Sweet Songbird

by Sweet Songbird (retail) (epub)

  She saw the fractional hardening of his mouth. ‘If I hadn’t, he would have killed me.’ His voice was still, even and pleasant. He might have been discussing the food they had just eaten.

  ‘I – yes, I know—’

  ‘So. What would you have had me do?’

  She sucked her lip, biting it hard, staring at him, wondering how in God’s name the conversation had taken this dangerous turn, unable in her confusion to sort the right words from those that tumbled in her brain and so, damningly, saying nothing.

  He shook his head, laughed shortly and entirely mirthlessly. ‘If it’s dead heroes you’re after, Songbird, you’re in the wrong shop. So, that’s that. Serves me right, I daresay. Just one small thing. Has it occurred to you that it would have been more than me they killed? You think they’d have patted your pretty little head and sent you home?’

  ‘No.’

  Luke lifted his hand and clicked his fingers sharply to a hovering waiter. ‘My bill, please.’

  ‘Luke—’ she said, miserably.

  He turned a cold, waiting face.

  ‘Oh, God!’ she said, looking back down at her clasped hands, very close to tears, her face sombre, all the joy of the day leeched from it. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know anything.’

  In the silence the chatter and the sound of music rose and fell like the tide of an invasive sea.

  ‘I’ll take you home,’ he said.

  Numbly she followed him, clambered into the hackney beside him, held herself rigidly from him as the cab lurched forward. In silence they rode through the darkened streets, slipping in and out of the pools of light and dappled shadows thrown by the street lamps. She sat stiffly, hands clenched in her lap. The happiness and excitement that had so buoyed her had drained from her, leaving her empty and utterly miserable. As the cab rattled smartly around a corner Luke leaned with the movement and his arm brushed hers. She drew back, huddling into the corner. He sensed her recoil and himself shifted slightly, leaning away from her, staring out of the window.

  In the secret darkness she watched his profile. In her blood and her bones and in the aching of her body she felt her need for him. The thought of his touch, of the strength of him, left her all but defenceless.

  She shrank back further into her corner.

  He sat, his head turned from her as in silence he watched the night streets of London pass. She glanced again at that dark, forceful profile, then looked quickly away.

  A woman leaned against a lamp post, aged young face limned by the light, half-bared bosom gleaming. She watched the cab pass with an impassive face.

  The horse’s hoofs clopped eerily upon an empty sweep of cobblestone.

  After what seemed a very long time, Luke said, quietly, without turning, ‘I’d like you to accept that I’m sorry. That I would never have subjected you to this evening had I realized just how much you hate me.’ His voice was absolutely calm, devoid of any expression. ‘I’m afraid I must admit to a habit – a regrettable habit – of not seeing, not accepting, those things I don’t want to.’

  ‘I don’t hate you.’ Her voice was a breath, close to tears. ‘I don’t.’

  He shrugged. ‘What I am then. It comes to the same thing.’

  For perhaps the space of a dozen heartbeats she fought the terrible tangle of her emotions. Then, ‘Luke!’ she said, desperately, ‘I don’t hate you! You surely know that!’ Faint bitterness threaded the words. What was she doing?

  He turned sharply to look at her. She saw the straight line of question drawn between the sardonic brows, saw the lean, hard lines of his gypsy’s face, the straight, sharply defined mouth. She looked away from him. He waited, tense and graceful in his corner; like a cat, she thought, waiting to pounce on the stupidly gullible mouse and swallow it whole.

  ‘You’re right,’ she said, clearly, staring straight ahead into the darkness, ‘I do hate what you are. But I don’t care. I – don’t – care—’

  The tension held him still. He watched her narrowly.

  She was sitting very straight now. She could not look at him. With an odd, defiantly prideful movement she lifted her head. ‘Would you – take me home with you?’

  Still he said nothing. Still he watched her, frowning.

