Pit Bank Wench (29 page)

At a vision of Cara slowly releasing the buttons of her gown, superb green-gold eyes smiling into his, he murmured hoarsely, ‘As high as she likes.’

‘As high as your share in the canal venture?’

‘Eh?’ The glazed look leaving his eyes, Rafe Langton stared. ‘That be a high price to pay . . . for any woman!’

‘For any woman, agreed.’ Carver picked up his glass and before putting it to his lips allowed the smile he had stifled to play secretly about his mouth. ‘But, believe me, Langton, Cara Holgate is not just
any
woman.’

Fixing his gaze coolly on the other man’s face, watching the rush of heat rise to those fat cheeks, Carver sipped again from his glass. Before the month was out Rafe Langton would have a new mistress, and Cara Holgate would be a new shareholder in the Wednesbury Canal.

Rolling the wine around his tongue Carver sat back in his chair. A new shareholder. But the game was far from over.

Taking off her apron, one of three Mrs Hollington had given to Daisy, Emma folded it neatly before setting it in the drawer of the rickety dresser Samuel had helped carry in soon after their arrival.

‘That’s enough for today.’ Hands on hips, she stretched her back.

‘I told you the same thing two hours since!’ Daisy tossed the last of the potatoes she had peeled into the pot then set it on the stove. ‘But did you listen . . . no, you did not! You simply went on polishing that old dresser. I swear the furniture along of Buckingham Palace gets no more polishing than that thing, though I bet it be a deal grander and firmer on its feet.’

Turning, Emma caught the girl’s grin and responded immediately. ‘And who is it gives it another polish whenever my back is turned and thinks I don’t know it?’

‘Well, a girl has to have something to occupy her time.’ Daisy laughed again, taking up the bowl of potato peelings.

‘Perhaps I should tell Mrs Hollington that?’ Emma called as Daisy carried out the bowl to empty on the garden waste heap.

Rinsing the bowl beneath the pump stood in the centre of the cobbled yard, Daisy carried it back into the tiny room she and Emma had turned into a home.

‘I told her meself.’ The bowl beneath the sink, Daisy rubbed her hands on the scrap of towel she had scrubbed and boiled until it gleamed white. ‘I said I could do more in the house but she said I do more than my share already.’

Reaching down the salt from the dresser, Daisy measured an amount into the palm of her hand. Tipping it into the pot, she wiped the residue off on her apron.

‘If only the rest of the folk round here were like her then there’d be a lot more smiling faces in Wednesbury.’

And not only in Wednesbury. Emma turned away, afraid her thoughts might show on her face. There would be happier ones in Doe Bank and Plovers Croft then too.

‘I say we leave the potatoes for later. Sunday afternoon’s much too nice for giving over to cooking.’

‘I say that makes sense.’ Daisy whipped off her apron, shoving it hastily into the drawer with Emma’s.

‘I’m glad we came this way,’ Daisy said later. ‘I prefer walking on the heath to following the road. That ain’t never still, not even on a Sunday. Carts rattle up and down like they don’t have a minute to spare. Sunday’s supposed to be a day of rest, ain’t that right?’

There had never been much rest to be had in her father’s house. Meals were the only time spent sitting down, and even then his continual preaching precluded conversation. That was all Sundays had seemed to consist of. Three hours of Chapel in the morning, two hours of Sunday school in the afternoon and an hour in the evening. But the rest of the time had brought no respite from her father’s everlasting sermonising on the evils of life and the eternal damnation that awaited those who fell by the wayside. But it had not been so bad for her as it had for Carrie. From the time her sister had been about eight years old, their father had excused Emma from Sunday school. Now she knew why.

She stared ahead across the mauve-dressed heath. The evils of life! Her sister had not fallen into them, she had been pushed, and by the very man who’d preached against them.

‘Emma, ain’t that the man who spoke to us on the heath last Sunday?’

Glad of anything that would chase away the shadow of the past, Emma looked in the direction Daisy indicated. Cinnamon hair ruffled by the faint breeze glinted in the mellow autumn light as Liam Brogan’s tall lithe figure strode easily towards them.

‘Sure and wasn’t I hoping to see the two of you today?’ His Irish accent adding a lilt to his voice, his smile echoed deep within his eyes, Liam raised a hand in greeting.

‘Good afternoon, Mr Brogan,’ Emma returned his greeting. ‘We decided to take a walk on the heath before the remainder of the day is over.’

