Once in a Blue Moon (37 page)

He leaned over to brush a kiss past her mouth, so light and fast she barely felt it. Until afterward, and even then it was but the lingering trace of a memory on her lips.

"I love you," she said. But by then she was speaking to an empty room.

Pale arms groped through the iron bars. Dirt black hands clawed at the air. Jessalyn bit back a scream, stepping out of reach. The face that peered down at her was hidden by a tangle of white beard. Black eyes burned, looking slightly mad.

But the voice that spoke was sane, educated. "You wouldn't perchance have a penny to spare a poor debtor, child? Nay, even a farthing to ease the lot of a benighted soul, condemned by a cruel vagary of fate to this hell upon earth."

Jessalyn fumbled in the bottom of her reticule until her fingers felt a half crown. She tossed the coin through the bars, rather than put it into the man's hands. With a cackle of glee, he disappeared after it.

She hurried across Fleet Market, but she could not help looking back over her shoulder. She felt mean for having treated the poor wretch as something less than human, but he'd had the look and stink about him of gaol fever.

Hell upon earth.

Fleet Prison. Massive walls, pitted and black with soot, looming out of the yellow fog. Somber walls, unrelieved by the small iron-barred windows of its crowded, vermin-ridden cells. Such would be McCady Trelawny's fate if she failed in her plan to save him.

At first it had been only a half-formed idea. But with every rattling mile of the mail coach ride to London; with every dawn hour spent in torchlit yards, bolting down mugs of ale and treacle; with every village passed, horses' hooves clattering on stone and the echo of the postboy's horn in the air, the idea had coalesced into a resolution. She would find a way to save him.

Still she could not shake off her grandmother's warning, given that morning, the morning McCady had left her.

She had found Lady Letty sitting up in bed, wearing a voluminous cap decorated with love knots and ribbons, and caught in the act of hiding a snuffbox beneath the sheets.

Leave it to Gram to have already borrowed or stolen a box from someone, since the few she'd had with her here in Cornwall had all been lost in the fire. Luckily, the bulk of her precious collection was still safe in the London town house.

"Gram, you are incorrigible," Jessalyn scolded. "You know what the doctor said about indulging in that bad habit, a woman of your age."

Lady Letty's snort ended with a sneeze.
"Living
is a bad habit for a woman of my age."

Jessalyn sat on the lemon-striped chintz bedspread, picking up the old woman's hand. "You must concentrate on getting well. You'll want to be strong enough to make the journey to Epsom next month for the Derby."

She looked up to find her grandmother's tin gray eyes intent on her face. "So he made a woman of you last night, did he?"

Jessalyn's cheeks burned, and her gaze dropped to her lap. Does it show that badly? she wondered. Had he left a mark on her like a lingering illness? A fever in the eyes, a weakness of the heart. Bright sunlight streamed through the windows, but at the moment she longed for some obscuring Cornish fog.

"Ha! At least you can still blush. He'll wed you now, gel, or I'll see him in hell."

Jessalyn said nothing. She could hardly tell her grandmother that far from marrying her, he was even now refusing to have her as his mistress.

Lady Letty pushed herself farther up the mound of pillows, dusting brown powder off her bodice. "You'll do well with Caerhays. They say rakes make the best husbands, know how to pleasure a woman. Lord knows your grandfather did." She reached beneath the sheets, pulling out the snuffbox. She rubbed the lid with her finger, a faraway look misting her eyes. "He loved me, the addlepated fool. Though he never thought to say the words—not once, till he lay dying. Nearly killed him then myself for waiting so long. Men never know whether they're thinking with their heads or their cocks."

"Gram!"

Lady Letty snorted a laugh. "In my day we knew all the words and used em, too. So how was he, eh? Did he bed you well? He's always looked at you as if he wanted to devour you. I 'spect last night he did."

Jessalyn's blush deepened. She struggled to gather her scattered wits, bringing up the original purpose of her visit. "Gram, I must go to London."

