Sweet Savage Eden (2 page)

There had come that long dry spell when Linnet had not been able to obtain a role in the theater. And Linnet had never bothered with her own finances, so she was in complete shock and distress to learn that not only did she not have the money to take a smaller house, but also was so far in debt that the gaping jaws of Newgate Prison awaited her eagerly as her fate.

Some godsend fell upon them then; miraculously a mysterious “donor” kept them discreetly from distress.

Linnet knew what had occurred; she would not tell Jassy, as Jassy was but a nine-year-old child.

But by the age of ten, Jassy understood servants’ gossip. They all whispered about the Duke of Somerfield having “done something fair” for her mother at long last.

And then they stared at her, and through little George, the cook’s son, she learned that she was “illy-gitmit” and that everyone thought that the duke, who had had “illy-cit” relations with her mother, should have surely pulled them out of trouble long before.

Such rumors were lovely dreams to Jassy at first; she imagined that her father would be a great, handsome man in his prime; that one day she should appear in his great hall and that he would instantly think her beautiful and accomplished and love and adore her above all his legitimate offspring. Then he, of course, could introduce her to the handsome golden knight who would sweep her away to her own castle.

It wasn’t to be. At the little kitchen breakfast table they could then afford, Linnet jumped up one morning, screamed, and fell to the floor in a dead faint.

Jassy rushed to help her, as did Mary. Mary muttered, wondering what could have caused such a thing. But Jassy then picked up the paper, being able to read as Mary could not, and quickly perused the page, learning then that the duke had been killed most ingloriously in an outlawed duel.

There was no one to pay the rent on the small house. One by one the servants went. Then the house went, and then the very last of their precious hoard of gold coins and pounds sterling. Linnet could not find work in the London theater again—the duke’s vicious duchess was busy seeing that no establishment would have her.

Jassy quickly realized that they must find work. In time Linnet knew, too, that menial work would be their hope of survival, Newgate awaiting any man or woman who did not meet their obligations.

She also discovered that she was singularly talentless when it came to working for a living, and in the end she
was forced to become the scullery maid at the inn, work totally unsuited to her lovely, fragile form.

Master John hired them on only because Jassy was twelve by then, in the peak of health, easily able to work the full fourteen-hour day that her mother could not.

Jassy was jerked back to the present as Linnet moved fretfully on the bed, speaking again.

“Tell them—tell them that the curtain must be held,” Linnet whispered softly. The glaze left her eyes and she frowned, then soft tears fell from her eyes to her cheeks.

“Jassy … Jassy, Jasmine. ’Twas he who named you, for he loved the scent of Jasmine. You were beautiful, too, a babe like a flower, a blossom … so very sweet. And I did have such dreams! He loved us. He did love us. You were to be a lady, loved and coveted. And still … your hands. Oh, Jassy! What have I done to you? To leave you here in this awful place …”

“Nay, Mother, nay! I am fine, and I shall get you well, and we …” She paused, a lie coming to her from nowhere. “Mother, we shall get out of here as soon as you are well. I have heard from my half sister, one of the duke’s children, and we are to travel to his estates. Her—her mother has died, and she is anxious to make reparation. We shall live in splendor, I swear it, Mother, only first you must get well.” She had sworn out a lie. Would God understand such a thing? Would he forgive her? Her heart hardened, for she could not care. God had deserted her. He had left her to survive on her own, and that she must do. Linnet, though, would be horrified, for her belief in her religion was great.

But Linnet hadn’t even heard the quickly spoken and desperate lie. “Ah, yes! None has ever done Juliet with such poise and innocence! That is what the critics said; that is what I shall do again.”

She stared straight at Jassy, releasing her hand with a flourish. “Go now! Tell them that the curtain shall be held!”

The door to the attic loft suddenly swung open.

“Tamsyn!”

