The idea of spending an evening in his company appalled her, but she did not want to appear rude, so, ‘I’m rather tired, Mr Taylor, I had a restless night,’ she said, and glanced appealingly at Jacob. ‘If you could show me where I am to sleep, then perhaps I might lie down for a while.’
It was no sooner said than done. Jacob carried her luggage to a room on the right of the corridor. ‘That’s mine, over the way,’ he explained. ‘But I shall be in the shop this afternoon, helping out. It’s my job, you see, and he pays me and is offering me prospects.’
The room in which he left her was clean but sparse, cold, too, for no spark blazed in the black iron fireplace. The atmosphere was damp and musty, and Angela went across and fought with the window catch until she could get the casement open. Even then the air was not much better, comprised of city odours. She took off her hat and laid it on the plain pine dressing table. Her heart was like a stone inside her. Oh, she had escaped Aidan, but what on earth was she doing in this dreary place?
She opened her jacket and lay on the lumpy bed. This also exuded damp, and the pillows smelt fusty. Despite herself she could not help remembering Aidan and the way he had of making love. Her bruises ached, and this did not detract from the heat that warmed her loins. If only he could have shown her respect and kept her as his one true love? But this could never be so, and she was not prepared to settle for less.
Nonetheless, she could not help undoing her bodice and toying with her nipples, then sliding her right hand down and gripping the hem of her skirt, lifting it high and then letting her fingers find her labial wings, part their damp folds and play with her clitoris. She relaxed, giving a little moan of pleasure, and began the wonderful game that would lead her to heaven. She could do it quickly or very, very slowly, but the end would be the same – perfect bliss and satisfaction.
Arthur retired to his room, too. There he closed to door carefully and slipped the bolt, then went straight across to the wall opposite, lifted down a copy of the painting called, The Light Of The World, and applied his eye to a hole in the plaster. It gave an interrupted view of Angela sprawled on the bed, masturbating.
‘I knew it,’ he said under his breath. ‘Fine lady, my arse! She’s a trollop, like all the rest. By God I’ll have her bare-breasted and bare-bottomed, serving me any way I demand. Kate can get out. I deserve something better than her worn fanny.’
As he watched Angela lifting her hips and rubbing her slit he opened his trousers and took out a small, stubby cock. It was not long but it was thick. He handled it lovingly and, still viewing Angela, started to fondle it, pressing down the ring of foreskin and baring the shiny red dome. It did not take him long to catch up with Angela’s frenzy and, as he saw her jerk and heard her give a cry, so his organ spasmed and shot forth his spunk, hitting the wall and running down to drip on that quasi religious print.
Arthur was sure he had kept very quiet, but found that Angela had her head turned in his direction, as if she could see him through the lathe and plaster wall. He shrank back and put his cock away, then tidied himself in the mirror. She mustn’t suspect, mustn’t know anything – not yet.
Chapter 7
Aidan never gave up. If he was convinced that something belonged to him then he would fight, and fight dirty, to keep it. He was furious beyond measure because Angela had left him. How dare she? And he gave Valerie a bad time, blaming her and taking no responsibility for his own actions.
‘Bitch!’ he grated, after several days had passed with no word from the fugitive. ‘What did you say to her? What did you do to make her think she could be so damned independent?’
Valerie was bare-bottomed across his knee and he slapped her hard with almost every word. ‘Nothing, master,’ she vowed. ‘I did what you ordered, but she’s a stubborn minx. Ow! Aaah! Do it again! Do it again!’ And she writhed against his thighs, grinding her hairless mound as she strove to reach fulfilment.
He tumbled her off and she landed in a heap on the carpet. ‘I want her found!’ he shouted, eyes flashing and face stormy. ‘See to it, and no excuses.’
‘And if I find her?’ Valerie sat up and rubbed her arse ruefully. It bore the imprint of his hand.
‘Report to me,’ he answered, standing to his full impressive height and staring down at her with no offer of helping her regain her feet. ‘If you fail in this, then I may have to seriously think about whether to continue our friendship. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, master,’ Valerie replied humbly. She might have Julian, Maude and Viola, and a dozen other lovers, but no one took her to hell and back, thrilled her to the marrow and catapulted her to the stars like Aidan.
