‘It was the only way to stop him from harassing me, and to protect my sister, who isn’t too well.’ Her brow puckered with concern as she thought of Maggie. ‘Not that I’ve any intention of fulfilling my promise,’ she blithely continued.
‘So the word of you nobs can’t be trusted, is that it?’
Livia chuckled. ‘It was only a little white lie.’
‘It was a whopping big black one. Still, I’ll let you off in the circumstances. You had me worried for a moment.’
‘Why should it worry you whom I marry?’ Livia regretted her question almost the moment she’d voiced it, as it sounded so arch and contrived, as if she were fishing for compliments. And could that be a flush creeping up his neck? Had she embarrassed him? Or stirred something else in him, something rather wonderful? His face suddenly seemed to have come much closer to her own, so that she could see the reflection of her own image in his big brown eyes. But then he half turned away with a casual shrug of the shoulders.
‘I suppose everything you do concerns me, at the moment anyway. Aren’t we friends, united in a quest?’
‘Because of Mercy, you mean?’
He held her gaze for some long seconds before answering. ‘What else could I mean?’
Livia was now the first to break the gaze. ‘You’ve no need to worry about me. I’ve no intention of marrying at all, not Henry, not anyone.’
He smiled. ‘You intend to remain a spinster stuck on the shelf?’
‘I hate both those expressions. I am not a spinster, whatever that might be, and I’m certainly not stuck on any shelf. I intend to do other, more useful things with my life than pander to some male,’ she said, her tone ringing with resolve and self-satisfaction. ‘I’ve had enough of that sort of thing already with my father, thank you very much. I’ve certainly no intention of exchanging one bully for another.’
‘Not all men are bullies,’ Jack said, in that low, husky voice which had such an odd effect upon her insides.
Livia fixed her gaze firmly upon the ducks as she mumbled that really she had no intention of taking the risk. If only he wasn’t sitting quite so close. His very nearness was making her feel flustered. Spinster indeed!
‘You might change your mind, about marrying I mean.’
‘I won’t.’ She looked at him, her eyes fierce. ‘Not ever. Men are not to be trusted.’
‘We’ll see, shall we?’
‘In the meantime,’ Livia said, ‘I’ll search for that dratted letter and do what I can to locate your friend. Where the hell do you think she is?’
Mercy and Georgina, or George as she preferred to think of him, had become firm friends and happily shared secrets and gossip. He said little about his own background and Mercy had the sense not to ask, but she confided in him her grief over the death of her mother. One afternoon as they circled the ward together, shuffling round and round in their usual listless fashion, she told him the truth of her birth, and how she’d taken Florrie’s carefully penned letter to Josiah Angel’s Department Store in a bid to secure a job from the man she’d discovered was her father.
‘So when you stepped out in front of him on the day he came visiting, you were speaking the truth?’
Mercy shrugged. ‘I was a fool. Speaking the truth sometimes isn’t such a good idea. I should’ve realised he didn’t give a toss.’
‘So you went to him to ask for help and all he did was send you to this place?’ George was outraged.
‘Like I say, I’m stupid.’
‘But he’s your da. Not that mine was much better.’ George told her then how he’d spent his youth avoiding his own father’s heavy hand. ‘Which had a habit of landing on my backside. We lived out in the wilds beyond Keswick, where he worked in the lead mines. One day, when I was about thirteen, I stupidly told him I’d no intention of following his example and going down the mines. He nearly killed me. There was a carter leaving that night for Kendal, so I went with him.’
‘Didn’t you manage to find work here in Kendal either?’
‘Nope. I didn’t have no character, did I? No reference, no training, couldn’t read and write, useless I am. I nicked a pie off a market stall and got caught. It was either the clink or the workhouse. I opted for the latter, pretending to be soft in the head, threepence short to the shilling.’ George chuckled as if it were all a fine joke, then quickly sobered as he went on to apologise to Mercy for his high jinks on the day she’d arrived, which was what had got her into trouble in the first place. ‘I didn’t mean you no harm, I just like playing practical jokes, hence the dress. It lightens the boredom.’
