From Ruin to Riches

by Louise Allen

  ‘I know.’ His voice was firm and definite.

  ‘How can you know? Or are you simply trusting me?’

  ‘I would trust you, of course I would.’ Was he trying to convince himself as much as her? She could sense a slight reservation. ‘I know you now, Julia. Before, when I was so disbelieving, it was simply the shock of coming home, of being alive, of hearing about the baby. I was not thinking straight. But when I made love with you, I realised. It was all very new to you, was it not?’ She bit her lip and stared out of the window and tried not to remember. ‘It was not simply that he was too selfish to make it good, it was all unfamiliar because you were so inexperienced.’ She nodded.

  ‘Then we can forget him. Pretend he doesn’t exist,’ Will said. ‘That’s all behind you now unless there is anything it would help to talk about?’

  ‘Yes, I can try to do that,’ Julia said. Pretend he doesn’t exist. That is easy, he doesn’t, because I killed him. He was a wicked man, but he did not deserve to die for it. ‘But I cannot promise that his ghost is not going to haunt me sometimes.’ Every night.

  ‘It will have to get past me,’ Will said. ‘Now, forget him and the past. I’ll not stir that up again. Can you read in the chaise without getting sick? Because my London agent has sent me details of a number of eligible houses he thinks would be suitable to rent for the Season. See what you think.’

  ‘How exciting.’ Julia took the portfolio he handed her and infused her voice with as much enthusiasm as she could. Will was looking forward to London, to the London Season in the new year, to the sort of married life a man of his station should expect. And she could bring it crashing down around his head at any moment if she did not have the courage to keep her mouth shut and the intelligence to hide the truth. Whatever happened, she must make his happiness last as long as she could, she owed it to him.

  ‘My goodness.’ She riffled through the stack of papers. ‘The addresses all sound very grand. I like the sound of this one.’

  He took the paper. ‘Half Moon Street? Why? It might be a trifle small, I thought.’

  ‘I like the name.’

  As she guessed it would, that made him laugh. ‘Julia, you are a delight of a wife.’

  And she laughed, too, as her conscience tore at her.

  *

  It was only half an hour later as she laid the stack of house particulars on one side that Will’s actual words came back to her. A delight of a wife. Did he truly mean that? She watched him as he studied the work he had brought with him, his dark head bent over the papers, his face remote and intelligent as he studied the pages. She had wanted him to want her as his wife, to build a relationship with him. Certainly things were good in the bedchamber and harmonious in everyday matters. She believed he would be faithful. That was all she had hoped for, surely, so why did her heart beat faster at his affectionate teasing? Did she want him to fall in love with her?

  Julia stared out of the carriage window at the passing landscape. Do I? Am I in love with him? She was not certain what that meant any more. She had thought herself in love with Jonathan, so much in love that she would trust her entire future to him, and yet that feeling had evaporated the moment she realised his deception.

  And what she felt for Will was nothing like that light-headed, romantic dreamy feeling. She liked him, she respected him and she desired him, but she was no longer so naïve that she thought a woman must be in love in order to ache for a man to lie with her. She felt for Will, in short, all those things that a woman making a marriage of convenience would hope that she would come to feel for her husband.

  But it was not love. That was just a romantic dream and a sure way to a broken heart, Julia decided. And why should she want to be in love with her husband in any case? If she was fortunate, there would be children who would be healthy and strong and she would experience all the love she could want with them. Julia closed her eyes for a moment in silent supplication that if she was fortunate enough to become pregnant again then all would be well this time.

  But even so, when Will looked up and caught her studying him, and his eyes crinkled with amused affection, her heart made that foolish little leap again. ‘Your hair needs cutting,’ she said prosaically. ‘You must add that to the list of things to do in town.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Will was as good as his word about the shopping. He gave Julia one day to settle into Grillon’s Hotel in Albemarle Street while he had his hair cut, ordered his boots from Hoby’s, wrote to summon his tailor and sent messages to his lawyers and bankers, then the next day swept her out to, as he put it, discover the lie of the land. With Nancy in attendance, so she knew where she was going when Julia wanted to shop in future, they explored Bond Street, located Harding, Howell and Company in Piccadilly, scanned the myriad of temptations in the Parthenon Bazaar and came home loaded with bandboxes and armed with the latest guidebooks.