Master John stood in the doorway, seeming to bark out
his man’s name. “ ’Tis docked pay you’ll get, me man!” he continued. “I need two kegs in the taproom, and I need them now! Jassy, if she’s not up and working by morning, it’s out on your arses, you are. The two of you.”

Suddenly a great laugh bellowed from him, and he bowed to her. “My lady!”

He sent a curt blow reeling against Tamsyn’s head. “Hurry, man, hurry! The coach has just come in from Norwood! And you—my lady attic rat,” he told Jassy sternly, “had best get down to serve tonight.”

“I can serve no one! I must care for her!”

Jassy quickly regretted her temper—she needed to placate Master John. She stood quickly, lowering her eyes and facing him. “In fact, Master John, I meant to come to you for help! I am desperate, sir, for coin. My mother needs quinine and—”

She broke off, for he had come before her, raising her chin with his finger so that her eyes met his. He smiled, and she saw his blackened teeth and felt overwhelmed by his foul breath.

“I’ve told you before, girl, if you want extra coin from me, you know how to earn it.”

The room seemed to spin, and she actually feared that she would throw up her meager dinner if he came any nearer.

She knew what he meant. She thought that she knew a good deal about the private things that went on between men and women. Molly, who worked the taps, engaged in affairs quite frequently. With a cheery wink she had often told Jassy that it was a hideous business with the man grunting and panting and placing, well … part of his person into, well … parts of her person. It all sounded quite horrid, and made Jassy flinch.

“Ah, with a young and ’andsome one it ain’t so bad. In fact, there’s some what thinks ’tis heaven! But mark my words, lass, it’s a lot of sweat and pumping. And if it were with one who was a lout, well, I think as like I’d prefer death, I do!”

Molly had her standards.

But she continued to see the “ ’andsome ones”; she was very fond of the money that could be had that way.

Jassy gritted her teeth and kept her eyes lowered. Her mother was dying. Linnet was everything that she had in this world. Everything.

She stiffened her back. She would do anything to keep her mother alive.

And one day, one day! she vowed, she would kill Master John!

“John!”

The shrill cry came up from below, and Master John seemed to shrink before them. He was afraid of his goodwife, as well he should be, for she was two hundred pounds if she was a single one, and she worked quite well with a rolling pin when she was in a temper.

“Alas, girl! No coin have I this night!” he mumbled suddenly, and turned. He looked at Tamsyn and decided the man needed another blow to the head, and then he departed, wrinkling his nose at the attic odor.

Tamsyn caught his head and jumped to his feet. He was a little man, slim, graying, but strong in his wiry fashion. He caught Jassy’s shoulders.

“Jassy, for the love of God! Don’t ever, ever think of such a thing! Your mother will d—” He stopped. That her mother would die soon no matter what was what he meant. He had no doubt that Linnet was dying, and that there was very little if any hope at all that she could survive more than another day. But he hadn’t the heart to say it so bluntly. “Jassy, your mother would rather die than have you give yourself to such a stinking oaf!”

Tears dampened her lashes and threatened to spill to her cheeks. She looked at Tamsyn, and he shuddered, for what the girl did not know was that even here, even in rags and squalor, she was twice the beauty that Linnet had ever been. She had the same fine, fragile features and more, for her beauty went deeper than anything that could be seen or touched. Hers was a fighting spirit, one that rebelliously challenged and dared from the depths of her eyes. Eyes that tilted just slightly at the corners, intriguing and exotic. Eyes that were so clear and deep
and crystal a blue that they might have been violet. And they were framed by lashes so thick and dark, they might have been fashioned against the rose and cream of her young complexion by an artist with India ink.

“I must—I will do something!” she swore, shaking away his touch. She straightened her shoulders and stiffened her spine, so regally.

Tamsyn swallowed, wishing he had not, long ago, come to be such a worthless drunk that he had lost all in life except for a rather worthless instinct to survive.

“I’ve got to get down, girl. Bathe her face, talk to her, be with her. When she sleeps comfortable, get down to work before mean old John sets you both out in the street!”