She dispatched her spies out and about with instructions to search for the missing Angela and not to return without information, perhaps not on pain of death, but certainly instant dismissal.
Angela found herself in an awkward situation. Arthur refused to take money for her board and lodgings and she hated being beholden to him. Jacob, too, was becoming an embarrassment with his puppy love and adoring eyes, treating her as if she was porcelain, whereas she had proved to herself beyond all doubt that she was made of sterner stuff. Once she had longed for Aidan to show such dog-like devotion, but now discovered something within her psyche that responded to being misused by a man. Aidan had taken her on a journey down the dark pathways of passion, and she would never be the same again.
She had unwittingly made an enemy in the Taylor household. Kate did not hide her resentment. At first Arthur hinted that Angela might like to act as housekeeper for him and his nephew and, when Kate got to hear of this, she went into a sulk. In vain Angela tried to reassure her, declaring that she would not be there long and was simply visiting until she found a suitable live-in post. It took her a while to realise that Kate, implausible though it seemed, was enamoured of Arthur and possessed by the green-eyed monster.
‘As if I’d look at him twice, let alone encourage him,’ Angela said to herself, trying to make the best of an uncomfortable position, for there was no doubt that Arthur fancied her. She was forever avoiding being alone with him, or passing too close on stairs and passageways.
She broached the subject with Jacob but it was awkward, for he had put his uncle on a pedestal and would hear nothing against him. Besides, he was looking at her through rose-coloured spectacles, hardly listening to the context of her conversation, too engrossed in the fact that she was there, living under the same roof, and he was acting as her Sir Galahad.
One evening, terribly restless and unwilling to spend another night in Arthur’s odious company, she said to Jacob, ‘Would you like to take me out? You haven’t yet introduced me to your friend. Tilly, is it?’
He cast her a sheepish look, pushed away his dinner plate and refolded his napkin. ‘I could, I suppose, though she frequents public houses and ladies don’t go to such places.’
‘That’s true,’ put in Arthur, who had not been asked to voice his opinion. ‘I don’t think you would enjoy it.’
‘Pish!’ she responded crossly, irritated because Kate was hovering around, deliberately clashing china together as she cleared the table. ‘I’m not a baby, you know. I’m certain Jacob wouldn’t go anywhere disreputable. Would you, Jacob?’
‘Huh!’ exclaimed Kate, pushing back a lock of her lank hair and glaring at Angela. ‘I’d not be too sure about that.’
‘Who asked you to put in your penny worth?’ Jacob retorted rudely. ‘All right, my lady, if that’s what you’d like to do, we’ll go to the Bunch of Grapes. It’s an old hostelry, used to be a coaching inn before the railways took over. You’ll find it interesting, and we needn’t stay long. Let’s go early before it gets too crowded.’
Having got her way, Angela began to wonder why she had bothered. She had explored the area and it was apparent that she stuck out like a sore thumb – too refined and genteel, too well dressed, though wearing plain black. This is what Kate disliked about her. She was a cut above the rest of them.
‘Thank you, Jacob, I shall enjoy a change of scene,’ she said, and went to get her hat and cape.
It was a fine evening with the promise of spring spicing the air, lighter, too. They walked to the public house, passing families heading for the parks, parents and children heralding the warmer weather and getting away from the mean, overcrowded streets. One little lad wearing a sailor suit bumped into Angela and nearly dropped the paper bag he was hugging.
‘Goin’ to feed the ducks,’ he announced, before being hauled away by his mother with instructions to say ‘sorry to the nice lady.’
‘It’s all right,’ Angela assured her, and she would have liked to be accompanying him, throwing bread to a greedy congregation of waterfowl, just like those who had resided on the lake at Lairdland Manor. Homesickness swept over her.
‘Lots of parks in London,’ Jacob vouchsafed, proud as a peacock to have her on his arm.
Soon they left the pleasant verdure and budding trees and took a side road at the end of which stood the old inn, its sign depicting purple grapes. The door of the public bar stood open, and Angela caught a glimpse of the gas lit interior with its oak panelling, brass, etched glass, benches, sawdust-strewn floor, and tables where several regulars were playing dominoes. Jacob guided her in and found seats for them on a settle near the big open fireplace where logs smouldered on the hearth.
