by Edie Cay
One man alone she could handle. When she was near the familiar awning of the grocer, she paused. A lamp glowed brightly, illuminating a circle on the stones and marking a barrel in front of the shop. To some it was a well-known fact that behind the barrel was a jimmybar. She wanted to be within reach of it before she confronted the person who kept pace behind her.
“Right, you can show yourself.” Out of habit, she dropped into a lazy but stable fighting stance, legs hip-width apart, arms unencumbered. The footsteps slowed, but they kept advancing. Standing near the lamppost, she couldn’t see beyond the illuminated circle.
“I’ll not raise a hand to you,” a low voice rumbled.
Familiarity pricked at her memory. Though she couldn’t place the voice immediately, she associated it with a pleasant thought. When the man came close enough to the light for her eyes to distinguish his tall outline, she smiled.
“Blacksmith,” she said.
“At your service.”
“Dogging my steps?” she asked. Was her heart pounding from the anticipation of a fight or from his apparent interest?
“I went to see the mill. Thought you might find something more interesting on the streets here.” He stepped fully into the light. He wore heavy work trousers and an overcoat that strained across the yoke of his shoulders, but he cleaned up well for a man who spent his days up to his elbows in fire.
“Sorry mate,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “It seems that nobody wants to fight me today. I’m going to get myself some dinner, if you want to come along.”
His dark eyes took on a heavy-lidded look, a slow curve of a smile took over his mouth. “Are you asking me to accompany you?”
“I would be asking for yer company,” Bess answered. Something in his expression made her think of soft things: lamb’s wool, silk, the Chantilly Lace dessert Lady Lydia—now the increasing Mrs. Arthur—had once served in tall parfait glasses. “Nothing fancy, but if a pasty would buy me your name, I’d gladly pay it.”
Os would freely admit to legions of things he’d never experienced nor ever expected to experience. Being asked to dinner by a woman was among them, and now it had to be scratched off the list. There was a flash of fear almost—fear that he would become a man used to this sort of pleasure, used to the attentions of a powerful woman. That there was joy and contentment within reach.
He could see the twitch in her still, a jumpiness from standing up to fight and having no one meet her at the line. He had been disappointed, of course, as he’d bought his entrance solely to see her. She stood in that ring, her bared shoulders on display to the right dirty arseholes who shouted obscenities in her face. Her expression had shown no sign of worry that a mob was closing in around her, its angry bloodlust frothing. No, she was as placid as a dairymaid up there, painted buxom and pleasing in an idyllic glade.
Following her on the street had not been the best idea, but he’d wanted to talk to her again. Afraid that a smile might show too much, he stepped forward to offer his arm, as if he were a proper gentleman. “A pasty sounds like a fair price for a name,” he said.
She threaded her arm through his. He let his arm relax against his body, pressing hers to his side. He liked the feel of her, soft and strong all at once. He glanced over, studying her face in the few seconds he would allow himself. Would she see his relaxed arm as pinning her, a threatening gesture? Or would she interpret it the way he intended, as a signal of comfort? He had to remind himself that it wasn’t proper to stare. He liked that they were nearly of a head. Equal.
“I have to warn you that the pasty will be cold,” Miss Abbott said.
“I’ve eaten worse,” he said, completely sincere. It was true. In his childhood, he’d been a companion for the heir to the Chitley title, taking lessons with the tutor, playing in the gardens together unaccompanied. When he and Willrich dared each other to eat a grasshopper, Os had run out to catch two bugs. He popped his into his mouth first, only to cry foul when Willrich had roared with laughter, throwing his away into the grass. Willrich asked what the grasshopper tasted like. Crunchy, was all he could think of to say.
The lady boxer gave him a queer look, perhaps seeing more in his expression than he’d meant to reveal. “I’m no good with cooking,” she said. “I don’t set fires if I can help it.”
“If you ever need one, call on me,” Os said. “I’ve a fire in the forge all day.”
“And you haven’t burnt it down?” Miss Abbott teased. “Rare feat in Londontown.”