Mercy looked bemused. ‘But why would a good-looking man like you want to dress like a woman?’
George laughed. ‘I find it helps to appear more stupid than I actually am.’
Mercy’s eyes widened. ‘Why? I’ve certainly discovered that what Prue told me was true. If you want to survive in this place, don’t fight, don’t argue, and keep your mouth shut. But I never thought you’d need to pretend to be something that you’re not.’
George winked. ‘Being classed as an imbecile has proved very useful, I can tell you. Better than breaking stones or being sent to the reformatory. They think I’m so stupid that I can’t even find my way around this place, which I encourage by constantly “getting myself lost”. Such excursions have allowed me to check out the layout pretty thoroughly, and I have, in fact, learnt of a way out.’ He half glanced over his shoulder to check there were no eavesdroppers. ‘Why don’t we make plans to leave, eh? There’s a whole world out there, Mercy, just waiting for you and me to grab it by the throat.’
Mercy was the one laughing now. For the first time since the birching and those terrible dark days in solitude, she felt a lifting of her spirits. Maybe she did have some strength left in her, after all. ‘You’re on,’ she said. ‘Just show me the way.’
Chapter Twenty
The moon looked pale as a pearl in the black velvet sky, the stars a scattering of diamonds as Ella crept up the stairs to the attic. Ever since her walk to the river to join her husband fishing, which had led to her secretly watching him bathing, Ella had been tormented by the image of him standing proud and naked before her, albeit unaware of her presence. He was a man not given to demonstrations of emotion, a private man who preferred to keep his grief and private worries to himself. But he was her husband, and Ella understood that if this wall he’d erected between them was ever to be breached, she must be the one to take it down, brick by brick if necessary.
A floorboard creaked as she stepped into the room and she halted, holding her breath in case he should wake. No sound came, and stepping softly on the soles of her feet, Ella edged forward. The bed he slept in was narrow, made for one, not two, but as luck would have it he was turned with his face to the wall, the blankets rucked up. Very slowly and carefully, Ella pulled back the covers and slipped in beside him.
A shaft of stray moonlight coming through a narrow window cut into the roof above revealed that he was naked from the waist up. He wore nothing but his long johns. Ella lay silent beside him, her breathing soft and quiet as she struggled to control her nervousness. Very gently she rested the flat of her hand against his back, then she placed her lips against his warm bare skin and kissed it. Next she slid her hand around his waist, caressed the hardness of his belly, the velvety smoothness of him, and heard him groan as he turned to her. Then he was kissing her, every bit as demanding as that very first time when she’d been frightened of the rats in the barn, and he’d surprised her with a kiss. He was pulling her beneath him, his breathing growing ragged with need.
Ella stroked the hair at his nape, wrapped her legs about his narrow hips and flung back her head in sheer delight as he caressed each nipple with the tip of his tongue. So he did want her after all, as much as she now wanted him. The preacher man was full of surprises.
And he hadn’t even thought to wash his hands first.
He was warm and strong and hard, and possibly still half as
leep. Ella didn’t care whether he thought this a dream or not. Like a miracle, he slid inside her and took her as sweetly as though they’d been made for each other. She cried out in ecstasy, knowing she’d longed for this moment ever since she’d seen him in the river that day, and as they moved together with an instinctive rhythm, her heart sang.
Could this be love? Was this how it felt to really love someone? Full of awe and fear and pulsing excitement?
When it was over, they lay with limbs entwined, utterly spent. Ella waited for him to speak, to tell her how beautiful she was, but was disappointed instead to hear once more the steady rhythm of his breathing. Her husband had fallen asleep. Smiling softly, she tucked herself into the curve of his warm body and slept too.
It was Ella who woke first, with shafts of a pink dawn piercing the darkness as she turned to kiss him on the tip of his nose. It was as if she had branded him with a red hot iron. He leapt from the bed in an instant, one moment contentedly asleep beside her, the next standing shivering on the bare boards, glaring down at her. ‘What the… What are you doing in my bed?’
