When Hannah stood, her hand in his, she allowed Slade to tug her forward as he walked backward with sure and measured steps, stopping only when they were once again on the rose-patterned carpet. Sheets of music crunched under his boots. “You’re so beautiful, Hannah.”
Overcome with shyness, Hannah dropped her gaze to the sight of her hand held in his against his chest. Feeling she was supposed to say something back, she said, “So are you.”
Chuckling, he tipped her head up with his finger under her chin. “I am?”
She nodded, certain that the beating wings of the butterflies in her stomach were creating the heat on her cheeks. “I’ve always thought so.”
“So have I—that you’re beautiful, I mean. Not me.”
Hannah was so grateful for his softly teasing, romantic manner that she could have wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him fully. Why don’t you? He is your husband. No, she couldn’t. She didn’t dare. He is your husband. Half terrified he’d laugh at her or frown in scorn, Hannah blurted out, “I want to kiss you.”
A grin lit his face. “Then why don’t you? I am your husband.”
Shocked to hear him repeat her thoughts, Hannah’s eyes widened as she freed her hand from his and backed up a step.
Slade put out his hand, but didn’t touch her. “It’s more than all right for you to want me, Hannah. You don’t have to be ashamed of your feelings.” He grinned teasingly at her. “Did your mama tell you that only bad girls like it?”
Hannah shook her head, watching his expression sober as he heard his own words, his mention of her mother. “No. Mama told me that it was beautiful between a man and a woman”—she looked down—“when they love each other.” She looked up at Slade and suspected that he, like her, was thinking of his father and mother. And of her father and mother. “Mama told me never to be ashamed of my desires and to give myself fully to the man I love. She said nothing else in life matters … if you don’t have love.”
Slade eyed her quietly for a moment. “Words to live by. Sounds to me like your mother was a … a smart woman.”
“Yes, she was.” Hannah stepped up to him and flung her arms around his neck, claiming his mouth with all the hunger she held inside. Slade’s arms encircled her back, his mouth responded to hers. Relieved, Hannah melted against him. He could just as easily have walked away, what with her mother’s memory popping up like that. But he didn’t. And that spoke volumes.
With Slade returning her ardor, Hannah thought no more of problems between them. She instead gave herself up to the sensations that were uniquely Slade. He tasted as good as he smelled, like soap and leather and warm sunshine and bay rum and cool breezes and musky male. Breathing deeply of him, Hannah tried to press herself more fully against him, wanting his delicious length from lips to toes imprinted with her desire. And with her claim on him.
When she broke her kiss and pulled back, resting her hands on his so-broad shoulders, and looked up into his eyes, she saw herself mirrored in their black depths. And knew she loved him. Now and forever. But before she could say what was in her heart, before she could decide if she would or could say the words, Slade spoke first.
“Hannah, my sweet, I want to see you as God made you.”
She swallowed her words of love in a gulp. “What if you don’t like how He made me?”
Laughing, Slade pulled her to him, placing a smooching kiss on her forehead. “I’ll love how He made you. I swear it.”
“You will?” Her words were as breathless as her emotions. She then looked around them. “Are we—are we going to … do it here?”
He nodded lazily, moving his hands to her hair and loosening the combs. “A bed in a darkened room is but one place for making love.” As her long curls fell, he lay her hairpins and ornaments on the piano and then ran his fingers through the dark tresses.
They were making love. Hannah watched Slade enjoying her hair. Her scalp tingled with the warm pressure of his touch. Making love. She liked that—the notion that two people could meet and make a love that hadn’t existed before. Did he mean all that when he said it? Hannah ran her gaze over his handsome face. His features seemed to be lit with a wondrous something deep inside him. Was it love?
She suspended thought when Slade stepped back and ran his gaze over her, as if assessing how she looked with her hair down. Speaking in a soft, husky drawl, and touching her nowhere, his voice alone inflamed her senses. “The first time I saw you—at the depot—I couldn’t take my eyes off you. You looked so afraid, so innocent. Right then I wanted to take you in my arms and love you.”