His mouth tugged upwards, a smile forming before he could help it. “I have a boy, Jean, who keeps me in line.”
“A boy? Yours?” Miss Abbott asked, her face suddenly vacant of expression.
He peered at her again, his eyes drifting to the smooth, shiny skin of her strange ears. A thin line of emotion he could not name gripped him. “My apprentice. He’s not a boy any longer, though I can’t help but think of him as still a boy.”
“Did he come with you from Manchester?” she asked, her voice light again.
The thin line disappeared and Os relaxed. “How did you know I came from Manchester? Not by my accent.”
The lady boxer gave a knowing smile, rendering her sphinxlike. He knew she wouldn’t answer. Perhaps it was not but a guess and he’d affirmed her suspicion all on his own.
They arrived at the pub, and she opened the heavy wooden door without a second step. A door that heavy would take any other woman a few tries, but not her. He could see the fabric on her sleeves strain against the muscle. His own body responded in kind, tightening and flexing, wanting more than an acquaintance would warrant.
The pub was dark, the windows shuttered. As soon as the door closed behind him, Os couldn’t see a thing.
“Stay here,” she instructed.
He heard her move through the room. The light from the streetlamps worked through a few cracks in the shutters, and Os’s eyes began to adjust to the darkness.
Heavy steps clattered across the ceiling from the floor above. “Who’s there?” cried a shrill voice.
“Just Bess,” she called, her voice far more distant than Os would have thought. He hadn’t heard her bump into anything. She must know this place.
“Scared me so bad I thought my hair would turn white,” the shrill said.
Light flared on a candle. “Your hair is already white,” Miss Abbott called. When she tipped an unlit candle onto the lit wick, light spread. She stood behind a long bar. Tall tables with stools were scattered across the floor.
“Blacksmith,” she said, gesturing him over.
“Who’s that?” the shrill voice asked.
Miss Abbott turned, holding one candle, illuminating the bent figure in the doorway behind the bar. The voice belonged to an older woman, her white dressing gown billowing out, making her appear smaller. Grizzled white hair was twined into a long, wispy braid.
“A friend,” Miss Abbott said with good humor. “Now, Tony promised me a pasty or two. Where are you hiding them?”
Os approached, trying to move slowly and not cause the older woman to jump back in fear. He was not what anyone expected.
“You here with my Bess?” the old lady asked, displaying no trace of discomfort at his presence.
“This is your mother?” Os asked.
Miss Abbott laughed and shook her head. “No. Any mother of mine would have told me where the pasties were by now.”
“I’ve no child of my own, so I adopt the grown ones in hopes they’ll care for me in my dotage.”
“Miz Penny makes the best pasties in London. Prolly the world, you think?” Miss
Abbott asked.
Miz Penny cackled. “Fine compliments get you everywhere. The pasties are in the case, wrapped in paper. Help yerself. Only the chicken pasties left. All out of the beef and rabbit.”
“The rabbit is the best,” Miss Abbott said over her shoulder. She pulled two paper wraps out of a wooden box on the countertop, handing him one.
“A good pasty is a goo
d pasty,” Miz Penny croaked. “I’ll be making pork tomorrow, if all goes well with the butcher.”
“You’re cook here?” Os asked.
“And I tend the shop when there’s a mill or when Tony’s busy with his fighters,” the lady said. Her feet were bare, revealing them to be long, bony, and pale. It reminded him of fish drying out on the beach.
“No pork for me,” Miss Abbott said.
Miz Penny crowed. “You got yourself a prizefight, then?”
A slow, proud smile split Miss Abbott’s face, and she glowed in the dim candlelight. It made Os wish he could make her smile like that, shy but pleased. He glanced over to the older woman, who returned a doting smile before a shiver gripped her shoulders.
“You should get back to bed, ma’am,” Os said. “You must be cold.”
“Listen ’ere,” she cooed. “Thinking of my well-being. This ’un might be a good one, my Bess.”
