Kit’s profile belonged on a Greek coin, thought Jenny, with a little burst of pride. How pleased she was to be sitting here beside the handsomest man in Heathpoole in the back room of the Half Seas Over on a boisterous Friday night. She had more reason than usual to be pleased. She’d had her ben two nights before and neither Crowder nor Budge had materialized to claim her profits. Perhaps Kit’s letter had stopped them in their tracks; perhaps they had simply tired of their game. In any case, she was decidedly in a mood to please herself.
Kit’s posture was as languid as ever, but she could see his dark blue eyes moving surreptitiously beneath his long lashes, canvassing the room. They were rather well known here, by now. Perhaps he was looking for someone special.
"Am I keeping you from another engagement, darling?"
His attention snapped back to her on the instant and he grinned.
"I am only trying to guess which fortunate swain shall win your favors tonight, my dear. Although, I confess, after those interminable farces of Warendale’s ben, it mystifies me how you’ve had the stamina to come out at all. There is nothing so guaranteed to plunge one into an ill humor as an eighty-year-old farce."
"Which is why I crave some gaeity," Jenny laughed. "Especially after Violet’s wedding."
"But that was a week ago."
"And I’ve yet to purge the bitter taste of matrimony from my system," Jenny agreed. "This is the best antidote I know of."
"And who shall the fortunate fellow be . . ?" Kit began, his eyes roving again. Jenny stole another glance at him, resplendent in a soft pearl grey jacket over a delicately brocaded sapphire blue waistcoat that hugged his torso like a glove. And then her eyes met another pair drinking in the same vision. A tall youth, long-faced, dark eyes, soft reddish curls, clutching a cap in both hands, standing some little way off. He stepped closer, staring at Kit with unaffected rapture. Nothing subtle or sophisticated about him; indeed, he was rather touchingly artless.
Kit remained cool, pretending not to notice until the fellow was all but kneeling at his feet. Then Kit glanced up to wish him good evening.
"You . . . your servant, sir," the youth faltered. He remembered to give the barest nod of acknowledgement to Jenny, then returned his hungry eyes to Kit. "Might I buy you a glass of something?"
Kit gazed at him a moment longer.
"Have you a name?" His tone was austere, but Jenny could see he was amused by this untutored lad.
"Billy."
Kit glanced aside at Jenny.
Billy," he repeated, beaming at her. The boy looked stricken until Kit turned a more genuine smile on him. "Well, Billy, you must call me Kit. Won’t you join us?"
But when he was motioned to their table, Billy’s eyes darted anxiously at Jenny, then dropped to the floor. He was actually blushing.
"Oh dear, you’d better go," Jenny giggled.
"You know I would rather not leave you here, Kennett," Kit told her, stealing a sidelong glance of fascination at his ungainly suitor.
But Jenny shooed them both off. Billy was probably Kit’s age in years, as tall as Kit and slightly huskier in the shoulders, but he looked like a child next to Kit’s elegance. She was surprised when after a few minutes of conversation at the bar, the boy led Kit out into the front taproom and into the street, but she didn’t suppose poor Billy had the means for a room upstairs.
She had just turned back to her brandy when a masculine voice nearby murmured, "Pardon me."
He was a bluff, square-faced fellow with wavy brown hair that curled beneath his ears, a little mole on one cheek, and a ruffian’s smile.
“Forgive me, Miss, but it grieves me to see so ‘andsome a lady sitting all alone. Would you ever do me the very great honor of allowing me to buy you another of those?” He nodded toward her drink.
“I might be waiting for someone, sir,” said Jenny.
“I should hope you was waiting for me, Mrs. Kennett.”
Jenny’s smile faded. “I see you know my name.”
He looked discomfited for an instant, then dropped his eyes. “Are you not the famous actress, Mrs. Kennett? It’s true, Miss, I confess, I ‘ave seen you before.”
“You are a patron of the theatre, Mister . . ?”
“Marks. Ben Marks, at your service.” He made a gallant little bow, smiling again. “And I appreciates a fine performance, yes.”