  Julia was thrilled to discover that King Louis XVIII had stayed at Grillon’s Hotel in 1812 and even more excited to discover they were opposite the offices of James Murray, the publisher. It was only when Will pointed out that she would not recognise any of her favourite authors if she saw them that she could be persuaded away from the window.

  ‘Would you like to see the City?’ he asked over dinner. ‘St Paul’s Cathedral, the Royal Exchange, the Bank of England? We could even climb up the Monument if you feel really energetic.’

  ‘Yes, please. All of those are on my list and I am hardly a quarter of the way through the guidebook yet.’

  ‘I am not certain we can do all of them in one day. I must call on my bankers in the morning and then my lawyer, who is in Amen Corner.’ He grinned at her expression. ‘It is by St Paul’s, which I suppose accounts for the name. We can decide what to do when we see what the time is, but we can certainly fit in the cathedral.’

  *

  Julia had tried to be patient, but an hour sitting in the banker’s outer office, even sustained with coffee and ratafia biscuits and the copy of La Belle Assemblée, which she had prudently brought with her, was more than enough tedium.

  As the hackney carriage made its way along Paternoster Row she asked, ‘Is there any reason why I cannot walk around outside with Nancy while you are with the lawyer? The sun is shining, the shops seem to be cheaper than they are in Mayfair…’

  Will nodded as they drew up in a narrow lane. ‘I do not see why not. You can hardly get lost, not with the dome of St Paul’s to act as a landmark. Shall we say you will be back here in an hour?’ He helped them both out, making Nancy blush at the attention, then pointed. ‘Go down Ave Maria Lane there and turn left and you’ll find all the shops around St Paul’s Churchyard.’ He felt in the breast of his coat and handed her some folded banknotes. ‘Do not let anyone see you have that.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Julia cast a quick look round, found the lane almost deserted and stood on tiptoe to drop a swift kiss on Will’s cheek.

  ‘Cupboard love,’ he said with a smile and paid off the cab.

  The previous day had been unalloyed pleasure. Julia had not felt at all alarmed in the fashionable streets, despite the numbers of people. On Will’s arm, and in such fashionable lounges, her fears seemed foolish. Now she set off with confidence, Nancy at her side. They emerged from Ave Maria Lane to find themselves on a busy street with a pronounced slope. ‘Ludgate Hill,’ Julia said with the certainty of someone who had studied the map.

  ‘My lord said to go left,’ Nancy said as Julia turned downhill.

  ‘I know, but see this silversmith’s shop—is that not a delightful ink stand? I think something like that would make an admirable present for Lord Dereham.’

  And the next shop down was a print seller with amusing cartoons in the window. And the next a jeweller’s, its window stuffed with enticing oddments.

  ‘My lady, it is getting rather crowded.’

  Julia looked up. In front of them a press of people were heading into a street parallel to Ave Maria Lane. They were noisy
, a motley crowd of working people and tradesmen, men and women. They seemed in good humour, but Julia’s old fears came flooding back to cramp her stomach.

  ‘Yes, we must turn back.’ As they did so another crowd swept down the hill towards them. ‘Nancy!’ Julia was jostled, caught up. She struggled to find her feet and fight her way back, but she was carried, like driftwood on a stream, down the hill and round the corner.

  Julia tried not to panic, knowing if she struggled she would simply exhaust herself or fall and be trampled. She let herself be borne along and tried to think coherently. Nancy would be all right, she was sure, for she had been further up the hill. If she could just get to the end of this street and turn right, go uphill again, keeping St Paul’s in sight and then turn right, surely she’d be back in Ave Maria Lane?