  Her cheeks burned in the darkness. If revenge for humiliation was what he wanted he had it now. ‘It doesn’t matter. I thought perhaps—’

  He reached a hand to her, cupped her chin and turned her face to him. The warm strength of his hand set her trembling. Tears rose. Angrily she tried to pull away. He held her strongly, hurting her, studying her face in the moving lamplight. She stilled. Watched him. She knew – had known in her heart since the first time she had laid eyes on him – that this was the most exciting man she had ever known, or was ever likely to. It was sheer perversity to deny it. And sheer stupidity to ignore the danger he represented; in that, if in nothing else, Pol was undoubtedly right. The fingers that had held her painfully relaxed. He moved his hand. His flat, hard palm caressed her cheek. There was a moment when she could have pulled back. She did not. She had made her first mistake with Amos in innocence and ignorance; so be it – she would make her second with her eyes wide open. Thief, killer, heartbreaker – she would not, could not now, let him go. She turned her face, pressed her lips gently to his open palm. For what seemed a very long time they sat so, the simple gesture an end and a beginning with no words spoken, the contact a point of fire and of promise between them. When he kissed her it was as she had known it would be – feared it would be – from the first time she had seen him. The touch of his mouth vanquished her; she was as much his as if they had already lain together and loved. He lifted his head. In the darkness she could not see his face.

  ‘You’re sure,’ he said, no real question in his voice.

  She traced the lines of his face with her finger. ‘I’m sure.’

  * * *

  The porch of the derelict church was dark. Luke took her hand and guided her surely to the secret entrance in the alcove. There he paused to light a candle and they climbed together the narrow winding stairs. At the top he unlocked the little wooden door and stepped into the room ahead of her. Heart thumping, she followed. The candlelight flickered about the lovely, tranquil room. The embers of a fire glowed in the hearth. Moonlight filtered through the great, jewel-coloured window. Nothing of the carnage or the wreckage of violence that she remembered remained. She stood still for a moment, looking round, outfacing horror.

  He watched her.

  She took a slightly shaky breath.

  Very carefully he put the candle upon a small table. Shadows leapt.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’

  ‘No. Yes. Just a small one—’

  She saw his smile. He splashed golden liquid from a heavy glass decanter into two glasses. ‘Come and sit near the fire.’

  She took off her gloves, folded her shawl, perched on the edge of the armchair nearest the fire. Taking the glass from him she touched it to her lips. Caught her breath. Midge had poured this down her the day of the horror. Anne had choked upon it on another day of misery. She put the glass down abruptly.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I don’t like brandy. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Would you prefer something else?’

  ‘No. Thank you.’

  He put his own glass down and came to her, stood before her, his hands held to her. She took them. He pulled her to her feet, her body against his. She closed her eyes. His hands were in her hair. She felt the relief as the heavy coils, unpinned, fell about her face and shoulders. She lifted her face to him.

  They came together in a sudden violence that was as much like the rage of birth or battle or sudden death as love. He took her, and she abandoned herself to him and to the fierce pleasure and exquisite pain that his body inflicted upon hers. He watched her, afterwards, by the light of the fire, leaning on one elbow, brushing the long, damp strands of hair from her face. His skin was slick with sweat. ‘I was rough. I think I
hurt you. I’m sorry.’

  She shook her head, smiling.

  He leaned and kissed her, gently; her parted lips, her nipples, her belly.

  ‘You – weren’t disappointed?’ she asked.

  He nipped her with sharp teeth. She jumped. ‘Terribly,’ he said. ‘Try a bit harder next time—’

  They made love again, more tenderly and with less fierce urgency, watching each other, touching and whispering and gently pleasuring. Afterwards they lay sprawled upon the bed, arms and legs and hair entangled, the dying firelight gleaming upon sweat-smooth skin. She dozed, and awoke to find him leaning above her, watching her. As her eyes opened he kissed her, a long, tender, almost passionless kiss that drove the treacherous blade of love deeper into her heart than all their lovemaking had done. He tangled his hand in her hair, sprawled beside her.

  She slept.

  It was morning when she woke, a spring morning of sunshine that filtered through the stained glass of the great window and dappled the room with colour. She watched Luke as he slept, his bandit’s face closed and dark and sharply beautiful, black hair tousled upon the pillow, the skin of his body swarthy against the bleached sheets, a man who had loved her~;~ a man she knew not at all. Across his shoulders – something she had sensed with her fingers last night in the darkness – ran a brutal pattern of silvered, long-healed scars, the marks of a merciless beating and the explanation, perhaps, of his unexpected clemency to Matt. Once, she knew, such a sign of violence and pain would have revolted her.