Thrilling to his impressions of her, Hannah mutely watched the play of emotions over his face as he told her more about herself. But even more about himself … if he only knew it.
“You’re so elegant, Hannah. Your face, the way you walk, the way you sit. Even your smile. You’re like that harp over there, all slender lines and graceful form. A pleasure simply to stand back and behold. And yet”—his expression changed to quizzical—“you draw me to you. How do you do that?”
“I don’t.…” The words dried up as she shook her head and kept her eyes on his mouth.
A soft chuckle greeted her befuddlement. “It doesn’t matter. But looking at you will never be enough for me. I have to touch you. Like playing that harp, I want my body wrapped around yours, I want you to be one with me. I want to coax from you a harmony that only you and I in all the world can create.”
Breathing shallowly now, Hannah knew she was undone. Her hair, her blouse, her desire. With a seeming will of their own, her eyes closed and her mouth opened slightly. His feather-soft touch, so unexpected, on her arms, her face, her neck, nearly sent Hannah to the floor. He continued to caress her with his whispers of her beauty and to remove her clothing, even helping her out of her thin slippers.
Not once, not until the only thing covering her nakedness was her chemise, did he touch her with anything but his trailing fingers. Until finally, through the thin fabric, she felt a hot moistness close over her nipple. A jolt of needle-sharp desire jerked her body. She opened her eyes to see Slade down on one knee in front of her. He released her nipple to lay his head between her breasts and to wrap his arms around her hips. “You are exquisite, my love.”
Hannah’s knees crumpled. Slade shifted his weight, drawing her down to him, down amongst the ivory sheets of scattered music. He brushed some away, but a few sheets remained, like petals from a huge flower. Hannah watched Slade drink his fill of her as he tugged his shirttail out of his pants. She pulled herself up on an elbow and reached out a hand, stopping his movements. “Let me. You said we’d undress each other.”
Slade smiled down at her and let go of his shirt. “You’re right. But hurry.”
Frowning, cutting her gaze to the closed panel doors, Hannah quickly sat up and began trying to wrench his shirt over his head.
Slade laughed and stopped her hands. “No one will come in. I just meant you—” The first look of uncertainty she’d ever seen on his face clouded across his brow and at the edges of his mouth. “Well, here—to put a fine point on it—I’ll show you.” With no further ado, he took her hand and placed it against the hard length encased in his breeches.
In a blazing agony of maidenly embarrassment, Hannah froze, her eyes widening. She stared at his hand holding her hand over … him. Wetting her lips with the tip of her tongue, she looked up to his face. Slade smiled and slowly raised her hand to his mouth. He kissed her fingers, her palm, the inside of her wrist. Delicate little tendrils of desire danced up her arm. “I’ll hurry,” she breathed.
Slade raised his head, letting her tug her hand out of his. “Good.”
Hannah hurried. Slade helped her. In a flash, his white ruffle-fronted shirt was unlaced halfway down his chest. Hannah caught her breath when he crossed his arms at his waist and drew the shirt over his head. The finely toned, powerful muscles rippling over his large-boned frame, the crisp black hair on his chest, his tautly stretched skin, his dark brown, flat nipples. She was right—he was beautiful, only she hadn’t known until now just how beautiful.
When he threw the shirt aside and sat on the carpet to tug his boots off, Hannah grabbed for the toe and heel and pulled with all her might. The boot came off more readily than she expected, setting her hard on her bottom and promptly onto her back. Lying there, clutching Slade’s boot to her chest, she laughed with him when he crawled up to her and drew her to a sitting position.
“I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I’ll get the other one.” And he did. With blinding speed. So, bootless, sockless, and shirtless now, he stood. Staring down at Hannah, holding her gaze, he began unfastening his pants.