  Then the movement began to slow. She was still crushed against unwashed bodies and rough clothing, but at least there was no longer any danger of falling over and being trampled. Julia stared around and found the street had widened into a square shaped like a funnel. The crowd milled about, elbowing for room, but everyone faced the building that towered over them on her right. Wedged in place, she had no option but to turn with them. In front of her was the massive bulk of a grim stone building.

  ‘What is that?’ she asked the man at her side, a prosperous shopkeeper, she guessed.

  ‘Why, that is Newgate Prison, ma’am. Aren’t you here for the hanging, then?’ He pointed and her reluctant gaze followed. High above the heads of the mob, the scaffold and the noose stood waiting for their first victim of the day.

  ‘Let me out!’ Julia turned and burrowed through the tight-packed spectators, fear and desperation lending her strength as she used her elbows and pushed, shoved, wriggled through every tiny gap that opened up, like a mouse through long grass with a hawk hovering above. Her bonnet was dragged off, she lost a shoe, but there was a thinning of the crowd ahead of her and she fought her way towards it.

  Laughter, improbable in this mayhem, made her glance up to the right. There was an inn and, surrounding the swinging inn sign, its windows were crowded with people laughing and chatting as if they were in the boxes at a play. Horrible, she thought. How could they? And then a woman turned and nudged her husband and pointed at her and she found herself staring up at Jane and Arthur Prior, her cousins.

  Julia gasped, stumbled and when she looked up they had gone. It was imagination, that was all, she told herself as she struggled on, the panic beating in her chest like a trapped bird against a window. With shocking suddenness she was finally out of the press, stumbling on the uneven cobbles. Her unshod foot jarred against a stone and she fell, throwing out her hands in a vain attempt to save herself.

  The cobbles were rough, disgustingly dirty and wet. Her hands hurt. Almost winded, Julia lay where she was, felt the blood oozing through the split in her glove and wondered if her heart was going to burst.

  ‘Julia! Sweetheart, it is all right. I’m here. Are you hurt?’

  And, miraculously, there Will was, gathering her up in his arms. Julia turned her face to his shoulder and clung on as he lifted her, then carried her to a hackney carriage where Nancy waited, white-faced.

  ‘My lady—oh, your poor hands.’

  ‘Just grazed. I am not hurt otherwise,’ she managed to reassure them as Will gently opened her fingers and wrapped them in his handkerchief, still holding her hard against himself. ‘Are you all right, Nancy?’ Concern for someone else helped, she realised. The panic was ebbing, her breath was calming.

  ‘I am fine, my lady, just all shaken up. I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t reach you, or see you, so I ran back to the lawyers and made them get my lord. What was it, my lady? A riot?’

  ‘No, a hanging.’ She would not be sick, not if she closed her eyes and thought of nothing but Will’s arms around her, keeping her safe.

  ‘It is Newgate Prison,’ he said, his voice grim. ‘I should have warned you not to go that way, it isn’t very salubrious at the best of times, but when there’s an execution it is a glimpse into hell.’

  ‘People were watching from the windows, as if it were a play,’ she managed. Jane and Arthur. It couldn’t be. It was my imagination, my fear, a couple who looked a little like them. I haven’t seen them for almost four years, she comforted herself. They will have changed, I wouldn’t recognise them now if I really saw them. I am safe with Will, I don’t imagine things when he is here.

  ‘It is disgusting,’ Will muttered, his voice rough with anger. ‘They moved the hangings from Tyburn because it was supposed to be more civilised to do it outside the prison instead of parading the condemned through the streets to the place of execution. It is not my definition of civilised. Just try to relax, sweetheart. I’ve got you safe.’

  ‘I know,’ Julia murmured and closed her eyes so that her entire world became just Will. She inhaled slowly and there was the familiar smell of his skin, of clean linen and the sharp male edge of fresh sweat. He had run, and run hard, to reach her. The feel of him was familiar too, the strength that made her feel so safe, the warmth of that big, desirable body under fine linen and smooth broadcloth. She listened to the sound of his heartbeat against her ear, a little ragged still. Home. I am home when I am with him.