‘What can I get you to drink?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ she answered truthfully, never having been in a tavern before. ‘What do you suggest?’
‘Port and lemon,’ he replied, and she could only assume that this is what Tilly might imbibe. She wished Jacob’s friend would hurry up and put in an appearance, for she was causing any amount of unwelcome interest amongst the customers.
Several rough-looking men wearing flat caps and spotted neckerchiefs propped up the bar, quaffing pints of ale and staring at her. There were others, too, better dressed but with that same predatory look in their eyes, as if wondering if she was an honest woman or perhaps one of those ‘ladies of the night’ of whom she had heard. There were women present, but mostly gin-soaked crones huddled in corners gossiping and dragging their threadbare garments about their skeletal frames to keep the cold out of their bones. It was altogether an unprepossessing hostelry, and even when Jacob returned with the drinks she was ready to leap to her feet and say she had changed her mind and wanted to leave.
A man took his place at a battered upright piano set against one wall, plonked his pint glass on the lid and started to thump out popular songs. The crowd joined in, keeping time by banging empty tankards on the round marble tabletops. Their rendition of these bawdy lyrics owed more to alcohol than talent. No one, it seemed, could pitch a note accurately. Angela cringed, her musical ear offended.
Jacob looked uncomfortable, saying, ‘Well this is it, I’m afraid. Not what you’re used to, milady, but the best I can offer. I did warn you.’
He looked so miserable that Angela placed her hand over his where it rested on his thigh. ‘That’s all right, Jacob. You were only trying to help.’
Impulsively he covered her small fingers with his broad ones, and the contact was far from unpleasant. He was young, nearer her age than Aidan, and there was a freshness and sincerity about him that was appealing. Angela felt a jolt within her, and a spasm that reminded her of the feelings her ex-betrothed engendered. She had never been with anyone like Jacob and wondered how it would be if he were to kiss her, or touch her breasts or even slide a hand under her skirts. A commoner! A stable lad! Dear God, what would her father have said?
The port wine was potent. Her senses swam and she was aware of the scenes taking place all around her. As the drink went down so customers lost their inhibitions, and a cheer arose when the door was suddenly flung wide and half a dozen flashily dressed women flounced in.
‘Tilly, how are your parts?’ one of the men roared at a girl with flame-red hair, wearing a big feathered hat and an emerald-green dress with an exceedingly low bodice. She slued to a halt before him, arms akimbo.
‘Smelly, as usual,’ she retorted, tossing her head. ‘And ’ow’s your dick? Got any bigger, ’as it? I seen more impressive things on the winkle stall.’
This sally was greeted by whoops of laughter and another woman joined her, slinging an arm casually around Tilly’s shoulders. She was dark-haired and dark-eyed, dressed in crimson with a great deal of flash and plumage.
‘I knows ’im,’ she put in, red lips curling contemptuously. ‘Not exactly a stallion, is ’ee? Newborn nippers ’as got bigger cocks.’
‘Aw, shut your mouth, Doreen, you pox-ridden bawd,’ the man snarled, thoroughly nettled by their scathing reference to his marriage equipment.
‘Well, bugger me, don’t you be so saucy to my mate,’ Tilly chided, reaching out and squeezing his nipples through the coarsely woven shirt. ‘Whose a naughty boy, then? Want me to tell your missus?’
Jacob was shifting uneasily and Angela had already caught the redhead’s name. ‘Is that your friend, Tilly?’ she asked.
‘Yes, that’s her,’ he said, with a show of nonchalance that did not deceive her one whit. To prove just how debonair he was he called across the smoky bar, ‘Tilly, come over here. There’s someone I want you to meet.’
Tilly turned her head and stared down her nose at him. ‘In a minute, laddie. Take your turn. Get me a whiskey in,’ she said imperiously and turned back to teasing her victim.
‘She likes to have me on a string,’ Jacob explained uneasily to Angela. ‘So much attention goes to her head.’