Hannah dropped her gaze from his smoldering black eyes to his busy hands and … hard length. Wonder filled her that she could produce this … grand effect on him. Slade’s hands stilled at the last button. Hannah snapped her gaze up at his face. He smiled, kept his pants on, and lowered himself to sit facing her, his legs stretched out alongside her. “Sweet Hannah.”
He reached out to cup her nape in his hand and draw her to him for a kiss. With practiced motions and soft caresses, Slade inflamed her desire again. Hannah heard soft moans, knew they were hers, suddenly realized she was lying full-out on the carpet, and Slade’s muscled warmness was beside her and yet hovering over her. He put an arm under her head, cascading her hair over it and the carpet, and then cradled her to him.
Leaning into her, covering her legs with his muscled thigh, he edged her even nearer with his calf and foot. His other hand found her breast, cupped it, swirled the tender nipple, and then went exploring down her quivering belly. With each new sensation, Hannah gasped, making low guttural sounds she’d never made before. Slade moved his leg off her so he could trail his hand down her thigh to gather up her chemise’s hem and draw it up, up ahead of his smoothing hand, over her thighs and belly. Only there did he stop.
At the same time he claimed her mouth, his hand urged her thighs apart and then claimed her womanhood. Hannah jerked, breathing in equal doses of shock and shooting stars when his fingers found her bud and stroked it softly. The heel of his hand gently kneaded her woman’s mound, until a moment later when his fingers splayed the folds of her innermost self. Hannah stiffened, dragged her mouth from his, turned her head. “No. I can’t.”
Slade kissed her jaw, nipped at her earlobe, moved his hand up onto her belly. “You’re just scared. I won’t do anything until you tell me to. But don’t tell me with words. Tell me with your body.”
Hannah opened her eyes, blinked, looked up at him. Saw his gentle smile. And saw the desire-inflamed edge to that smile. She wanted him so desperately. “But how will I know?”
His wide, white grin turned into a chuckle as he tilted his head back and shook it. “Ahh, virgins.” With a lock of black hair falling across his forehead, he looked back down at her. “You’ll know by touching me.”
Hannah narrowed her eyes and looked askance at him.
Slade laughed again. “You believe nothing I tell you, do you? Here, give me your hand. No, not there again—I promise. See? Now, with your hand on my heart, I swear to you that you will know … by touching me.” He then pressed her palm to his heart and held it there.
Smitten now with the warm, hard-yet-yielding feel of him, Hannah raised her wondering eyes to his face. “I can feel your heart beating.” Impulsively she laid her ear to his chest and listened. As she did, its pace quickened. She pulled back and looked into his eyes.
The devil grinned like one. “I told you so.” Then with maudlin emotion, he clutched at her hand, gushing, “My heart beats for you, Hannah. Only you. For all of eternity.”
Giggling, Hannah wrenched her hand out from under his and smacked at his powerful chest. “Now, you’re making fun of me.”
“I’m mortally wounded.” He pantomimed being shot in the heart and fell over backward, lying still, eyes closed, head lolling, arms and legs flung out.
Screeching in humor, Hannah scrambled up and flopped on top of him, whooshing more than a little air out of him. He jerked his head and knees up reflexively, catching Hannah in the middle of him. With one deft roll, he was again lying on top of her, supported by his elbows, and grinning down at her. “That backfired, didn’t it, miss?”
Still playing, Hannah bucked her hips against his. And knew instantly the teasing game was over. She sobered right along with him and felt her expression changing, warming … right along with his. With tentative motions, knowing he watched her, she reached up, smoothing her hands over his powerful arms, up across his shoulders, down around his chest, and then under and around to his back. Her fingers curled into loving claws and scratched lightly over his skin.
Slade’s muscles quivered under her touch. And no small degree of holding back. Hannah knew that. Even in her inexperience, she knew that. When he lowered his head, resting his forehead against her shoulder, Hannah lifted her hips again, grinding them in a slow circle. Slade raised his head, breathing shallowly, raggedly. He sucked in a breath through his flared nostrils and stared down at her, a question in his passion-glittered eyes.