  Will cared for her, he was angry for her. He shifted a little to hold her more securely and she felt his cheek press against her hair and something happened in her chest as if a bell had tolled silently, reverberating through her whole body.

  I love him. She felt herself go still as though to move would shatter the moment, break the spell. This was nothing like her emotions for Jonathan, this was a deeply complex, rich emotion like velvet swirling around her feelings. It was not about desire or liking or respect, although those were all in there somewhere. It was inexplicable and unexplainable and that, she supposed, was how she knew it was love.

  She would tell him this evening when they were alone, when they were in bed together: it would be the naked truth, after all. He did not love her, she knew that, but that was all right. Well, no, perhaps not all right exactly. But she could not hope for the moon and the stars. She would explain to him that she did not expect him to feel the same way, that she was not asking him to pretend and to lie to her.

  ‘Better, sweetheart?’ Will murmured in her ear.

  ‘Much, thank you, Will. You keep me safe.’

  ‘Always,’ he said and his arms tightened around her.

  *

  ‘I will sleep in the dressing room,’ Will said from the open door of the bedroom as the clocks in their suite struck nine. ‘You should be asleep.’ Julia was pale against the heaped pillows. He wished he had her home again where she would feel safer as she recovered from her ordeal and not here, in a strange place.

  ‘I have slept, for hours,’ Julia protested. And she did look better, despite the pallor. ‘That hot bath was like taking laudanum! Come to bed, Will.’

  ‘You are still nervous? Then of course I will sleep with you.’ He closed the door behind him and watched her carefully as he shed coat and waistcoat. No wonder she was so reluctant to go into the neighbouring towns for anything but the most essential shopping if crowds made her so frightened. Some people had a fear of them, he knew. It was like the fear of heights, or spiders—not something that seemed to be rational to anyone else, but very real to the sufferer. And a public hanging was probably, short of a riot, the most frightening mob to find oneself in.

  ‘I wish you had told me how you felt about crowds,’ he said as he pulled off his neck cloth.

  ‘It was so irrational, I thought you would think me foolish,’ she said, not meeting his eyes. ‘I pride myself on common sense and keeping calm and then to experience such panic when no one means me any harm…’

  Her voice trailed away and he bit his tongue on the reproach that she had kept this a secret from him. It was not a rational fear, he reminded himself, so perhaps she found it harder to confide about it.

  ‘We all fear something,’
Will said and sat on the edge of the bed to pull off his boots.

  ‘What do you fear?’ Julia curled round on the pillows and watched him as he tossed his stockings aside. ‘I did not think you were afraid of anything.’

  ‘Lies and powerlessness,’ he said instantly, then stopped undressing to think about what he had said. ‘Not seeing the whole picture when there is something to confront, so all the time you think there is something worse lying in wait. I think that was what was so dreadful with my parents when I was growing up: I did not know what was wrong, no one would tell me the truth and admit that the marriage was a sham. I was expected to act as though we were a happy family and nothing was amiss, yet I sensed the world as I knew it was all falling apart.

  ‘And then at first when I was ill, no one would tell me the truth—or what they thought was the truth. In my heart I believed I was dying and yet I could not face it, deal with it, because the doctors insisted I would be cured in the end. I have no idea why they wouldn’t tell me. Perhaps they thought I couldn’t cope with it, or perhaps they thought I was a better source of income if I was hoping for a cure! It took three months before they would admit the truth, that they were certain there was no hope.’

  ‘Was it any easier after that?’ Julia asked. She reached out a hand and laid it over his on the bedspread. She did nothing except press lightly, but it was curiously comforting. Will curled his fingers into hers and dug deeper into his feelings than he had for a long time.

  ‘It made the dying easier,’ he confessed with a grimace. ‘Which seems strange, but I suppose I had suspected the worst for so long it was a relief to know what I was dealing with. But then the powerlessness over King’s Acre, that was terrifying.’