Within half an hour, she was allowing Ben Marks to escort her up the interior stairway of the Half Seas Over. And up again; there must be an attic story under the eaves. The dark little corridor wound all the way to the back of the building. Evidently, Mr. Marks enjoyed his privacy. A single dim lantern burned in the middle of the corridor, barely illuminating the last door at the end. Marks paused to open it, offered Jenny another bold grin, and ushered her inside before him. But as she turned her head to speak to him, the door shut firmly behind her, plunging her into complete darkness. Her grasping fingers could not find the doorknob; disoriented, she felt along until she found of a piece of furniture for support, a dressing table, she thought, as something rustled in the dark. A lamp to one side in the little room flamed to life. And by its eerie, flickering light, she found herself gazing into the grim face of Charles Crowder.
Jenny’s hand froze to the edge of the dressing table. There was little more than the foot of a four-poster bed in the narrow room between them. She turned back toward the door, but Crowder strode over to it, blocking her path of retreat.
“What are you doing here?” Jenny commanded her voice to stay firm.
“Waiting for you. Of course, everyone in town knows what you are doing here. Strumpet.”
“Then why pursue me?” said Jenny. “Write me off as a bad bargain and have done with me, Charles. I ask nothing from you.”
“But I ask something from you.” Jenny had never once heard Crowder raise his voice, even in the most extreme emotion, and it frightened her now, as always. There was much to be said for a little healthy yelling. “Bad bargain or not, you are my wife, Madame. The mother of my child. Or have you forgotten the son you abandoned in your zeal to drag my reputation and yours into the mud? If you cannot bring yourself to be a wife to me, you might spare a thought for your motherless son.”
“I was never given a chance to mother him!” Jenny cried. “My rights as a mother ended he moment you had him snatched from my arms in my childbed! When did you ever allow me to see him, touch him, speak to him again? For all my pleading, all my heartache . . . ”
“You were ill. Frenzied,” said Crowder. “I couldn’t have the boy upset.”
“Four years!” Jenny spat back. “Four years, I tried every way I could think of to become part of his life, for his sake, certainly not for yours. And yet even the servants were coached to keep me away from him. Don’t you dare even speak to me about mothering!”
“Well. Perhaps you are right,” he said, in that too-calm voice. “A boy requires a mother. That is why I shall have you back.”
“That is where you are mistaken. It’s far too late for that.”
Crowder stared down at her from his cold eyes. “As sorry an excuse as you may be for a wife and mother, Jane, you and I are legally one. I shall not have my name or my son’s tainted with separation or divorce. Or, indeed, abandonment. You are bound to the duties of a wife and mother and I shall see you perform them. I am still your husband, in law.”
“You were never a husband to me!” Jenny might have laughed if she were not so outraged. But Crowder looked astonished.
“I gave you a very grand house, servants to command, your own carriage,” he said. “I fed you and clothed you. I gave you a name with no little dignity attached to it, which you have chosen to throw away with all the rest. I fulfilled my half of our bargain admirably. And what have I received in return? Contempt. Disgrace. It is not to be borne.” He advanced upon her a step or two. “I could chain you in my cellar or have you locked up for lunacy and be well within my rights to do so. I can hound that depraved actor your so fond of to the gallows and ruin that arrogant manager who employs you, I’ve the means and the will to do both, and do not imagine I won’t, if you refuse to be persuaded by reason, or the law, or any kind of moral decency.”
He dared to speak of decency? But he would ruin them all, she knew it, and for what? Anger warred with fear and resignation before Jenny managed to speak again.
“What is there left to take from me?” Her weary voice made it sound like a plea. “You have my marriage portion. All my former property. My fertility. My youth. My son. What more can you possibly want from me?”
“Your obedience,” he hissed.
“You shall never have that!”
The blow caught her completely by surprise, knocking her to her knees. Her eye was blinded; the next one sent her sprawling.
“Then I shall have satisfaction,” came his low voice above her, still hellishly calm. “Better a widower than a cuckold with a whore for a wife.”
She scrabbled away from a blow that glanced off her shoulder, and hunched over into a ball, protecting her head with her arms, as she always had before, waiting for it to end, lulled by the nausea of hopeless fear. But something else sparked beneath the fear, some buried spirit, a tiny voice. Her rage. “Fight back,” that’s what Tory had once told her. She had shown her how. Balance. Surprise.
