Pit Bank Wench (11 page)

‘It looked so beautiful, the crest of the hill black against the red glow . . . how could I?’ She sobbed into her hands. ‘How could I have thought it beautiful when it was my own home that was burning?’

‘You were not to know, wench.’ Polly Butler spoke soothingly as she brewed a third pot of tea. Tea and sympathy, that was all anybody could offer at a time like this. Emma had come flying over the heath, hair and skirts spread on the wind, her screams like those of the damned; it had only been the quick action of Sam Davis that stopped her racing into the flames. Now he stood guard at the door lest she try to run back. But there was nothing to run back to except a smouldering ruin.

‘Come on, try to drink a drop of tea.’ Polly placed a cup before Emma. ‘It’ll help you feel better.’

Nothing could do that. Emma closed her fingers over her face, wanting to hide herself away, to hide from the awful reality, to shut out the scene that seemed to be painted on her eyes. She would never feel better, never forget the events of this night.

Getting up from the stool Polly Butler had drawn to the fire, Jerusha drew back the cloth cover she had placed over her basket. Taking out a small dark blue glass bottle she sprinkled a few drops of clear liquid into the cup, a faint shake of her head warding off the other woman’s enquiry.

‘Drink this down, Emma.’

Jerusha’s tone was firmer than that of Polly, she was used to handling the sorrow of those who had lost loved ones; only her own sorrow, that of parting with Jacob, only that did she find hard to deal with. But deal she must until her time came.

With the obedience of a small child Emma took the cup. ‘How could it have happened?’ She looked into Jerusha’s face. ‘What could have caused it?’

Jerusha could answer each of those questions but now was not the time. That moment would come, Jerusha felt such pity for the girl, but when it did it must be in a moment of comfort. To speak the truth now would only add to the burden of sorrow that was crushing the girl’s heart. For now that terrible truth must remain locked inside Jerusha’s own, she would tell no one what the silence had revealed to her.

Taking the cup as Emma finished her drink, Polly glanced at Jerusha. ‘The wench best stay with us, my lads can bed down in the scullery . . .’

‘But I can’t take your sons’ room!’ Emma was almost on her feet as she spoke.

‘Well, you can’t go back to . . .’ Polly checked herself, a faint blush rising fast to her cheeks. ‘You can’t go back to Jerusha’s place again tonight, it be overfar for her to walk.’

Catching Polly’s eye Jerusha nodded, approving the quickness of the woman’s recovery.

‘And you certainly ain’t going to sleep under no hedge. It be best you both bed down here in this house. Unless, of course, you would rather go to another in Doe Bank? Every door be open to you.’

Jerusha placed her empty cup on the table, nodding as Polly held up the teapot offering a second cup. ‘That we be aware of and both of us be grateful. Thank you for your kindness, Polly Butler, we will bide the night beneath this roof.’

‘But your sons . . .’ Emma felt suddenly weary, her protest fading as tiredness swept over her.

‘My lads will take no harm from bedding in the scullery or here on the hearth afore the fire. ‘Tain’t nothing they haven’t done many a night gone. Now you just sit you there a minute longer while I puts clean sheets on the bed and then we’ll have you tucked up.’

Taking her cup, Jerusha sipped the tea, eyes following Polly as she drew two spotless white sheets from one of the long drawers set beneath a tall cupboard built into an alcove alongside the black-leaded fireplace. Still folded as the day they were bought, she knew they had never yet seen use for these were the burying sheets. Kept by every family, even if the buying of them meant going without food; they were the sheets that would cover bed and body whenever death struck the family. Using them now was a measure of the woman’s pity for the young girl, for it meant the sheets could no longer be kept for the purpose they were intended. Pennies would be scratched and scraped together, set aside in some secret place until there were enough to buy another pair that would be laid away for ‘the burying’.

‘I should have been with her. With both of them.’ Tears rose fresh and hot and Emma brushed them with her fingers. ‘Mother must have been so terrified. If only I had been there . . . I should have been there . . . I should not have left them. It’s my fault . . . oh, God! It’s all my fault.’

‘No fault lies with you, child.’ Jerusha moved close, arms going about the sobbing girl. ‘It was not meant for you to be in that house.’