Miss Abbott unwrapped her pasty, licking a bit off her thumb once it was open. Os observed the motion, hoping she would do it again, but instead Miss Abbott caught him watching and flicked her eyebrow up in interest. She kept him in her sights as she said to the older woman, “You oughtn’t go then, Miz Penny. I might need a chaperone.”
Os flushed with warmth. “I’m an honorable man,” he reassured them.
“That’s too bad,” Miz Penny said, beginning to climb the stairs. “Can’t trap honorable men.” She cackled, taking one heavy step after another.
“I don’t need to trap a man,” Miss Abbott called after her.
“Don’t you now?” Miz Penny called from the top of the stairs.
Miss Abbott gave Os an embarrassed look, her face pink all over. “She means well.”
“She cares about you,” Os said, unwrapping the waxy paper surrounding the pasty.
Miss Abbott harrumphed.
“Did she raise you?” Os asked.
Miss Abbott shook her head, chewing. Os took a bite, the flaky crust giving way to the cold but not unpleasant filling. He could taste a bit of salt and pepper in the gravy, letting the onions and chunks of chicken stand out. This was no cheap meal.
“Miz Penny moved in after I was already fighting. Wish she had been around earlier. Softened Tony up quite a bit,” she said, wiping grease from her lips.
“So this Tony raised you?” Os asked.
“Why so many questions?” Miss Abbott countered.
“How else do I get to know you?” he said, smiling.
“I believe that it’s my turn to ask questions,” she said. “Starting with your name. I can’t keep calling you ‘Blacksmith.’”
“I’d be happy with it as long as you kept calling me,” he said, thinking it was a good line until she didn’t even crack a smile.
Miss Abbott looked back to her pasty, a flush apparent even in the bare light of two candles. “What’s yer game?” she said, sounding exasperated.
“No game.” He wasn’t sure what she meant. What game could there be?
“How? You don’t give me your name, you seem to be flirting with me—”
“At least I’m doing well enough that you know I’m flirting,” he said. “I wasn’t sure. I don’t talk to many women.”
She made a noise that was somewhere between a laugh and a scoff. “Why are you flirting with me, Blacksmith?”
He was flustered. Not good with words at any time, this was far more talking than he’d done in a single evening in his life. Os felt foolish that he had to explain his attraction. Surely they were of an age, and surely she’d been wooed before. “Why does anyone flirt?”
“Because a man is fooling with a woman for some reason,” she said.
Os put down his half-eaten pasty. Too bad to give up the pasty, as it was better than expected. He’d have to remember to send Jean down here one day to pick some up for dinner. He couldn’t imagine how tender a rabbit pasty must be. But he couldn’t stand being called a liar, and if she thought him a liar, he couldn’t bear it. “Miss Abbott, if you think I am dishonest, I apologize. I don’t know how to be anything other than I am.”
He straightened, wiping his hands on his trousers. She gazed at him, her brown eyes almost as round as circles. In the low light, he could see where her nose had been broken in the past. Her jaw was set, as if she were ready to fight.
“I have more interest in you than a man ought to have in a respectable lady, and I understand that can be upsetting,” he said, his mouth going dry. A hole opened in his chest, like an ember burning through paper. “I’m sorry to offend.”
Bess watched him recede from the circle of candlelight. His bowed head kept her from seeing his expression, something she found she desperately wanted to see. Was he toying with her? It wouldn’t be the first time a man had pretended to like her company, only to show her off to his mates as a freak of nature.
She’d been approached by men for her novelty, had been offered space in a brothel by a madam for her “unusual” stature. As time passed and after a few broken noses, even those offers had dried up. She was the worst of the freaks: she was an ugly woman.
So why was this man here? Why did he follow her after her canceled mill? Surely he had paid the entrance fee and would have wanted to get his money’s worth, watching the other set-tos.
The sound of his footsteps receded in the dark pub. “Blacksmith,” she called out. The footsteps stopped.
“To say that I am deceitful is to give me a luxury I can’t afford,” he rumbled in the darkness.