Suddenly, Hannah knew the terrible responsibility of being a woman. She’d brought this powerful and feared man, this handsome and virile male to the brink. And she’d done it with no more than a look, a touch, a kiss. She held his heart, everything he was or ever could be, in her hands. She could uplift him. Or she could destroy him. And by marrying her, he’d given her that power. Only her. In all the world.
Blinking back sudden tears, her chin trembling for all that she felt, for all that she now owned, Hannah moved her hand from his back and slipped it around to cup his cheek. Her voice no more than a whisper, she confessed, “I love you, Slade. I give myself to you.”
Slade stared at her for an eternal second and then, as if he’d lost control, grabbed her to him and held her so tightly she feared she’d break. No longer so carefully tender, his hands moved over her in a fevered state of smoothing and kneading. He left no inch of her untouched. Hannah’s heart beat faster, passion intermingling with a little fear. What had she unleashed? But it was a fleeting thought as Slade swept her along on their time-hazed, sensual journey.
Hannah slowly became aware that she was out of her chemise and that her bare skin was touching Slade’s bare skin. All of it. When—? She hadn’t felt or … seen a thing. But it didn’t matter. Because Slade was now ensconced in the saddle of her hips and pushing gently against her maidenhead while he stoked her passion with kiss after kiss. He reared back enough to rake his hand down her belly and stroke her bud to the point of madness.
Hannah tossed her head from side to side, overcome, breached, wanting … something. She couldn’t name it, couldn’t convey it. She pulled passionately, impatiently at his shoulders, wanting him to … do something.
And Slade did. He slipped down her length until he could capture her nipple. Hannah cried out, arching her back. Thus encouraged, Slade gripped her about her waist and suckled the bud to an aroused peak. Grimacing, gasping, Hannah clutched handfuls of his hair and called out his name.
Slade answered her in gruff syllables, speaking in a loving language of rough words. He kissed and mouthed his way over to her other breast, giving it the same attention. Hannah’s legs jerked in response. She could barely stand the swirling, rippling spasms in her womb. She wanted them to stop. And to go on forever. “Slade, please!”
The cry rang out in the room’s silence. Slade immediately pulled himself up and over her again, holding his weight off her with his elbows. Capturing her tossing head in his hands, he forced her to look at him. “This will hurt, Hannah. Not because I want it to, but because it’s your first time. It will only hurt a moment. And then it will never hurt again.”
Why was the man talking? She didn’t want words. She wanted him. Then, suddenly she knew—she wanted him inside her. “Please,” she begged again, completely worn out with desire.
Slade kissed her gently, briefly. “All right, my love.” And then lowered himself onto her. He helped her get her legs positioned right, wrapping them around his hips. He then began edging into her. Hannah stilled for a moment, staring wide-eyed at Slade. He kissed the tip of her nose and pushed in a little farther. Hannah instinctively thrust into his push, surprised at the wonderful feel of him slipping smoothly along her slickness.
“Easy. Let me this time, okay?”
Hannah nodded, feeling his muscles tense and gather, readying. Slade claimed her mouth in a dizzying kiss. Hannah forgot about what was going on at her hips … until Slade thrust fully into her. A searing tear stilled her, stopped her breathing. Slade stilled, too, whispering into her ear, “I’ll wait for you, Hannah. Tell me when you’re ready. Tell me with your body.”
Gooseflesh raced over her naked skin. His voice was the most sensual thing about him. He lay ensheathed, arching over her, kissing her cheek, her jaw, her forehead. He smoothed her hair out of her face. And waited. Hannah loved him all the more for his care of her. She concentrated on the pulsing hardness inside her and shifted the slightest bit under him. Slade’s breath caught, exhaled on a ragged cry. Hannah frowned in curiosity … and did it again.
Slade jerked, clutching at her. “You’re killing me, Hannah.”
Hannah grinned. This … loving between them was what she wanted. All along, this was what she wanted. Happy tears welled and then spilled down her face. She grabbed Slade around his muscled neck and locked her ankles around his hips. And thrust her hips up and into him. It didn’t hurt. It didn’t hurt at all.