Ella made no attempt to move. She merely grinned at him and pulled the blankets up to her chin. ‘I am your wife. I believe I’m fully entitled to be in your bed.’
He made a grumble of contempt deep in his throat. ‘“With her much fair speech she caused him to yield, with the flattering of her lips she forced him.” Get ye gone.’
Ella sat up, not caring that the blanket fell back to reveal her to be bare breasted, although she heard his quick indrawn breath. ‘I forced no one. I am not the devil, Amos, my father was for marrying me to you when he knew there was no love between us.’
She saw how his eyes were riveted to her nakedness, hot with need. ‘Who do you think you are, woman, Eve, or Bathsheba?’
Ella chewed on a fingernail and pretended to consider. ‘Wasn’t Bathsheba seduced by David, rather than the other way around? And I believe you too had a part to play in last night’s events.’
Amos changed his line of attack.
‘Thy father informed me of your fall from grace. I have yet to meet a virtuous woman, one who is not willing to steal into a man’s bed and bring him down like an ox to the slaughter, as it says in Proverbs, chapter seven—’
‘Oh, stop that at once, Amos.’ Ella was out of the bed in a second, standing before him with not a hint of embarrassment as she stamped the floorboards with one bare foot. ‘Stop hiding behind the scriptures and be a man, why don’t you? But all right, if you don’t want me, so be it. Stay in your narrow little bed with the company only of your narrow little mind, and see if I care. To hell with you, Amos Todd, and your moralising.’
And she stormed off, tears rolling down her cheeks, quite forgetting she’d left her nightdress behind. Amos snatched it up as if to chase after her with it, but then changed his mind and buried his nose in it instead, breathing in the essence of her.
Mercy was trudging across open fields, doing her best to keep pace with George’s long-legged stride. They’d been walking for days and she was bone-weary, her feet a mass of blisters and every muscle screaming with pain.
Escaping from the workhouse had turned out to be far easier than she’d feared. George had shown her a tiny window with a loose catch in the boiler room, just big enough for her to squeeze through. George himself, tall and broad-shouldered, couldn’t possibly escape that way. Instead he’d adopted his Georgina role, and in dress and bonnet managed to somehow mingle with the visitors and walk out of the door as bold as brass. Mercy thought it a miracle he wasn’t spotted, or even searched – though if any of the staff had seen him, they might have assumed it was Georgina being simple again. Whatever the reason, and against all the odds, the plan worked.
‘We got away with it!’ she cried, when he’d hunkered down beside her on Kendal Green.
‘Not yet,’ he’d warned. ‘We still need to get down into town and find transport.’
In fact, they’d been fortunate to discover a line of farmers’ carts trundling up Windermere Road, and it was the simplest thing in the world to hitch a lift. They’d pretended to be mother and daughter on their way home from market. That first cart took them as far as Windermere, where George had divested himself of the dress. Beneath that he was wearing the trademark canvas trousers and shirt that marked him out as a workhouse inmate, but a scout around the backstreets soon produced a washing line with a pair of trousers and shirt that fitted.
They walked for several miles to Ambleside, following the shore of the lake for part of the way, before slipping under the tarpaulin of yet another farm cart as it lumbered past.
George reckoned they must now be in the Langdales, the most westerly range of mountains in the Lakes, and that the last village they’d driven through a few miles back was Chapel Stile. When the cart had slowed for the driver to open a farm gate, the pair of them slipped out over the tailgate and hid in a ditch until it had gone.
‘Now where are we?’ Mercy cried, gazing around at the sweep of brooding mountains. It looked very much like alien territory so far as she was concerned, yet she was transfixed by the sheer beauty of the boulder-strewn landscape: by the purple carpet of heather, the looming mountain peaks, the spindly pines that leant into the wind, and everywhere she looked there were sheep. Dark and round-bellied with rough white faces, they didn’t look like proper sheep at all.