‘But I could have helped them, helped Father get Mother and Carrie away from . . .’

‘No, child.’ Jerusha laid a hand on Emma’s head, holding it against her. ‘Believe me, you could not have helped your father. Nor either of them.’

Sobs choking her throat, Emma drew away to look into the face of the woman who held her. ‘But how do you know? How can you be so sure?’

‘How? That I can only answer vaguely, child. I can only say it is given to me to know, and I am sure because never once have I been given that which proved other than true.’

‘Then who is it gives you this knowledge . . . where does it come from?’

Above Emma’s head, Jerusha stared into the fire. Flames tinged with blue and gold suddenly shot high, losing themselves in the black void of the chimney.

‘I ask no questions as to who or where. I ask none for myself and will ask it for no other. The truth guides Jerusha Paget, that is all I need to know.’

‘But . . .’

‘No, child. Ask nothing more tonight.’ Jerusha directed her glance to Polly as she came into the room. ‘Go with Polly now and try to sleep. The days ahead will have time enough in them to ask your questions.’

Time enough to ask her questions. Jerusha watched the two women, one with a helping arm about the waist of the other, leave the room, then turned her eyes once more to the fire. But for all their length they would not hold time enough for her to find the answers. Emma Price would carry the mark of this night ever in her heart. Forgive and forget. How often had that been preached? Time! Jerusha stared at the dancing flames. Time would bring about the first, but all eternity would not achieve the second.

Emma Price would forgive, but she would not forget!

‘Are they really going to put money into that scheme of yours?’

Cara Holgate raised one skilfully plucked eyebrow, her fingers toying provocatively with the ribbons of a silk velvet bed coat.

‘Do you doubt it?’

The man lying with arms folded beneath his dark head, his naked limbs gleaming against the deep peach of the bed cover, smiled at her, confidence visible in every line of him.

‘No.’ Cara pulled a silk ribbon, a slow enticing movement that was not lost on her companion. ‘I don’t doubt it, knowing you as I do. I do not doubt you could achieve anything . . . once your mind was set on it.’

His smile curving the corners of his well-shaped mouth, he watched the long slender fingers toy with a second ribbon. ‘You always did show sense as well as taste, Cara.’

‘Thank you.’ She drew the tie long and slow, holding it outstretched, green-gold eyes regarding him from beneath a sweep of dark lashes. ‘But you forgot to add influence. I have a great deal of that . . . to use in any way I please.’

‘And which way pleases you?’

Every movement sensuous, Cara let the tie drop from her fingers then reached up to pull the diamanté comb from her hair, the fall of it covering her shoulders in black silk.

‘That depends very much upon you.’

‘On me, Cara?’

Shrugging the bed coat from her, letting it slide down her arms, she stepped away, leaving it a heap of pale rose on the floor.

‘Yes.’ She smiled, showing perfect teeth. ‘I have a lot of friends, some of whom are your business associates.’

‘And some of whom are very much subject to your . . . influence!’

‘Very much, my dear.’ Every line of her caressed by the expert cut of a matching silk nightgown, Cara crossed to her dressing table carelessly throwing the comb down on it. ‘It would be very easy to persuade them that a certain project was too risky for them to commit their money.’

Stretched out on the bed the man watched her every move, his smile hiding the cold anger beginning to gather in his stomach.

‘But a little of my money would persuade you in a different direction, is that it? You are a woman of many talents, Cara. Is extortion yet another of them?’

‘Proportion.’ The smile played easily about her painted mouth but Cara Holgate’s eyes narrowed like a hunting cat’s. ‘I think that is a much better word. I use my influence to ensure you get what you want, and you give me what I want – and that is a proportion of the enterprise.’

‘And what is your idea of a proportion of the enterprise?’ Lifting himself on one elbow, the soft light of candles, caught the twin streaks of silver receding from his brow, and now Carver Felton did not smile.

‘What if I tell you your little proposal has come too late, Cara? That the business is agreed.’

