by Evie North
“Well,” he shifted his feet, embarrassed. “Good luck, Kathy.”
Katherine slipped the purse inside her dress, between her breasts for now, and felt the comforting weight. At least she wasn’t completely destitute and this might tide her over until she found work. But for now it was time to go. Time to look to her future.
The prison gates were ornate and grimly impressive and she was glad to get beyond them. She kept glancing over her shoulder as the gates got further away until eventually they were swallowed by the crowded buildings of London town and the press of humanity.
At first she had the sensation that she was floating along, like a ghost, but then as she walked further she realised it was because she was hungry. Food would help her to think straight and allow her to consider what to do next.
Katherine stopped at a pasty shop and bought a hot meat pie. She took out the drawstring purse and shook out a coin. The scrap of paper was still there and this time she took it out to read before returning the purse to the safety of its nest.
There was an address written in dark ink.
For a moment she stared. Was this Gervais’s writing? She’d never seen his hand but assumed it must be. The clothing, the coins, and now somewhere she would be safe. Was that what this meant?
Her heart lifted. She needed somewhere she could rest for a time until she decided what she was going to do.
She began to eat, biting into the pastry and then licking the gravy off her fingers like a child. She ate as she walked and pieces of pastry flaked over her chin and collected on her clothing. The cold air was still sharp and a shower washed some of the dirt away from the cobbles at her feet.
Doubts circulated in her mind. What if the address was a bawdy house? If it was she could say no, couldn’t she? That truly would be the last resort. She knew women, desperate women, turned to the streets and the brothels to keep their bellies full of food and clothing on their backs, but she did not think she could do it. And she did not believe Gervais would send her to such a place.
The pie gone, she wiped her hands fastidiously on the handkerchief he had given her, that scrap of linen he’d handed to her outside the old Bailey when they first met. She’d found it on the floor, amongst the rags he’d torn from her body. She realised, with an inner tremor, that it was one of the few things of his she had. Even the scent of him had been washed from her body before she left, replaced with orange blossom soap.
Katherine asked directions from a street vendor, and she soon found herself in a better sort of neighbourhood. She was tired and it had been a long walk with the cobbles bruising her feet through the thin soles of her slippers. She wasn’t really dressed for walking. Boots would have been a better choice. She pretended to scold Gervais in her mind and then scolded herself for doing so. Entering a narrow laneway she stumbled and almost fell. She righted herself, catching her breath. There was a street sign on the wall of the corner building and reading it Katherine realised she’d almost reached the address she was searching for.
Cautiously she made her way past narrow houses with iron railing fences and narrow front steps leading to painted doors. Halfway along she came to a house with a pot of red geraniums on the windowsill and a large tortoiseshell cat peering at her through the little square panes of glass.
This was it. Katherine opened the gate—well-oiled she noticed—and went up the path to the steps. As she climbed them she suddenly felt like an old woman—she was weary, so weary. Not just from last night but from the long months in Newgate and, before that, the two years of abuse and neglect and unhappiness at Edward’s hands.
Please let this be, if not a home, then at least a safe haven for now.
She grasped the knocker but before she could let it drop the door opened.
A woman stood there, a tiny woman with a wizened brown face and white hair almost entirely hidden by an exotic sort of scarf. She wore a dress that was wrapped around her, the cloth dyed in brilliant colours of green and red and yellow. It was the strangest sight Katherine had ever seen.
“My poor, poor dear,” the woman said, dabbing her eyes with a little embroidered handkerchief. “Come in, come in. You are home now. He said you are to live here with me for as long as you wish.”
Katherine slept for a long time. When she eventually woke she made her way down the creaky stairs to find her hostess in the parlour. Her name, she had told Katherine, was Anila.
“Gervais’s father, the Earl of Mortmain, brought me home with him from India, many, many years ago. For a time...well,” she smiled a secret smile, and Katherine realised that this little old woman had once been the earl’s mistress. “His wife was long dead but he thought to marry again, so he bought me this house, and sometimes he visited me in London. He never did remarry but time passed and although we are no longer lovers we have remained friends.”
Katherine, who had been happy to sit in silence and listen to her talk, roused herself to ask the question she’d been dreading.
“Gervais...Did you see him when...?”
The old woman solemnly bowed her head. “I did not go. I do not wish to see such savagery. I heard that it was quick.”
Now they were both silent.
Katherine felt the tears beneath her lashes and wiped them with her sleeve. She thought of him kissing her so intently, his face close to hers, his eyes staring into hers as though he would live inside her head forever. And perhaps her heart, too. No man had ever been to her what Gervais was and she doubted she would find one who compared.
He still seemed so real and yet their time together was already in the past.
The fat tortoiseshell cat climbed onto her lap and began to purr. Katherine stroked it. “What should I do?”
She asked the question of herself rather than Anila, but the old woman reached to clasp her hand. “Stay here. With me. In time you will know what to do.”