In the shadows, Jenny got her feet under her. As her husband loomed over her with another drawn fist, she froze for one beat, then lurched away from the blow. With nothing to stop his fist, he stumbled forward, off-balance, and in that instant, she threw herself with all of her strength against his exposed stomach, and heard the air whoosh out of him. His weight as he stumbled against her drove her into the corner of the bed, but she grabbed the bed post and pulled herself up onto the bed before he could right himself. She was aware of his hands grasping at her boots, her skirts, as she scrambled across the bed, but she made it to the other side and lunged for the door. For an instant, she saw the look of absolute astonishment mixed with rage on his face as he struggled to heft his bulk around the bed after her, but she slammed the door shut behind her and stumbled down the corridor.
Even for a mild August night, the stone was cold and damp under Kit’s cheek and the palms of his hands. Everything was cold and damp this close to the waterfront. They were in a narrow, shadowy yard behind a neighboring shop, two high stone walls under a bit of thatch and a low back wall they’d climbed in over. For his part, Kit had never understood this romantic notion of carnality under the stars, instead of the rational comfort of a nice, warm bed. One must be very young to find this sort of thing thrilling.
But Billy’s nervous eagerness touched Kit and flattered him. This might even be the lad’s first attempt at something like this, which flattered him even more. What he lacked in finesse, he certainly made up for in intensity; Kit had rarely been groped with more urgency and desperation, as if the lad expected the hounds of hell to interrupt them at any moment and drag him off. At this moment, however, Kit was rather more aware of the hard cold stone of this wall and the indignity of his position as Billy panted and grunted behind him. But the lad had already served him very well and Kit felt too sluggish with pleasure to think of complaining. Not yet. No need to dampen the lad’s enthusiasm. There was a strangled sort of noise behind him and Kit felt bursts of hot, exhausted breath against the back of his neck.
“It’s all right, love,” Kit murmured, beginning to turn his face aside. “I’ve got all night —”
Pain exploded suddenly across his face as it was slammed into the stone wall. Kit twisted sideways against the wall, doubling over as the pain thundered in his ears, utterly dumbfounded. He sensed the heat of Billy’s presence still hovering above him as his hands rose to cover his face, but he laced his fingers together in a double fist and he burst out of his crouch and caught Billy square under the jaw, sending the lad reeling backwards out of the shadows and crashing into an empty cart.
Kit yanked up his trousers and hobbled after him to press his advantage. But when Billy disentangled himself from the cart and stumbled round to face him again, he stopped, slack-jawed, staring at Kit in the nearly full moonlight. Then he fell to his knees before Kit, and burst into tears. It was only as Kit stared down at him in amazement that he saw the blood, oily black in the moonlight, cascading down his own linen.
“I'm sorry,” Billy whimpered. “I swear I never meant . . . ”
“Never meant it? You’ve bloodied my nose!” Kit thundered.
“Why . . . that’s never Mr. Bell?” came an answering voice out of the shadows. Kit saw a figure vault over the low end of the wall and come striding toward them. In the moonlight, he recognized Mr. Delaney by his curly hair. Kit’s head was spinning as the absurdities mounted up and he fumbled at his buttons.
“Holy God, lad, what’s happened to you?” Delaney demanded, thrusting his face nearer to Kit’s. “Are you all right?”
Kit nodded, although the motion made him seasick. He angrily wiped away a fresh torrent of blood with his sleeve.
What’s this, then?” Delaney stared down at Billy.
“I didn’t mean it,” Billy wailed.
“I can only assume it was a robbery,” said Kit. “Although someone ought to explain to this puppy that successful thieves rob wealthy travelers with cash, not impoverished actors.”
“Is this true?” growled Delaney, seizing poor Billy by the scruff of the neck. “Mr. Bell is a particular friend of mine.”
“It was never a . . . a robbery,” whimpered Billy, through an outbreak of hiccups. “I was . . . paid . . to lure him outside —”
“Paid?” echoed Delaney, glancing up at Kit with a humorous glint in his eye. “Hell, I’d ‘a done it for nothing.”
“Lure me?” Kit repeated. “Why?”
“Because of the woman. To make sure you wouldn’t follow —“
“Jenny?” Kit seized Billy’s collar with both hands and dragged him to his feet. “Where is she? What have they done to her?”
“I don’t know . . . ”
“Then you’ll bloody well take me to someone who does!”
Top: Tavern at St. John’s Gate, Clerkenwel, 1720.
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