A crafty look stole into the old woman's eyes. "Chasing after him, are you? I'll countenance your going only if you take Becka with you. Appearances, gel. And though it might be shutting the paddock gate after the horse has bolted, you are to give me your word you'll stay out of his bed till he meets you at the altar."

"I am not chasing after him. He isn't even to know I've gone. And I will not leave you here alone—"

"Caerhays's housekeeper can look after me. We get along. She grew up next to the slag heaps just like myself." Her gnarled, mottled hand reached out to cover Jessalyn's slender pale one. "He's dished up proper, isn't he? That's why he won't marry you. He's given up, and so you think there's nothing for it but to save him yourself."

Jessalyn sighed. There was no hiding anything from Gram. "I'm going to try," she said.

Lady Letty grunted. "Have a care in the saving of him, mind, that you don't damage his man's pride in the process. He'll not forgive you that."

... take care he never finds out.

Jessalyn turned her back on Fleet Prison. She pulled her cottage cloak more tightly around her throat, dug her hands deep into her fox fur muff, and bent into the wind. The fog was frozen and heavy, smelling fouler than a tannery. It was weather more suited to January than April.

She walked past brick houses garbed in soot and packed together like books on a shelf. Past shops selling bootlaces and tea trays. Past smells of boiled cabbage and roast potatoes.

The direction she was searching for turned out to be a seedy warehouse by the river that smelled of hemp and tea. It butted up against a gin shop, whose open door spilled raucous laughter and tobacco smoke into the chill air. Something stirred beneath the stoop, and Jessalyn pulled back her skirts, expecting a rat. Then she saw a woman crouched there, holding a screaming baby in an egg crate lined with straw. She watched in shock and horror as the woman filled a sugar-tit from a gin jug and stuck it in the baby's mouth.

Her stomach spasmed with nerves. An iron grille covered the warehouse's single window, and the black paint on the door was peeling. If it weren't for a small plaque etched with the words
Tiltwell Enterprises,
she would have doubted she had the right place. She hesitated a moment, debating whether to knock, then pushed down the door latch and entered a small dim room.

A row of clerks perched on stools facing the wall, quills waving madly in the air as they scribbled. It was as cold in the room as it was outside. The men all had potato sacks wrapped like shawls over their patched coats, and the fingers poking out of their ratty mittens looked blue.

One of the men creaked to his feet and came to greet her. He wiped his sleeve across his dripping nose. It was red and round, like a copper knob. "I would like to speak to Mr. Tiltwell, if you please," Jessalyn said, her breath wreathing around her face in tiny white puffs.

The clerk peered at her through a pair of horn spectacles, greasy with thumb prints. "He's out just now. Collecting the rents."

"Then I shall await his return."

The clerk snuffled a sneeze into his neckcloth and motioned for her to follow him.

The room he showed her to was somewhat warmer, for a small coal fire burned in the grate. It was sparsely furnished with a few battered cabinets, a wooden coat-tree, and a plain dark oak desk. The walls were hung with shabby paper, broken only by a single dirt-streaked window. It looked out on a dark courtyard that was empty except for a soggy ash heap and a rusty water pump.

A few moments later Jessalyn heard voices. Clarence's, the clerk's, and another, deeper voice with rough country accents.

The door opened, and Clarence entered, bringing the chill and smell of fog into the room. He looked splendid, tall and handsome in a merino greatcoat and top hat. Yet the sight of him did not make her legs tremble or her stomach tingle, and the ache in her heart came from sadness, not yearning.

He flashed a gap-toothed smile, and his bottle green eyes lit up at sight of her. "Jessalyn, what a pleasant surprise!" He removed his fur-lined gloves, slapping his hands together. "Brr. It's a mortal cold day out."

"And your clerks are starved with it. Really, Clarence, I cannot believe you're such a nipcheese that you won't provide those poor men with a fire."

"A little chill in the air keeps them on their toes. It takes hard work, Jessalyn, to get where I've come," he said even as he tipped some more coal onto his own fire. He straightened and looked around the room, as if seeing it for the first time. "Where is your footman? Surely you didn't come here on your own."