Katherine was too tired to argue but part of her thought she should be out in the world, making her new life, being strong. And yet it was warm and safe here, and Anila was right, she needed time.
10
First there was the dizziness, the nausea, and then her belly began to swell.
How could this be? His child? How could such a thing be possible after just one night? But she’d heard tales of it happening after only one coupling and they had coupled so many times. With Edward she hadn’t carried a child or even had a whiff of one, and now... She shook her head in amazement.
Was she happy? Katherine thought she was, despite the fact the child would add to her difficulties. She still hadn’t found work of her own, but Anila had a little business, importing and selling the beautiful textiles from her home country. Some of the cloth she made up into saris and scarves like the ones she wore. Katherine soon began to assist her. Anila had been so kind and, now that she had something to do, Katherine felt no urgency to leave the cosy little house, and the longer she stayed the harder it was to leave.
What would Anila say now?
She tried to hide it from her new friend, but Anila was nosy, always poking and prying—she’d even asked Katherine if she had heard word of Edward Prime, since Katherine had revealed some of her past to her. She’d found that speaking of him and her time at the inn had helped her heal from that period of her life. It now seemed so long ago. Of course Katherine said she had heard nothing and never wanted to see him again. That was the truth. She would never go back to Edward.
But Anila knew everything that happened in her house and she was onto Katherine’s pregnancy almost as quickly as Katherine herself.
“You are with child,” she cried. “I will write to the earl at once.”
Katherine gaped at her. “You will not! It’s none of his business.”
Anila wrinkled her face, which Katherine had learned meant she was being serious. “It is his business. This is his youngest son’s child, is it not? He will be over the moon. There will be much rejoicing, you will see!”
Katherine couldn’t help but l
augh. Laughing wasn’t something she’d done recently. She’d been in mourning for a man she hardly knew, and yet she felt as if he’d crept into every fibre of her being. Gervais was her lover and now the father of her yet-to-be born child.
She had no documents, no rings to say he was bound to her by the law and yet she felt as if there should be. Felt as if she were completely tied to a man she’d spent one night with. Could she fall in love with a man just like that?
It seemed she could.
Within days there was a commotion outside the door, and Katherine looked out of her window and down into the street. There was a coach pulled by four fine black horses blocking the road, and she could see that there was a crest on its door and attendants in livery.
The Earl of Mortmain, she guessed, with a sinking heart.
It seemed her life was not to be her own after all. Despite Gervais’s promises she was not to be free. Their one night together had bound her to him closer than she could ever have imagined.
“Katherine!” Anila called up the stairs.
Reluctantly, full of trepidation, she came down, lingering on the bottom step until Anila stuck her head out of the parlour door and clicked her tongue at her. “Come in, girl! Don’t keep His Lordship waiting!”
As she’d expected, the Earl of Mortmain was the grey-haired man she’d seen outside the cell at Newgate. Tall and stern-faced, he resembled his youngest son only in the dark colour of his eyes. There was little else about him that reminded her of Gervais. His skin was weathered from his days with the East India Company and his mouth was turned down.
“Katherine.” He said it quietly, his gaze taking her in, lingering on her belly even though Katherine knew that with her clothing on she wasn’t yet revealing her condition. And if he asked her to strip, well...!
“Sir.” What did you call an earl? She curtseyed, just in case one did, and the man’s mouth twitched.
“I believe ‘My Lord’ is the usual form of address,” he corrected her with a hint of humour in his eyes.
Now he looked more like Gervais.
Tears stung her eyes as the memories threatened to overwhelm her.
“Sit down,” he said sharply. Clearly tears were not to his taste.
Katherine sat, looking down at her hands clasped in her lap. Outside some of the neighbours were complaining loudly about the earl’s equipage blocking the road, but the earl either didn’t hear or his consequence was such that he could ignore them.
“Anila tells me you are carrying my son’s child. It is his child? Look at me, Katherine. I want to see if you are telling the truth.”
She looked up, unable to stop the flash of anger in her eyes.
“Yes, it is.”
He stared at her a moment and she felt as if he really could read her mind, and then he nodded. “Good. I want you to give me the child when it’s born.” He held up his hand as she began to argue, “No, wait, listen to what I say. The child will be looked after with every care and attention; he will be educated at the best schools and given every opportunity to become a great man.”
Katherine felt her head whirling. Tears were falling now and she couldn’t stop them. She stood up. “No,” she said. “I won’t have it. My child will stay with me and I will love him. That is what a child needs, his mother’s love, not money and-and being a great man. Look what happened to Gervais. How did your money help him?” The words spat out of her and she didn’t care if she’d shocked the earl. Because he was shocked. His face had bleached to a yellowy pallor and his mouth was a tight white line.
Anila and the earl exchanged a glance. It occurred to Katherine that the pair were still close, and perhaps she would be wise not to completely trust her friend. She felt more alone than ever.
The earl spoke again. “You’re talking nonsense. I’m not suggesting you give him up for nothing. You will be well compensated for your...trouble. You’ll be able to start a new life. Free from any encumbrances.”