  She watched him for a very long time. Watched the rise of his breath, the flicker of the thick lashes. Watched the long hands that rested, relaxed upon the fur coverlet. Hands that could thieve without conscience, kill without pity. Hands that had explored her body and roused her to a savagery that she blushed now to remember.

  His eyes flicked open, and she saw instant, total awareness. ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Good morning.’ She kissed him.

  He lifted a hand to her face, touched her cheek gently, then, a hand in her hair, pulled her, less gently, down on top of him.

  (iii)

  They could not, did not indeed, attempt to keep their new relationship from the world. Often Kitty would find Luke waiting for her in the cab that brought her home from the music hall. Sometimes they would go to her room, more frequently to his. Their lovemaking did not lose its fire; the meeting of their minds was a little more wary. Both of them were as aware of the things that held them inexorably apart as they were of those that drew them together. But for now the day was enough. Frequently they would go to Smith’s for supper, where sometimes Kitty would allow herself to be persuaded to sing. It was never suggested by either of them that more permanent living arrangements should be made. Indeed Kitty found herself positively shying away from the thought; as her popularity grew and her hopes bloomed brighter, she had other things to think of than the doubtful permanence of any relationship with a man like Luke Peveral. The sight of him, the touch of his hand, fired her as nothing had ever done before, and in her new wisdom, that for the moment was enough. Tomorrow must take care of itself.

  The world on the whole was not enchanted by the arrangement. Pol was openly disgusted that Kitty – as Pol saw it – had fallen after all for the flawed charms that had been the downfall of so many others. Spider, who since she had risked her own skin to warn his beloved ‘Guv’nor’ had begun to show some small warmth towards her, cooled off considerably and regarded her with new suspicion; anyone, Kitty guessed, who might in any way prove a weakness in Luke would be anathema to Spider. Matt too was overtaken by a surprising and, to Kitty, positively comical attack of brotherly concern and questioned this relationship with a man whose way of life was, he pointed out, even more unorthodox than his own.

  She was torn between laughter and exasperation. ‘You can talk! Matt Daniels, if you aren’t the greatest hypocrite under the sun! You go your way, you said, and I’ll go mine! Well, I’ve done it – and it’s none of your damned business!’

  He had the grace to look faintly abashed. ‘Still, Kit – I mean, you know how I feel about the Guv’nor, it isn’t that – but—’

  ‘But nothing. I know what I’m doing,’ she said with no regard for the truth at all, ‘so let’s change the subject.’

  Lottie’s reaction was predictable, yet in her own way the girl retained her dignity, which Kitty could not help but admire. There were, oddly, no tempers and no tantrums. She simply acted, so far as it was possible, as if neither Luke nor Kitty existed. Luke she could not entirely ignore, for whatever else he was to her he was still one of Moses’ best customers and as such entitled to service. Kitty she could, and did, which distressed Kitty not at all. After a while, against common sense, she even managed to convince herself that Lottie bore her no real grudge beyond the damage done to her pride, though sometimes she caught a look in the other girl’s eyes that belied that comfortable conclusion, a disturbing flash of bitterness that would gleam and be gone in a second. Yet to all outward appearances the girl had little to be bitter about, for if she had lost Luke’s precarious favours she looked to be in the process of gaining a protector of – in her world – even more prestige and power, albeit with less physical charm.

  For her single-minded pursuit of Moses Smith was showing surprising signs of success. With Kitty away she was once more entrenched as the Song and Supper Rooms’ only female entertainer. The songs she sang so sweetly she now sang for Moses, the forget-me-not eyes turned to him as if he were the only man in the world. His every wish she would anticipate, his most salacious and public fondling she would accept with the docility of a beautiful doll. He had only to snap his fingers for her to be by his side. Whether the fat man was truly taken in by this sudden upsurge of apparent devotion Kitty doubted, but like most men he was willing to be flattered by the slavish attentions of a lovely woman, whatever her motive; and, she suspected, the fact that Lottie had for so long been Luke Peveral’s woman, far from detracting from her charms in Moses’ eyes, actually enhanced them.