And that was all the notice Slade needed. He gently rocked her with him until they found their pace, until they put their own rhythm to their sensual dance.
If Hannah thought this act would relieve the coiled tension in her belly that his lips and hands had wrought, then she now knew she was mistaken. His thrusting into her only wound the band tighter, only rubbed her bud to an agonizingly tender, stingingly hot pitch.
The harder Slade drove into her, the harder she wanted him to. The more fevered his thrusts, the more she scratched at his back, clutched at his shoulders and arms and called out his name. Suddenly, she could take no more. She’d beg him to quit—
The dam exploded. The pent-up, sizzling heat rushed in rippling waves out from her core to freeze her in place, to lock her muscles as she desperately held on to him. Her toes curled, the back of her mouth felt dry, her head and back arched up off the carpet, and she breathed in gasping cries.
When she feared she would faint from the pleasure, Slade tensed over her, held himself rigid as he thrust to the hilt into her. The muscles in his neck corded. His eyelids fluttered as he grimaced and then cried out. Her name. He cried out her name. And remained poised over her. Then, he collapsed on top of her.
Slick with loving sweat, breathing in gasps, weak of limb, Hannah lay spread-eagled under him, completely satiated. She stared up at the vaulted ceiling, blinked, focused … and frowned. She hadn’t noticed before now that there was a fresco of heavenly cherubs up there. Well, neither had she lain on her back in this room before.
Slade brought her attention back to the floor when he lifted himself and rolled off her. With the rush of cool air over her nakedness came the awkwardness. What did she do now? Dress? Lie there like a hussy?
Slade answered her by pulling her to him. He lay on his side, raised up on his elbow. She lay next to him on her back, her knees bent. He then surprised her by reaching around him to produce his shirt and hand it to her. “Here. You’ll need to clean yourself up.”
Hannah took the shirt, looking in confusion at him.
“There’s blood the first time, Hannah. There’s some on the carpet there, too. We’ll have to get that up next.”
Hannah jerked on her side, putting her back to him. There, on the ivory-colored fibers, was a bloodstain. Why couldn’t it have been on one of the rose petals in the pattern? Mortified, she bit at her lip and tugged his shirt down between her legs and wiped away more evidence. It was awful being a woman.
Slade moved behind her, kissing her arm and pulling her over on her back. He caressed her belly, and then very casually took his shirt from her and tossed it away from them. He smiled tenderly down at her. “Are you all right?”
Belatedly self-conscious, Hannah covered her breasts with her hands, crossed her legs, and focused on her dangling foot. “I was until you asked me that.” Then, wagging her chin up a notch, she looked up at him. “Are you?”
Slade gawked wide-eyed at her and then flipped over on his back, laughing heartily, lying nakedly glorious and spread-eagled, half under the piano. “Hell, I’ve never been better. But then, I’m not the one who just lost my virginity.”
Hannah, still on her back, uncrossed her legs so she could kick at his leg with her bare toes. “You’re a smug devil now, aren’t you?”
Slade rolled back to her and playfully smacked her thigh. “Come on. We need to get dressed. Isabel and the rest will be frozen to death out in the cabin by now.” He gripped the piano’s edge and pulled himself up, already looking around him for his clothes.
But Hannah lay there, stunned, her mouth open. She grabbed at his ankle, capturing his attention. He raised his eyebrows in question. Hannah blinked two or three times, having now her first bald view, and a snail’s-eye view it was, of his … maleness. Forcing her attention back to his now clearly amused expression, she ignored the suffusing heat on her cheeks and used her embarrassment to fuel her disbelief. “The cabin, Slade? The cabin? That little one out back? You mean to tell me that Isabel and Pemberton and Sera—”
He cut her off. “Serafina and Rowena and all the other chambermaids and Mrs. Edgars and her kitchen help are out in the cabin. I told you, you scared them. They fled the house, refusing to come back inside until I calmed you down.”
