Salting the Wound (22 page)

‘Now, young man, I’ve talked to Sir Charles. What do you have to say for yourself!’

‘That I have thought it over and have come to the conclusion that I was right, but perhaps a little too outspoken.’

‘Then you’ll take on the task he offered you?’

‘Certainly not.’

His host smiled. ‘Good. That’s what I hoped you’d say. Rest assured, Sir Charles has now been persuaded that his way is not the right path to take.’

‘You assured me of that once before.’

‘It’s true that I’ve never known the man to be so headstrong, but the circumstances are exceptional. He has agreed to a proposition I’ve put to him.’

‘What has this to do with me?’

‘Sir Charles needs to see his grandson. He cannot travel at the moment. I’ve suggested that he should send you to Dorset, visit Captain Hardy and request that the boy be taken to London to see him.’

‘Why me?’

‘Because I cannot afford the time at the moment.’

Adam placed his cup in the saucer. ‘I’m sorry, but Sir Charles’s character has proved to be more devious than I first thought, and I no longer feel I can trust him. I want nothing more to do with this business, since it appears that I’m losing the detachment I usually apply to my cases.’

‘Young man, you should remember that Sir Charles has trusted you with this important event in his life. See the matter through for him, he’ll make it worth your while.’

Adam remembered Celia’s shabby gown.

‘The boy’s stepfather can come to London with him, and a compromise has been suggested. They’ll be accommodated in a hotel and the meeting will take place in Sir Charles’s home with both you and Colonel Hardy present.’

‘Couldn’t you send Colonel Hardy a letter to that effect?’

‘He’ll probably need persuading.’

‘You think he’ll allow me to persuade him when he recognizes me? I’ve already deceived him once.’

‘You have a way with you, Mr Chapman, so I’m sure he will. I liked Colonel Hardy when I met him, and sense that you’re kindred spirits.’

Adam had sensed the same in the brief moment they’d spent together, but he doubted if a friendship would be the result when Seth Hardy discovered that he’d been instrumental in the investigation. But better him than some felon who would snatch the child.

‘Yes, I’ll go, but I refuse to put any pressure on the man, and after the boy is reunited with his grandfather and I’m satisfied that all is well, that will be the end of it.

Marianne’s nausea grew worse. She went downstairs, white-faced after a particularly heavy bout.

‘Good grief,’ Charlotte said. ‘You’re as white as a ghost.’

‘Aunt Marianne was sick, like she usually is in the morning. I heard her,’ John said, innocently tearing a hole in Marianne’s flimsy charade.

Charlotte’s eyes narrowed a little. ‘You didn’t say you’d been ill, Marianne. Perhaps we should get the doctor in to examine you.’

‘There’s no need. It’s nothing. I’m feeling better.’

‘You don’t look better.’ Seth rose from the table and kissed Charlotte on the forehead. He said, ‘Don’t be long with your breakfast John, else you’ll be late for school.’

‘I’m full up.’

Marianne managed a wan smile for him. ‘It’s best if you eat it up. It will warm your stomach, so there’s a furnace inside it to keep the rest of you warm.’

Alice set a plate with a pair of smoked kippers on in front of her. ‘There you are, Miss Honeyman. Your favourite breakfast.’

Marianne’s appetite fled at the site of the smoked fish. Scraping her chair back she clapped her hand over her mouth and ran, making it out through the back door just in time. The cold, fresh air began to revive her.

She heard Seth say. ‘Shall I ask the doctor to visit?’

Charlotte’s voice, deceptively bland. ‘No. I’ll see to her. I expect she’s eaten something that’s disagreed with her.’

‘Better keep her away from the babies then.’

Waiting until she heard the horse and cart leave, Marianne went back inside. Charlotte’s calm voice hadn’t fooled her, and her sister was waiting in her bedroom.

‘Well?’ she said, her foot tapping against the floor as it always did when she was good and angry.

‘Well, what?’

‘You know damned well what. Whose child is it, or need I ask?’

She sighed. ‘It’s Nick’s.’

‘You slut. You’re as bad as our mother. Worse!’ She lashed out and her hand stung flatly against Marianne’s cheek. ‘You’re a disgrace, and you can get out.’

‘Charlotte, don’t. It’s not as bad as you think. Nick and I were married in Boston.’

‘You liar! Nick would never had married you when it was me he loved.’ This time Marianne’s other cheek bore the brunt of Charlotte’s anger.