Coming closer to the bed, the light displaying the body beneath the almost transparent silk, she smiled down at him. ‘Then I would have to tell you you were a fool, but I do not think you are. You know the men you are dealing with, Carver, you know they would not think twice about breaking an agreement not with you or any other man should it suit them.’

‘But the agreements they make with you are not broken, I take it?’

‘No, Carver.’ She shook her head, familiar with the effect of candlelight on her sable hair. ‘Not if they wish their pleasures to go undisturbed. You see, my dear, it is not just men who can be influenced. A word in a wife’s ear . . . you follow, I am sure?’

His black eyes sweeping the length of her, Carver allowed the smile to return, but the anger was still there. ‘Would that not achieve a negative result?’

Slender fingers going to her throat, Cara slipped the tiny mother of pearl buttons through each buttonhole, pausing at one set into the fitted waist. ‘If you mean, would I lose the friendship of the men I . . . influence, then the answer is no. They take their pleasure much too seriously for that. A present of – shall we say, considerable value would help me change my mind.’

‘And
my
present, what is the considerable value of that to be?’

Fingers toying with the last button; green-gold eyes glinted. ‘Twenty per cent.’ She said it softly. ‘A twenty per cent share in your canal project.’

Carver lay back on the bed, his arms going back behind his head. ‘That
is
a present of considerable value. Do you think your talents worthy of so much?’

She laughed, a sound as smooth as the silk gown. ‘Do you?’

‘We could find out,’ he answered. ‘Or is that button the only thing you’re going to play with tonight?’

Slipping the last button Cara parted the gown, revealing taut white breasts. ‘Not the only thing, Carver.’ She let the gown slide, her eyes fixed on his. ‘Not the only thing.’

Kneeling beside him on the bed, she traced a long slow finger from his throat down across his chest and stomach, a smile of satisfaction curving her lips at the jerking of his flesh. Her hand continuing its downward path, she bent over him, brushing his chest with her breasts, mouth following the movement of her finger. Her tongue touching the base of his erect penis, she murmured, ‘Isn’t this worth twenty per cent, Carver?’

‘Let’s seal the bargain.’ His body curving in one swift agile movement, he caught her shoulders, drawing her upright and at the same time rolling her on to her back.

The silken laugh rolling in her throat, she lifted her arms, spreading her legs. ‘The candle,’ she whispered, ‘shall we leave it burning?’

Raising himself on his hands, Carver stared into her green-gold eyes. ‘No.’ He blew at the flame burning at the bedside. ‘I don’t need a candle to find my way into you.’

Driving deep into her, he smiled in the darkness. Neither would he need one to find a way of destroying her!

Riding home across the heath, Carver let his mind wander over the preceding few hours. Cara Holgate had satisfied his appetites many times, but tonight . . . He glanced at the coppice rising tall and black against the skyline . . . tonight there had been none of the pleasure he normally took in her soft white flesh, that hair smelling of pomade and French perfume. Tonight there had been only lust. The woman beneath him had been Cara Holgate; the body he thrust into, supple and willing, was Cara’s; the cries soft against his ear, her cries. But in his mind he had lain with another, very different woman. The perfume in her hair had been that of the flowers of the heath; the flesh of her body, though soft and white, had been taut as a bowstring as she fought against him; there had been no willingness in that union and her cries had not been those of pleasure. Yet it was her, that Doe Bank wench, who filled his brain, memories of the feel of her beneath him, not the body of his mistress, had brought tonight’s fulfilment. And the thought of her had dominated his nights with Cara for almost a month.

Why was that? Why had Cara’s face become
her
face as she clambered on to the bed beside him? Why had raven hair softened to pale gold and the eyes that smiled down at him become the blue of wild hyacinths?

Guilt? Carver glanced again at the thicket. Was he feeling guilty for raping that girl? The thought brought a cold smile to his mouth. The very idea was ridiculous. Why should he feel guilty, why should he feel anything at all? The girl was nothing, nothing but a pit bank wench!

But it was the pit bank wench who regularly found her way into his thoughts. Irritated by the admission, he touched his heels to the animal’s flanks, adjusting easily to its quickened step.

He had taken her not for pleasure nor from lust. He had used her to serve his own purpose, as from tonight he would use Cara.