Hannah jerked to a sitting position, bracing her hands behind her on the carpet. “But I thought you were just … just exaggerating! Oh, the poor dears! They’ll catch their deaths.” She rounded on Slade, smacking his calf—hard. “How could you?”
“How could I? I’m not the one who—”
“Don’t say it! And help me up.” Hannah raised her hand to him. The diamond flashed in the late afternoon light.
They both stared at it for a moment, as if the reality and the finality of their act was just then coming home to roost. Hannah’s gaze met Slade’s at the exact moment he looked at her. An unspoken truth passed between them—what was done, was done. Their lives were now inextricably entwined. From here on out, they’d have to find their way together.
As if confirming that, Slade took her hand and effortlessly pulled her to her feet. “I’ll scrub out the stain with my shirt and go get a clean one. You get dressed. Just leave your hair down—I like it better that way, anyway. And put on only what you need—forget that bustle and corset. You don’t need them.”
Hannah nodded, silently storing away his compliments and noting how he liked to see her. Going in search of her chemise, she turned away from him, but took only two steps before he burst out laughing. She jerked back around in time to see him sit down abruptly on the piano’s ivory keys, his buttocks striking very discordant notes. One arm was wrapped around his lean and muscular middle, but his other hand was pointed directly at her.
All of Hannah’s insecurities burst to the fore. Had what happened here between them been one big joke on her? Or did he find her God-given body funny after all? More than a little hurt, Hannah froze. “What is so funny?”
He wagged his pointing hand at her, laughing and crying out, “Come here, my sweet.”
“I will not.” Hannah raised her Lawless chin and drew her hair around her, over her nakedness.
Slade tried to sober up, but he took another look at her, and wilted into a belly laugh again.
That did it. Decorum be damned. Hannah stalked over to him and shook a finger threateningly at him. “If you don’t tell me this instant—”
Slade jerked her around and ripped something from off her buttocks. Hannah squealed out at the stinging bite, put a hand to the offended area, and twisted in his grip. “What is that?”
Slade relaxed his jaw and stretched his face muscles, trying to focus around his happy tears. “Let’s see. Why, it’s a piece of sheet music.” Grinning like a Cheshire cat, he handed it to her. “Look at our song.”
Half afraid to, Hannah nevertheless snatched the paper from him and looked at the title. And wanted to die when she read “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen.”
* * *
Samuel Rigby ducked into the narrow alley next to the West End tenement. The young driver-turned-spy stepped gingerly over the noxious debris in his way. Kicking aside a broken chair, he took up his place against the wall and out of the sunlight. He then reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a pad of paper and a bit of pencil. Leaning toward the daylight, he turned to a clean page, flipping past his notes from the past four days of following Olivia.
Around the corner, a door closed with a bang. Rigby’s head came up. Sounded like the first floor—where Olivia’s mother’s apartment was. If the two rooms could be called an apartment. Pocketing his notepad and pencil, he sidled up to the front corner of the weathered-wood building. He peeked around the corner and jerked back, flattening himself against the wall. Olivia was walking down the two sagging steps of the landing. In her arms was her blanket-wrapped baby.
She was coming this way. Rigby stepped back farther into the shadows, accidentally kicking a stray cat. The tabby jumped straight up, shrieking in outrage. Rigby heard Olivia gasp. He mouthed a curse as the mangy creature flew like an arrow out of the alley and across the buckled walkway right in front of Olivia. Rigby held his breath. If she looked in the alley, all would be lost.
“Stupid cat!” Olivia called after it. Then her voice lowered, became soothing when the baby coughed hoarsely and fussed. “Shh now, Colette. Mama’s right here. It was just a cat. No need to fret. There’s my big girl.”
Rigby heard her words accompanying her feet right past where he hid. He slumped in relief. But in a way, he wished she had seen him, because he’d like to confront her and maybe convince her to let him help her. He missed her chattering and smiles and airy ways about the old place. But he’d no sooner thought it than he frowned and shook his head. When would he ever learn? She was a lady’s maid. Much too good for the likes of him.