‘And a fine decision it was.’

‘Is that what you was doing, Mr Brogan, taking a walk?’ Daisy asked breezily.

Falling into step beside them, trimming his long strides to match theirs, he nodded. ‘Now then couldn’t you say that. I’ve been paying a visit to the timber yard in Camp Hill Lane. The owner there is willing to exchange logs for labour.’

‘But didn’t you say you were employed digging out a canal?’

‘I did so.’ He glanced at Daisy. ‘And it was the truth I told. And now you’re going to ask how it is I can work at the timber yard?’

‘I am not.’ Daisy’s face turned a bright pink.

‘Then that would have me asking why you didn’t!’ He laughed, the pleasant sound of it echoing over the empty heath.

Seeing embarrassment flood Daisy’s face, Emma said quickly, ‘We do not need to ask, Mr Brogan. We both understand the need for wood. Brushwood from the heath burns out quickly, it’s not as useful for cooking over as logs.’

Laughter settling to a quiet smile that hovered around his mouth, Liam Brogan looked at the older girl, the beauty in her face catching at the breath in his lungs, a beauty that had played in his mind every moment since their first meeting.

Forcing his glance away he stared ahead. ‘There you have it,’ he said quietly, ‘we need wood for the cooking.’

‘Emma’s a good cook.’ Irrepressible as ever, Daisy grinned. ‘I cook too but mine’s never as tasty as Emma’s. You should taste her pies, you would never want no other.’

Returning his glance to Emma, eyes holding hers, Liam Brogan’s voice became husky. ‘That I can believe,’ he murmured, ‘no sane man would ever want any other.’

Her hands wrapped inside her shawl, Emma pulled it closer about her as the heat of her own embarrassment began to climb her cheeks. Searching for a way to detract from it, she said sharply, ‘We should turn back here. It was pleasant meeting you again, Mr Brogan.’

‘Eh, Emma!’ Daisy’s face fell. ‘We don’t have to go back just yet. It’ll be a week afore we can walk out here again – longer than that if it be raining! Can’t we go on a while more?’

‘Really, Daisy, I think we ought . . .’

The huskiness gone from his voice, Liam broke in. ‘Seeing as you were headed that way and that you’re three parts there already, I was thinking to show you the new navigation. That is, if you would allow me, Miss Price?’

The new navigation. The canal Carver Felton was having cut, the one for which he had destroyed Plovers Croft. Why should she want to see that, what good would it do? Emma’s fingers tightened beneath the shawl. It would only serve to remind her of the people who had lived there, especially Jerusha; but it would also remind her of him, of the man who had ruined her life: Carver Felton. Her lips tight as her fingers, Emma stared across the silent heath.

‘
. . . now ask my brother to marry you!
’

The words, branded deep into her mind, came to mock her out of the past, torturing her as they had so often when she tried to sleep. She needed no help to remember Carver Felton or what he had done to her, but to see what once had been the home of a friend would serve to strengthen her vow: to make Carver Felton pay in his own coin.

‘Can we, Emma, can we go and see?’

No smile breaking on her strained face, Emma nodded. ‘Yes, Daisy,’ she said softly, ‘we will go and see.’

Seated on the cushiony heather, its gentle fragrance filling the air, Emma looked out over the rows of tents. Where the Croft had once stood was a vast hollow, the soil from its excavation built into a low bank where the houses had been. Here and there, among piles of blue bricks and heavy timbers, the smoke of camp fires curled lazily into the sky.

‘I thought it were a canal you were digging?’ Daisy’s puzzled glance encompassed the scene below them.

‘So it will be, eventually.’ Liam twirled a sprig of purple ling between his fingers. ‘This part here will be the basin where the narrow boats can bring in supplies and carry away products; the waterway will link to this.’

‘Why don’t the water just soak away like when you dig a furrow in the ground? We sometimes did that in the workhouse yard when the wardresses weren’t looking, but it just soaked away.’

‘That would be because you hadn’t puddled it.’

‘Hadn’t what?’

Liam smiled. ‘You had not lined it with a thick layer of clay, that is called “puddling”. And then it is overlaid with the bricks you see stacked over there. Together they form the sides and bed of the canal and the water is held in.’

‘Eh, who would have thought it?’ Daisy said wonderingly. ‘I wish I had more brains.’

‘Oh, you have brains enough. To be sure the little people themselves have no more.’