Katherine stood and barely restrained herself from stamping her foot. “You’re talking about my child! No matter what happens he will never be an encumbrance to me!”
Anila gasped and reached out to rest her hand on the earl’s sleeve. “You must not speak like that, Katherine!”
Katherine, frightened of what he might do, but more angry than frightened, ran from the room and up the stairs, slamming her door, flinging herself down onto the bed. She lay there sobbing, heart breaking. Even as she swore to herself it would not happen, she knew the earl was far more powerful than she, and could probably do whatever he wanted.
Eventually she heard the coach roll away and the clipping of the horses’ hooves on the cobbles, but she knew he would be back.
As the year turned to winter her body swelled more, the child growing strong within her. Sometimes, as she sat dreaming in the parlour with Anila, she told herself it would be a girl. If it was a girl then the earl would not want it and she could keep the child.
“It is a girl,” she told Anila. “I know it.”
But Anila only smiled her wise smile and said nothing.
As spring burst forth, Katherine gave birth to her child. It was early morning and the babe seemed eager to get into the world and see the sun come up. A cock was crowing when he was born.
And of course it was a boy. She would call him Anthony, she decided, after her father.
Even as she held him and smiled at him, touching his fine skin and tiny, perfect hands and feet, and smoothing the down of dark hair on his head, she feared for him.
“Don’t tell the earl,” she begged Anila. “Let him think it was a girl.”
But she knew Anila would tell. She still loved the earl—it was obvious in the way she spoke of him. As fond as she had become of Katherine, with Anila the earl would always come first.
“I cannot lose them both,” Katherine cried, the agony raw in her voice. “The father and the son.”
Perhaps it was the emotion of the baby’s birth— their shared experience—that sent the words spilling from Anila’s mouth. “Hush, hush. Take comfort. He is not dead!”
Katherine blinked in the early morning light. She was very tired and she thought she had misheard, but Anila had covered her mouth with her hands, as if she wanted to take the words back.
“Not dead?” her voice quivered. “What do you mean, he’s not dead?”
Would Anila deny it? For a moment Katherine feared she might, but then the woman seemed to change her mind. Anila’s shoulders sagged beneath her colourful sari, and she sighed and came to sit beside her. She looked tired too, and Katherine realised how hard this was for her. But she refused to feel pity for Anila’s predicament. There was too much at stake for her to give way to pity.
“The Earl of Mortmain is a powerful man, Katherine. He knows many other powerful men. Do you really think he would allow his son to hang?”
Katherine tried to think but her head ached as much as her body. “But I was there. I saw them come to say goodbye. They were not acting. They were grief- stricken.”
Anila shook her head. “The brothers believed he was to die and Gervais believed he was to die. Only the earl knew the truth. They smuggled him away, put another in his place who was to die anyway. Dressed him in Gervais’s clothing and warned him to stay silent till the end. The man’s family were paid well, money they would not have seen otherwise. It was a bargain that suited everyone.”
She tried to think, but she could feel the quick painful breaths crowding in her chest. “But where did he go? Why did he not...?”
Why did he not come back for me?
“He was taken across the channel for a time. No one can ever know, Katherine. If it was found out then he truly would be hanged and the earl would be in desperate trouble.”
Joy filled her, and at the same time a sense of bewilderment. Gervais was alive! Despite what Anila said she could not believe he would let her suffer, thinking him dead. And she could not believe that he would not come to her when he knew she was w
ith child—his child. And, worst of all, she could not believe that he would allow his father to take her child away and think it would not matter to her. This man whom she’d believed she knew so well was a stranger after all.
“It was always their plan for his last night to be spent with a woman. His last wish. The earl was worried he might do something foolish if he was not occupied. The idea of a child had not occurred to him. Not then.”
So it didn’t matter who the woman was. She did not matter.
It had all been a foolish fantasy on her part. Gervais had never cared for her at all. How could she have been such a fool as to believe otherwise? He’d wanted a body to while away the hours, nothing more. He probably didn’t even remember what she looked like.
Her pride was in shreds, her heart smashed to pieces. All this time she had wasted mourning him, believing their night together was somehow special. How dare he! He had used her and discarded her and forgotten her.
Fury tore through her like a storm. She wouldn’t let him get away with it. And she would never allow him to take her son.
“So now you know,” Anila sighed. “Your son will be going to his father, Katherine. He will be loved. You have no need to fear.”
Katherine closed her eyes. She didn’t want to speak any more. She must plan, she must find a way to keep her baby, and she must find Gervais and confront him. Did he really expect her to slink away somewhere with the earl’s money clutched in her hand?
Katherine would show him just how much he had miscalculated. She would find balm for her injured pride and broken heart when they finally came face-to-face, and she could tell him just what she thought of him.
11
Katherine waited in the shadows.
It was late at night and the coach was there outside her door. She recognised the crest and knew the earl had finally come. Anila would be handing over the baby, her baby, and then he would take the child away with him.