Sighing, he pulled out his notes again as he peeked around the building’s corner, checked to be sure she’d walked on, and then stepped into the daylight. Flipping through the pad, he found the blank page and made his new entry. He then looked up to Olivia’s retreating back. If she turned right at that next corner, then she was taking the little one to the doctor’s office in the next block.
Then, that meant that her old mother was alone. Rigby’d been dogging Olivia long enough to determine that, mother though she was, she was wife to no one. And apparently her father was dead or just gone, either way leaving her and her mother alone. A shudder seized him when he thought about the crippled old woman alone with the baby on the days when Olivia worked.
Rigby scratched thoughtfully at his neck, wondering what Mr. Garrett would say if he knew about Olivia being mother to the little babe, her not being married and all. You couldn’t tell with these Brahmin—who may boot you out for daring to have a care outside of their whims. No, Mr. Garrett wasn’t that sort. Hadn’t he allowed her to come with no threat to her position? True. But too, Himself’d charged him with following Olivia to see if the reason she asked off so suddenly was because she had suspicious doings with her former employer. Rigby now knew nothing could be further from the truth.
He watched Olivia turn right at the next corner. Ah, the doctor’s. He wrote that in his pad and then pocketed it. Having added protector to his assigned role as spy, Rigby made up his mind. He’d speak right now with Himself regarding Olivia’s troubles. Mr. Garrett was a fair man. And the new missus seemed to care about Olivia. Hadn’t she as much as spirited the maid away with her when she left Cloister Point?
That settled it. He was right to speak up. The sweet girl needed help. And he would get it for her. Maybe then she’d look kindly on him. A smile wreathed Rigby’s Irish good looks as he sprinted across the narrow street. For two blocks, he dodged carriages and pedestrians to where he’d hitched his horse. Then, his feet slowed. Damn the lad! The roan and the street urchin to whom he’d given a coin to look after it were nowhere in sight.
* * *
Turning right at the corner, stepping around the other people crowding the walkway with her, Olivia walked briskly, frowning in worry as she tuned her mother’s ear to Colette’s coughing. Rattling carriages and yelling children made it hard to hear, but she believed Colette sounded better.
Olivia reassured herself by recalling the cheerful Dr. Rowe. Such a good man to hold a free clinic two afternoons a week here in the West End. He’d reassured her that Colette had a common chest congestion of the sort to afflict babies at this time of year. But still, Olivia couldn’t help but be scared. Mum and Colette were all she had. And Mum was on her last leg.
Olivia bit at her lip, trying not to worry. One thing at a time. With her new wages—she sent up a prayer for Mr. Garrett and his generosity—she ought to be able to move Mum and Colette into something a little more respectable. But to get her wages, she’d have to go back to Woodbridge Pond. Which meant leaving Mum with a nine-month-old to care for, and her with her crippled-up legs.
Almost beset with tears, Olivia forced a cheerfulness on herself as she shifted her daughter’s weight in her arms and bounced her playfully. “There, now, sweetling. Perhaps we can give Dr. Rowe a good report this afternoon.” She hugged the brown-eyed, chubby child to her breast. “We’ll get through this, Colette. I swear we will.”
Just then, someone bumped her from behind. She clutched reflexively at Colette as she stumbled forward a step. Regaining her footing, Olivia spun around, already sounding her protest. “Here now, watch yourself. Can’t you see I have—?”
The words died in her throat as a jet of fear lanced through her and held her immobile. Jostling people brushed by, cursing her for being in the way. But she had wide, unblinking eyes only for the hated man she faced.
“Were you going to say … you have a baby? But then, I already knew that, didn’t I?” He reached out to stroke the babe’s cheek. “And a lovely girl she is. May I hold her? I promise to give her right back.”
Mutely, Olivia shook her head and backed up a step. She’d die before she’d hand Colette over to Mr. Wilton-Humes.