‘Are you serious about her?’ Angela was surprised for Tilly, though beautiful, was common as muck. He deserved better than that.
‘Serious? Like wanting to get engaged?’ he said, and nervously squeezed the hand she had not removed from his knee. ‘Oh no, milady, I just sees her sometimes, that’s all. She kind of befriended me when I first came to London and didn’t know anyone. Uncle’s not exactly a bundle of laughs.’
‘So I’ve noticed,’ she replied, becoming more and more curious about Tilly and her sloe-eyed companion. Were they shop girls out for the night or maybe secretaries working those recently invented typewriters? They seemed so confident that she was sure they were in some position of authority. Perhaps they might help her to get work.
Their appearance in the pub and that of the women who’d entered with them had exacerbated the atmosphere of licence. They downed drinks, and clearing a space on the floor shouted to the pianist to play the can-can. Four of them whirled in that mad, Paris-inspired dance, posturing, kicking their legs high and then turning their backs on the audience, whipping up their skirts and bending over, displaying their naked buttocks. The men shouted and stamped and attempted to join in. There was the overpowering smell of hops and sweat, trampled sawdust and rutting heat.
Now the men were fondling the women and they were getting to work, letting them handle their breasts and dribble beer down their cleavages, licking off the droplets. Hands disappeared under skirts, but here the whores called a halt; they did not grant favours for nothing. Several of them disappeared into dark corners, engaging in monetary transactions, or took their clients into the back yard of the inn. Tilly decided to stroll across to where Angela and Jacob sat.
He moved on the bench to make room for her. ‘Tilly, this is Angela Bayswater,’ he began. ‘I’ve told you a little about her.’
‘The ladyship,’ Tilly said, her face expressionless.
Such world-weary eyes in so young a person, Angela thought. What could have happened to make her hard? She could not avoid seeing how Tilly wound her arms round Jacob’s neck and pressed her breasts against his chest. Was this how one should behave to enslave a man? It had not been thus with Aidan. He preferred a fight and an unwilling prisoner.
‘I’m no longer privileged,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I need a job. Can you help me?’
Tilly looked surprised, her carmined lips opening and those kohl-outlined eyes becoming wider. �
�You want to work? Ain’t you got no money then? Did your pa really leave you ’igh and dry?’
‘It’s true,’ Angela sighed, while Jacob went to the bar for more drinks. ‘And the man who had promised to marry me, Lord Aidan Driscol, wasn’t interested once he knew I had no dowry.’
‘What a sod!’ Tilly said vehemently. ‘Typical bloke.’
‘He wanted to own me, to make me his slave, but I couldn’t settle for that. I intend to make something of myself, to show him that I don’t need him,’ Angela vowed, but there were tears beneath her anger.
‘Bully for you,’ Tilly said, and waved to Doreen. ‘This ’ere young lady wants a job,’ she continued when, in a flash of paste gems and a wave of pungent perfume, the gypsy-looking one strolled over.
‘Do she now?’ Doreen remarked, casting an eye over Angela. ‘What’s wrong wiv’ ’er? Why you done up in black, darlin’?
‘’Er dad croaked not long ago,’ Tilly supplied, and snatched up the glass that Jacob set before her. ‘Get one for Doreen, there’s a love,’ she said, dispatching him again.
‘Black, eh? Could catch on, I guess. There’s those pervy blokes what are into nuns or dead bodies. Or, on the other ’and, she could scrap the mournin’ and get into brighter duds, corsets and garters and stockings and all the gear what makes ’em randy.’
‘Why should I do that? I want to be a teacher, a secretary or a governess,’ Angela brought out fiercely. Two port and lemons had given her Dutch courage.
‘Oh, lah-di-dah, pardon me for breathin’,’ Doreen said nastily. ‘Then why are you talkin’ to a couple of whores like us?’
‘I didn’t know you were whores,’ Angela answered, but now it suddenly became glaringly obvious.
‘What did you think, then? That Jacob comes around to see Tilly to play cards or somethin’? He pokes ’er. Or didn’t you know?’
‘That’s enough, Doreen,’ Tilly warned. ‘If you don’t shut up I’ll bottle you. Jacob and me are friends.’
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