George told her they were called Herdwicks, and were believed to have been brought over to Lakeland by the Vikings many hundreds of years ago. ‘They’re thick-boned, provide good wool and the sweetest meat you’ve ever tasted.’
Both their mouths watered at the mention of food. George had managed to steal half a loaf of bread from the dining room, and Mercy a hunk of cheese from the kitchen. They sat down at once to eat a little of this, saving the rest for later, knowing they would be even hungrier by then.
‘Once we find shelter, a barn or something, I’ll set a trap for some real food,’ George promised.
That had been yesterday, or was it the day before? Mercy was beginning to lose track of time. One night they had indeed found a barn and had slept well, warm as toast, another time they’d slept under a hedge, and last night they’d huddled close together for warmth beneath the canopy of an old beech tree.
But now the valley and the stream where they’d quenched their thirst and finished the last of the bread and cheese at breakfast were miles behind them. Mercy noticed a lone buzzard circling overhead and fell to her knees in fright, thinking it a vulture, which amused George greatly. But then she’d lived all her life in Kendal, on Fellside. She wasn’t used to wild places.
George didn’t seem in the least troubled by the remoteness of the spot. The mountains were rugged with high peaks and crags that seemed to tower over her. He named them for her: Langdale Pikes, Bowfell and Crinkle Crags, and promised to take her walking up them one day. Mercy declined.
‘I prefer to keep my feet firmly on solid pavements and cobbled streets, thanks all the same, not slippy, sharp rocks that hang over a precipice into which I might fall and crack me skull.’
She was almost glad when heavy clouds obscured the mountaintops in a thick fog. George might call them noble but Mercy saw them as menacing, and made sure she kept pace with him as he strode along, nervous of getting left behind.
‘We need to keep off any main roads, just in case someone should come looking for us.’
Mercy thought this highly unlikely but what alternative did she have except to follow him? Besides, she trusted him implicitly, even if it did sometimes feel as if they were going round in circles. He, at least, knew where he was going.
In this she was sadly mistaken. George had been lost for some time, but had kept on walking out of necessity, or habit, hoping he’d come across a village where he might find work, or a likely spot for them to settle for a while, then he could catch them a rabbit for supper. He had a box of matches in his pocket for lighting a fire, which he’d thieved from the boiler room, and hi
s belly felt as if it was sticking to his rib cage. He could tell Mercy was hungry too because her pace was slowing. Tonight he meant to make them a proper lean-to shelter, in case those threatening clouds fulfilled their promise and brought rain.
They came at last to a copse by a small tarn. The rich colours of the rowan, heavy with their scarlet berries, looked so beautiful they warmed Mercy’s heart. A thin mist was creeping down the fells like an old man’s beard and she could hear the clear bright song of a robin, the gentle bleating of the Herdwicks, and the rustle of windblown leaves.
‘And where are we now? I swear I’ve seen that mountain before.’
George was looking distinctly uncomfortable, wondering if she was right. ‘Even if we are lost, isn’t this better than being locked up in that flamin’ workhouse? It’s beautiful. I can’t think why I ever went south to the town in the first place? I must have been mad.’
‘If you hadn’t done that, you’d never have met me.’
‘True, which would have been a pity.’
Something warmed inside her at his words, and she grinned back at him. ‘We were destined to meet, you and me, eh? Still, this place is desolate and we belong in the town. We’ll starve out here with no food, and it’s getting colder by the minute.’
George was beginning to feel desperate for some rest and flopped down on a hillock of moss, closed his eyes and was almost instantly asleep. Mercy had never known anyone with the ability to fall asleep quite so quickly. She envied him this as she stood looking down at him, shivering in the chill wind, but then she too sank down onto the mossy bank and snuggled up against the warmth of his bulky body.
She liked George a lot. He was good-looking in a rough and ready sort of way, though his nose was a bit crooked and his brown eyes deep set. His mouth was wide and full, the kind she would very much like to kiss, had she not still nursed doubts about his fondness for wearing that dress.
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