Bursting into tears Marianne fell on to the bed ‘Stop it, Charlotte.’

‘I never thought you’d betray me like this. My own sister. God knows what Seth will say when he finds out.’

‘It’s none of his business. And it’s none of yours. I’m old enough to decide the course my own life. I love Nick.’

‘It’s our business when you’re living under our roof. Let me see your marriage certificate.’

‘Nick’s got it on board
Samarand
.’

‘A likely story. You stupid little fool, Marianne. The gossips will work overtime when they find out.’

‘If you don’t tell them they won’t know. Nick will be home in a couple of months, and we’ll get married in the church.’

‘So you’re not married.’

‘Yes . . . we are. Nick got a special licence and we went to a chapel.’ She pulled out the chain her ring was hanging on. ‘See . . . here’s my wedding ring.’ Hastily she dropped it back inside her bodice when Charlotte reached out, as though to tear it from her neck.

‘I’ll kill him when I lay eyes on him. Don’t you see, you little fool, he’s ruined you to get back at me.’

‘Nick hasn’t ruined me. You don’t own him, Charlotte, and I’ll make him forget he ever loved you.’

‘He’ll never do that.’ She began to take clothes from a drawer and throw them on the bed. She stopped at the underwear Nick had bought her and gazed at it, a sneer on her face. ‘I suppose Nick bought you this. She ripped the pantaloons apart and threw them in a corner, then picked up some scissors from the dressing table and slashed at the fabric of the corset before sending it after the pantaloons.

‘Stop it, Charlotte. I need you to help me.’

‘I am helping you.’ Clothes began to fly on to the bed. ‘There’s another bag in the hall cupboard you can have. You can fetch a sack for the rest.’

‘You’re going to throw me out, your own sister?’

‘You can go and knock on Daisy Thornton’s door and move in with them. See if Erasmus or Daisy will give you house room, since the baby you’re carrying is a Thornton bastard, you traitor.’

In the nursery the twins began to cry. ‘See what you’ve done. I’m going to feed them now, and when I come out I want you to be gone.’

‘Charlotte, you’re being irrational—’

‘Don’t you accuse me of being irrational. Get out of my sight! I hate you,’ she shrieked.

Packing her clothes as best she could Marianne picked up the two bags. The nursery door was closed as she went past.

‘Charlotte,’ she whispered against the panel, because she heard the sound of sobbing.

‘Get out, I said. And don’t come back, because the door will be closed against you.’

Marianne went downstairs and out through the front door. The house she’d grown up in seemed alien to her now. She looked up at the nursery window and saw the curtain twitch.

As she took the pale ribbon of track towards Poole tears trickled down her cheeks. She went slowly, waiting for Charlotte to have a change of heart and call her back. But her sister didn’t, and after a while she picked up speed. She realized that the only people she could turn to now were the Thorntons.

By the time she reached their home she was tired, and her shoulders ached. Her knock was answered by Erasmus Thornton. His eyes widened with surprise when he saw her standing there. His mouth formed the name Caroline then he blinked and quickly recovered. ‘It’s Miss Honeyman, isn’t it?

‘Yes, it is. I need somewhere to stay, Captain Thornton.’

His forehead furrowed into a frown. ‘Why come to me?’

What she said next obviously staggered him because his face flushed with blood. ‘Because you once loved my mother, and you owe her a debt. Besides, I couldn’t think of anyone else.’

He stared at her, hard-eyed, and began to close the door. ‘That’s in the past, and is none of your business. Go back home to your sister, girl.’

She flattened her palm against the panel and shoved her foot through the gap. ‘You don’t understand, Erasmus Thornton. I’m expecting a baby. You were kind to me at the ball and I thought you might help me. I have nobody else to help me and my sister has turned me out.’

He gave a short, unbelieving bark of laughter. ‘Am I to believe that Nick fathered the infant you’re carrying then, since I know I didn’t.’

Tears filled her eyes and she sobbed, ‘Of course Nick did. I’m his wife.’

Erasmus began to laugh. ‘Do you expect me to fall for that? Get off home with you, girl. Nick’s wife, indeed! Nick burned his fingers badly with one Honeyman female, so he’s not likely to try it a second time. I’m not providing you with a roof over your head.’