‘Mr Brogan.’ Half turning, Daisy looked questioningly into his laughing blue eyes. ‘Who are the “little people”?’

‘Don’t you know? Sure and they would be heart-rent should they hear you say that.’ Dropping his voice to a whisper, he leaned towards her. ‘They be the fairy folk.’

‘Fairies?’ Daisy tossed her head. ‘Now I know you be teasing. There ain’t no such thing.’

‘Oh, and isn’t that a dreadful thing you’ve done!’ Laying the sprig of ling beside him on the ground, Liam shook his head sorrowfully.

‘What? What have I done?’

Raising his eyes he looked at Daisy. ‘Sure and did no one ever tell you, whenever a mortal body says the little people don’t exist, one of them dies?’

‘Eh, but you had me going for a moment!’ Daisy held a hand to her chest. ‘I thought I’d done summat wrong and all the time you were making fun of me. Fairies? Get along with you!’

‘I wasn’t making fun of you, and one day you will believe as we in Ireland do. The little people are here to help us, all we have to do is ask.’

Opening her mouth, a flippant reply almost on her lips, Daisy hesitated as a carriage rolled to a stop on the road behind them.

‘Oh!’ She breathed as two women stepped from it and walked to the brow of the rise that looked down on the excavations. ‘All I have to do is ask, you say? Then I asks for a gown like that!’

Following her gaze Emma studied the women. Dressed in pale honey-coloured silk ribbed velvet, delicately trimmed with chocolate, a matching feathered bonnet topping her raven hair, the taller of the two waved a hand towards the site, talking animatedly to her companion whose equally elegant fern green costume was a perfect foil for her pale skin and vivid chestnut hair.

‘You see I was right, Melissa . . .’

Cara Holgate’s bell-like voice carried towards them on the still air.

‘. . . a part of this was the best wedding gift for which you could have asked, and it is one will give no joy to Carver Felton.’

Emma’s attention was caught as the women laughed together.

‘It was my guess he hoped to secure that third for himself, to give him a firmer hold on the project.’

‘Instead of which I have it.’ Melissa’s tone, softer than her cousin’s, was nevertheless a needle stabbing at Emma’s heart. This woman had been given a wedding gift, but it had not been given by Carver but by one over whom he wished to have a hold. Blood racing through her veins she felt it hard to breathe. There could be no one else, it could only mean Paul. Paul and this woman were to be married!

‘Yes, my clever cousin, you have it.’ Cara turned towards the waiting carriage. ‘And before very much longer I shall have another third. I wonder what dear Carver will do then?’

Laughter floating behind them, the carriage rolled away. These women had as little love for Carver Felton as she herself did. Emma’s heart beat painfully. But what of Paul? Was that woman marrying him for the love she could give him or for what she could take from him?

Rising to her feet, keeping her eyes lowered as she brushed dry leaves from her skirts, Emma hid the pain in her eyes.

Paul had forgotten her. The love he’d thought he felt for her had died. He was to marry the woman who had gloated over his gift. Was it that Paul had stopped loving her? Or was it his brother had forced his change of heart? But whichever way, who could blame Paul? The woman with chestnut hair was beautiful and obviously well-bred. So very different from a Doe Bank wench.

Tears blurring her vision Emma stumbled, throwing out both hands as she fell heavily to the ground.

‘Emma!’ Liam Brogan was beside her in an instant, and in that instant his world crashed about him. There, on the third finger of her left hand, gleaming in the late-afternoon sun, he saw a plain gold wedding band.

Chapter Twenty

‘I am so disappointed Harriet could not come.’

‘So was I.’ Rafe Langton hid his satisfaction beneath a veneer of concern. ‘She gets these sick headaches, last for days some of ’em. I wanted to stay home with her but she insisted one of us come after we’d accepted your invitation.’

‘Dear Harriet.’ Only her voice was sympathetic as Cara Holgate took hat and gloves from her visitor. ‘So thoughtful for others. I really must send her some of my headache remedy, it was prescribed for me in London, it really is wonderful.’

Following up thickly carpeted stairs, gleaming woodwork attesting to the attention of housemaids, Rafe smiled into his whiskers. Harriet had no idea he was answering the invitation; after he’d told her there was a Guilds dinner he could not avoid attending she had made no objection, simply accepting the fact he would be gone until the early hours. The Guilds story had come in useful many times over the years and once again it had stood him in good stead.