The girls were very excited at first, bouncing from window to window to see all that could be seen. But as the day wore on they became more fractious, and Prue and Charity were hard pressed to keep them amused. Not until they had finally settled all four in the big bed dominating the bedchamber of the inn where Prue had taken rooms, did she and her sister have a moment to themselves in the little sitting room next door, as they laid out the clothes for the children to wear in the morning so they could make an early start.
“We should get to bed ourselves,” Prue said. “We have another long trip tomorrow.”
Charity stopped her on the way to the door. “What did Lord Aldridge say to you, Prue?”
“He wants to help support Antonia,” Prue confided.
“You do not trust him.”
Prue met and held her sister’s eyes. “Would you? He is a wealthy nobleman, accustomed to taking what he wants.”
Charity did not answer directly. “He is not what I expected, Prue. He was… polite. And kind, I thought.”
“He has always been kind, Charity. It was his kindness that seduced me, even more than his charm. I was not armoured against it.”
“Neither of us were,” Charity agreed. “We knew so little tenderness, you and I, that when we met it, we fell easily to men who wielded it against us.”
That was true. Father had been a cruel and rigid man, with little time for any of his daughters and none at all for Prue, in whom he saw only faults to be eradicated.
Charity followed her own train of thought. “Selby, though, was only tender to me, not to anyone else we encountered. And then only until we were wed—or what passed for wed. He put on a show of good nature, Prue: I realise that now. Aldridge, I think, is not like that.”
“This is true. Aldridge is good-natured. But it costs him little, and gains him good service. He turned on me when I would not agree to be his mistress, as he wished. Though, to be fair, he still took me home to Faith.” She gave a short laugh. “He did not intend that to be cruel, and in truth, where else could I have gone? And—” she wanted to be just, “—he has apologised for his anger.”
“But you are still afraid of him, Prue. He could do a great deal for Antonia. He is a wealthy man. A nobleman, too, as you said.”
“I am not afraid of Aldridge, exactly. I am afraid of what he might expect in return for his help. I don’t want Antonia to be an outcast any more, Charity, and if people learn she is his daughter…”
Charity slipped her hand into Prue’s and squeezed it. “I am sorry, Prue.”
“Why? It is not your fault. Hope and Faith insisted on telling my story to the rector, and he told his wife, who spread it around the village. I just wish I could have put a stop to the name-calling, poor child.”
“In our next place, we shall both be widows, and we shall not even tell Hope and Faith where we are, if they cannot respect our children’s need to grow up untainted. But I meant I am sorry I judged you so harshly. I felt so moral and upright, forcing Sam… Selby to marry me before I would allow him to bed me. His lies are a judgement on me, I think, for my self-righteousness.”
Prue hugged her sister. “We shall not look back. And we will make lives for ourselves despite what men have done to us, shall we not?”
“Thanks to you, Prue. All the time I have been judging you, you have been working to keep me and my children fed and clothed. I am so sorry.” She returned the hug, and they stood for a moment, giving one another comfort, before they made their way through to the bedchamber and joined the children in the large bed.
She woke to another long day of travel, punctuated by pauses at the various post inns to change the horses and let the children stretch their legs.
Prue was coming back from an inn outhouse, bent low because Antonia’s insistent complaints about the noisome condition of the facility were voiced in whispers, when she rounded a corner and interrupted a heated conversation.
Recognising the combatants, she quickly ducked her head again. They were unlikely to connect Miss Diamond’s housekeeper to the demurely dressed gentlewoman with the pretty child, but the bonnet would make certain they did not have the opportunity.
The argument had been silenced when the antagonists realised they had company, and stepped aside to allow her and Antonia to brush past with a murmured apology.
She rounded another corner and stopped to listen, signalling Antonia to remain quiet, but the resumed conversation was too low for her to hear.
A moment later, the sound of shifting gravel sent her swiftly to her knees at Antonia’s feet to fiddle with the child’s bootlaces. They passed her, still silent, and crossed the stableyard, where Captain Talbot asked when the next coach to Bristol passed through. The woman she knew as Little Joy Fraser demanded the horses to her own coach be hurried, as she wished to be back in London before dark.
But as she reboarded her own coach, Talbot called out, “I will see you back in London, then, Jo.”