Daisy appeared behind her brother and pushed him out of the way before she opened the door wide. ‘You don’t have to provide anything. This is my house, Erasmus and I say she can stay. Take her bags. She’ll be company for me and can sleep in Nicholas’s room for now, while we get this sorted out. When he comes home we’ll hear what he has to say about this from his own lips. It’s about time he settled down.’

‘On your own head be it then, Daisy. I told you and I told him. No good ever comes of a woman stepping aboard
Samarand
. She’s a jealous mistress.’

‘Hush your superstitious nonsense, Erasmus, lest you want a good clout round the ear. You’re not on board your ship now and you don’t tell me what to do. Look at the girl, she’s as pale and trembling as a ghost. Come on in, my dear. I’ll put the kettle on and we’ll have a nice cup of tea. Take no notice of my brother. He’s all bark and no bite.’

The woman cast her brother a scowl that sent a grin scurrying over his lips, but the unexpected kindness Daisy showed towards her brought fresh tears welling to Marianne’s eyes and she gulped out, ‘Thank you. I’m sure my sister will take me back when she’s thought things through. It was a shock for her.’

Erasmus shrugged. ‘Happen she mightn’t, too. She’s always been too stubborn for her own good.’

‘There, there,’ Daisy said. ‘We’ll sort this out, just you wait and see. If that rogue has got you into trouble he can put a ring on your finger. It’s about time one of the damned fool Thornton men faced up to some responsibility.’

‘But I told you . . . we are married, and I do have a ring. Nick had bought a licence from somewhere, and we were wed in Boston in a little chapel. We spent our wedding night at a hotel run by a friend of Nick’s. A lady called Mrs Crawford. She looked like a fine lady to me, but Nick said –’ and she cast a doubtful glance at Daisy – ‘well, never mind what he said, he has the certificate, that’s all that matters.’ Erasmus could barely hold back his laughter. So she and Nick had spent their wedding night in a whorehouse, and the girl knew it? Erasmus thought. Wasn’t that just like Nick. No wonder her cheeks were as red as a rash on a baby’s backside. And no wonder the eldest girl was spitting out a firestorm over this. Nick certainly knew how to take his revenge. He’d had his fun while he was doing it, and had planted a babe inside the girl in the process, easy to do with a girl like this, so young and impressionable. A man would find it hard to control his urges with her.

At least he’d taken her to a classy house. Eyes crinkling, and finding it hard not to guffaw with laughter, Erasmus picked up her bags and kicked the door shut behind them. The marriage was something he could check up on – and he would.

Halfway up the stairs he thought fiercely: By Lucifer, the girl was so much like her mother that she’d given him a turn when he’d opened the door. It had better not have been a bogus marriage, else he’d march Nick up the aisle himself, and with a shotgun aimed squarely at his backside. Taking revenge was one thing, ruining the reputation of a young girl was another thing altogether.

The girl would need a friend to support her in the weeks to come, and there was none better than Daisy.

M
arianne hadn’t expected to like Daisy Thornton but the two women soon became fast friends.

The older woman was unconventional in her thinking, especially for a spinster, and her comments about people were pithy and to the point. She rarely went to church. Even so, the Reverend Robert Phipps called on her from time to time.

‘Damn fool, he’s Erasmus’s friend, and he’s never going to save my soul, or my brother’s, she told Marianne.

‘Don’t you want your soul to be saved?’

‘Hah! There’s nothing left of it to save. My father was a pious, hypocritical man, and he beat religion out of me instead of into me, and all before I was twelve. Erasmus too. My brother told me our souls were in our backsides, which was why our father laid his strap across it so often. Erasmus survived the beatings better because he has a hide as tough as an old wolf. We were thrashed because of Dickon’s misdeeds.’

‘Dickon?’

‘Nicholas’s father. Our half-brother from his first wife. The only time our mother was happy was when father went to sea, and I prayed that he would never come back. One day he didn’t. He died, and was buried at sea. Erasmus was learning his craft, sailing with our uncle at the time.’

‘What happened to Dickon?’

‘Dickon went bad at an early age. Drink . . . gambling, women. Dickon travelled and got into all sorts of trouble, though managing to make a small fortune for himself at the same time. He died fighting a duel over some woman.’

‘Goodness.’

When Erasmus got word of it he went to Greece and came back with Nicholas. I didn’t even know that Dickon had a child. At first, I thought he was a child Erasmus had fathered, but he wasn’t. The boy had been supported financially by Dickon, but was being treated badly by the woman’s husband and his family.’