She felt his words vibrate in her chest, the timbre of his voice so low, even across the room. It made him feel close even though he wasn’t. There was a flash of phantom warmth on her skin, as if he could cover her like an oilskin coat, add his strength to her own. Despite quick thinking in the boxing ring, she couldn’t bring herself to respond to him with words. Instead, she stood absolutely still, quiet in action.
The door opened, silhouetting his large frame in the lamplight of the street, and she did nothing but watch him go. The draught from the cold night blew out her candles. She stood in the dark, alone, the pub empty except for Miz Penny upstairs.
She wrapped the remnants of the pasties in the waxy paper and tucked them into her pockets to take back to Mrs. Martin. The silence of her solitary place in the pub made her think of the night Lord Denby died. How she’d never felt quite so alone, quite so hollow as right then.
“The lad’s gone?” Miz Penny called down the stairs.
“Thought you went to bed,” Bess said, walking to the stairwell, peering up into the darkness, illuminated by Miz Penny’s single candle.
“I wouldn’t want t’ miss any of the excitement,” she said, the draft catching her white nightgown, billowing it away from her frail body.
“You’ll catch yer death. Go to bed. I’ll be on my way,” Bess said, patting the pocket with the leftover pasties in it.
“The lad likes you, Bess. Let him like you.”
Bess shook her head. “You don’t know what he likes.”
“There’s nothing shameful when a man wants to be wit’ ye. Let him woo you a bit, make you feel like pudding inside. S’nice, and don’t happen often. Let it happen to you, love.”
“Feel like pudding? Have you forgotten who I am?” Bess said, trying to make a joke out of herself, her many nicknames over the years, all some form of reference to her strength, size, and mannishness.
“I’ll never forget who ye are. But it don’t mean you couldn’t use some softening up.” Miz Penny heaved a big sigh. Living so many years with a man like Tony gave the woman the patience of a saint. “G’night, dearie.”
“Good night, Miz Penny,” Bess said.
Bess navigated the bar in the dark, finding the door without issue. The cold bit through her thin wrap. She latched the door and headed down the street to her flat. The blacksmith loomed in her thoughts, as did Miz Penny’s advice. The lamplight was enough to navigate the streets to avoid the horse dung.
The past year had been too much f
or her. While she hadn’t had a romance since before the King went mad, and even that farce was so hurtful the shame draped her anew when she remembered it, she felt as if her insides were scrubbed raw. Watching her best friend, John Arthur, struggle with his lady love had put her own loneliness in sharp focus.
When she’d taken on the late Lord Denby as a client, she knew the man harbored some kind of perversity, and knew he would use his wealth to entice her to appease his urges. There were advances, but those were thoughts best put out of mind. His amorous approaches were rough, both in happenstance and in attempt, and it weren’t the first time a man thought hurting a woman might make his prick stand up. His embarrassment was so keen he didn’t try but twice. And then they fell into an easier companionship of wealthy patron and impoverished athlete. They’d figured it out, sort of. He “trained” her, gifted her clothing and experiences, and she was his trick pony, out on display.
When he died in front of her, it robbed her of something. His death took her status, to be sure, and steady income, of course. But to watch a man die sick, shitting and vomiting, without family, without friends, without mourners, it brought the poverty of life into sharp focus. It made her life seem all the poorer. Lord Denby’s death showed her what it was to die alone, to prepare her for her own fate.
When she got to her flat, she dropped the leftover pasties on the table for Mrs. Martin to find and trudged up the stairs to her room. The water in the washing basin was left over from the morning and looked as if it might freeze at any moment. Tomorrow Tony would want her to start a strict training regime, and she needed her rest. Mornings would come early and cold, full of broth, stale biscuits, and Dover’s powder to make her sweat.
Bess sighed as she fished out the old heating brick from the foot of her bed. Nights were cold as well as lonely. Hadn’t the blacksmith mentioned he kept a fire at his place all day? Surely he was warm now. She couldn’t help but look in the direction of the old smithy, as if she could see through the walls and houses in between to where the foundry sat. Where the blacksmith sat, with his apprentice, no doubt in front of a flame.