  And so, slowly, as the weeks passed and summer crept, sluggishly hot and sticky, into the yards and alleys of the East End, it became accepted that Lottie was Moses’ private property and Moses himself did nothing to discourage the idea. Kitty, however, was not the only one to be surprised when, in June, with rumours and fears of cholera creeping about the sweltering streets, Lottie left the room she shared with Pol and joined Moses in his spacious apartment over a warehouse in Wapping. The general feeling amongst the girls at the Rooms was that their Lottie had done bloody well for herself, and good luck to her. Only Pol was depressed.

  ‘Nothin’ good’ll come o’ this. You mark my words.’

  ‘How can she stand it, I wonder?’ Kitty did not voice the words, After Luke.

  Pol shrugged. ‘Money in ’er pocket. Frills an’ furbelows. Three square meals a day. Somethin’ ter be said fer it, I s’pose.’

  ‘But – Moses! Of all people! He’s – he’s so cruel!’

  Pol lifted a single brow, her gaze direct. ‘Aren’t they all?’

  ‘Not like that.’

  ‘Different ’orses run different courses, Kit. It’s easy fer you – you’ve got what Lottie wants.’ The words were spoken with neither rancour nor accusation but nevertheless Kitty found herself flushing. ‘Don’t blame the girl fer makin’ the best of what’s left.’

  ‘I didn’t mean—’

  Pol patted her hand. ‘O’ course you didn’t. I know it. Lot doesn’t. Best thing fer you ter do is keep mum an’ stay out of ’er way. She pretty well ’ates you. She don’t want your pity nor yet your opinion on what she’s doin’. I ’ates ter say it, but if I was you I’d watch me back fer a good long time yet.’

  Kitty laughed, a little uncertainly. ‘Oh, come on – that’s a bit steep – surely she can’t carry a grudge forever—?’

  Not long after that conversation such reasoning was apparently confirmed as an obvious but nevertheless surprising reason for Lottie’s
move revealed itself. She was pregnant and, amazingly, Moses was to allow her to keep the baby, even proudly claiming paternity. A man should have a son, he said, beaming at Luke, his eyes a shade malicious.

  The thought of Moses Smith as a proud father turned Kitty’s stomach more than a little. But within days of the news her own life had again changed dramatically and she had little time to dwell either on Pol’s warning or on Lottie’s changed fortunes.

  Chapter 6

  (i)

  Kitty’s birthday – that had passed all but unmarked the year before – was in this year of 1865 a much more significant event, made so in the main by Luke’s characteristically idiosyncratic birthday present.

  Matt it was who brought the message to her that Luke – and her present – awaited her at the Song and Supper Rooms, and who waited, as agog with curiosity as was Kitty herself, to escort her there at the extremely odd hour of two in the afternoon. Matt, no matter how she badgered him, would say nothing of what was going on at the Rooms. It was a fine warm day that, in the countryside, or in the wider avenues and green parks of more fashionable London, would have been a delight. Here, however, no breath of air stirred the suffocatingly close atmosphere and the heat pressed down on the shabby houses and dirty streets with the force of a furnace. Bluebottles buzzed, heavily and repulsively, everywhere about the streets and gutters, spawning their filth, carriers of disease and death as were the rats that scurried in sewer and cellar and the stinking, undrinkable water that as always was taking its summer toll of life. The misery of cholera, this year as every year, stalked London’s streets – this time an epidemic even worse than usual, that struck young and old with brutal impartiality whilst those that lived in comfort and comparative safety spoke of the Hand of God, and the sweet water supply that would have saved so many from an unspeakably filthy death was much discussed but still not forthcoming. Kitty pressed her handkerchief to her nose and drew her skirts about her ankles. A small, undernourished child watched her with lacklustre eyes, not bothering to brush away the flies that crawled upon his dirty, bloodless-looking skin. A little way along the street more flies buzzed in a cloud about a costermonger’s fish cart. Even through her handkerchief Kitty could smell the stomach-turning stench that hung in the air about the barrow. On the corner of Blind Lane an Italian ice-man dispensed ha’penny ices from his barrow to a scrabble of eager urchins. A sweep, black and sweating and reeking of his trade, stood beside the barrow in conversation with the ice-man, gleaming teeth and scarlet tongue bright against the soot-ingrained darkness of his face.