"I haven't a footman, Clarence. You know that."

"Your abigail then. You should have at least brought that girl with you, the one with the hideous scar."

"Becka isn't well. She says she has a gouty pain in her head. Really, Clarence," she snapped, her nerves making her irritable with him, "I did not come here for you to read me a lecture."

Clarence shrugged out of his greatcoat, which he hung on the wooden tree. Although it had only been a couple of months since she'd last seen him, he looked changed. He was wearing his hair different, brushed up to give its growing sparsity more fullness. And there was an odd tightness about his mouth.

"I am sorry to scold you," he said as he came up to her. "You know it is only my deep regard for you that—" He had started to raise her fingers to his lips, and now a look of surprise crossed his face. He turned her hand over to examine her palm. "Whatever have you done to yourself? These look like burns."

She curled her fingers over the scabbed pads. The blisters were healing, but they still pained her too much to wear gloves. "End Cottage caught fire. Gram and I were fortunate to get out alive."

"You were
in
the house at the time. But—" He cut himself off. Distress had darkened his eyes to the color of stone moss, and Jessalyn felt touched by his concern.

She removed her hand from his clasp and went to the window. There was a man in the yard, bent over the trough, sloughing water over his head. For a brief moment, as he straightened, he turned, and Jessalyn saw a pitted, jowly face beneath shaggy, dripping hair. Then the man spun around and walked off, disappearing through a door in the mews.

Jessalyn stiffened, sure that—but no... Dear life, since the fire it seemed that everywhere she looked she saw the face of Jacky Stout.

She turned from the window. Clarence was watching her, a frown drawing a crease between his brows. "I must say, Jessalyn, you look fair done up. Has something happened?"

"Clarence, I..." She gripped her hands behind her back and forced herself to meet his eyes. "I have come to tell you that it is impossible for me to be your wife."

He held himself very still. Then his breath left him in a gentle sigh. "I see. And what has made it impossible?"

"Oh, Clarence. I tried once to tell you... I am fond of you, you are a dear, dear friend, but I simply don't love you in that way. And I understand now that I never shall."

"You will forgive me if I do not share your certainty. I had hoped that with time—"

"Clarence, I shan't marry you. Ever."

He squeezed the bridge of his nose between two fingers, his eyes wincing shut. Then he flung back his head and swung away from her, his fists clenched at his sides. The room grew so quiet she could hear drunken singing coming from the gin shop next door. Jessalyn's teeth sank into her lower lip as she stared at his stiff back. As hard as that had been, this next part was going to be even worse.

She sucked in a deep breath, as if she could draw courage from the air. "I know that it is very bad form of me to turn down your offer and then beg a boon in return, but..." She swallowed around a terrible dryness in her mouth. Dear life, but this was cutting at her pride like a whiplash. "But I find myself in somewhat straitened circumstances. Clarence, I—I wonder if I might apply to you for a loan."

His fists unclenched, and he coughed. He walked away from her, toward the desk. He hitched his hip onto one corner and looked down at his clasped hands. His face was as white as the bleached linen of his shirt. "How—" His voice broke, and he had to stop to clear his throat. "How much do you need?"

Jessalyn's fingers were trying to twist knots in her skirt. "Ten—ten thousand pounds. I'm afraid I've little to give you as collateral. The Adelphi house is mortgaged from cellar to chimney pot. But there are the horses." A flash of pain stabbed at her chest, but she ignored it. "As they are, they aren't worth much, but if Blue Moon wins the Derby..."

He was swinging one long booted leg back and forth. He raised his head. Though his mouth quirked into a little smile, she saw to her dismay that his eyes shone wet with suppressed tears. "My dear. You know that if you marry me, you could have your every whim gratified, no matter how outrageous or expensive. And if you are in the suds... well, as your husband I shall be obliged to settle all your debts."

"I have explained why I cannot marry you, Clarence. The reasons for my needing the money are—are personal."