aye, her. Maggie was always running off to her and telling her all her woes. That was about the time she stopped talking to me altogether.”
“Well, it sounds like there were already some cracks in your marriage before your father started prizing them even further apart,” Lizzie remarked dryly.
Frank grimaced. “It was all my fault. We married very young and I … I never stuck up for her like I should have.”
Sebastian leapt upright, and they both turned to see Benedict approaching with a parcel wrapped up in paper.
“Battered fish,” he said holding it aloft.
Lizzie would have preferred to hear a little more of Frank’s thoughts before her husband’s return, but seeing the meaningful look Benedict angled his brother’s way, Frank soon departed, leaving them to their food.
“What did he want?” Benedict asked, throwing a look after Frank. “He wasn’t bothering you to know where Ma went?”
“He never mentioned her once,” Lizzie replied truthfully. “He wanted to check on my eye.”
Benedict grunted. “That’s alright, then.” He washed his hands and then turned the steak over. The coldness made Lizzie flinch, but he murmured soothingly to her. “It’s bringing out the bruise.”
They ate their supper largely in silence. When they had finished, Benedict carried a bucket of hot water inside the wagon for her and carried her over to the door.
A Substitute Wife for the Prizefighter: A Victorian Romance Page 30