Jassy lowered her head and nodded with understanding. Tamsyn squeezed her shoulders and left her, and she knelt back at her mother’s side, trying to ease the fever that raged through her.

“Oh, Mother!” she whispered softly, not caring now that they were alone that tears slid down her cheeks and dropped upon the blanket. “Mother, we shall get out of this! I’ll make you well, I swear it!”

She swallowed painfully. At the moment Linnet slept, as ethereal, as beautiful, as a hummingbird.

Jassy rose slowly. She kissed Linnet’s hot cheek and then hurried out of the room.

Down below, the coach was already in. Jassy hurried to the kitchen to help the cook, but Jake, John’s obnoxious doorman, bellowed out that she was to work in the taproom, serving ale.

The inn was dense with smoke, rowdy with talk. Each of the planked tables was full, some with common folk, some with gentry.

Jassy hated the taproom. It seemed always to be filled with a score of Master Johns—louts who grinned lasciviously and tried to pinch some part of her anatomy. Nor was she allowed to slap the wandering hands that touched her; Master John would have booted her out on the steps.

It seemed that she moved from the kitchen to the bar
to the tables endlessly, carrying great trays of roast beef and duckling with savory gravies, and scores of tankards. Her shoulders and sides ached from the heavy work. At one point during the night Molly passed her in the hallway from the kitchen to the taproom and gave her cheek a friendly pinch.

“Ah, luv, you look pale, you do! I know yer worryin’ ’bout your ma, luv. Don’t you fret, now. Cook just slipped me a bit of good wine and some soup; it’s hid by the sideboard. You can get it up to her soon.”

“What’s this!”

Master John was suddenly behind them. “Ah, her majesty, the Lady Jasmine!” He bowed mockingly. “Missy—I see you off this floor once again and yer ma’s in the street!” he warned Jassy, waggling one of his fingers before her face.

“Ah, Master John!” Molly batted her lashes at their taskmaster, pleading nicely. “Please, sir, the girl but—”

“The girl shirks work!” John roared. “If she’s off this floor before midnight, she can look for her supper elsewhere!”

He physically turned Jassy about, pushing her forward. Jassy almost screamed. She thought that she might well have stabbed her mother, and then herself, before she could have abided his touch. She clenched her teeth tightly together. She was still so desperate.

Molly, with her red country cheeks and snapping dark eyes, caught up with her again.

“I’ll get up there and feed her the soup and the wine, Jassy, I swear it. You just keep out of the way of mean ol’ John, eh?”

Gratefully Jassy nodded. “Bless you, Molly!”

It was then that Jake told her she must bring another round of good ale to the two gents nearest the fire.

“And no uppity nose-turning from you, miss!” Jake warned in a growl. “Them two are class, they are! You serve them right!”

She knew what “serve them right” meant, and she wondered with a rush of hostility why he hadn’t sent
Molly to serve the two. If they laughed and pinched Molly, she would blush and say just the right things.

Jassy walked quickly to the table. The two men, she noted, definitely were “class.” More than gentry, she thought, by the quality and cut of their breeches and coats and hose.

Despite herself, she discovered that her heart fluttered just a bit as she neared them, for the gentleman on the right of the fire was handsome, very handsome indeed. He was blond and as light as dreams of heaven, with a wonderfully slim and genteel face and bright, sparkling blue eyes. He glanced up as Jassy set the first tankard down, and he bestowed upon her a smile that actually made her feel as if her senses reeled.

“Ah, and lass, where have you been all my life?” he teased.

Jassy flushed; he was kind, he was gentle. He was the type of man that once she might have dreamed of loving—in a very vague way, of course. A man to sweep her upon a mighty steed, the very knight of her dreams. He would take her back to the world she had once known, or onward to the shining castle of her imagination. It would be a new world. A world where servants moved to the slightest whim, where sheets were clean, where food was plentiful. And he would be the man she had imagined, a man to be a husband, a father, a golden, shining defender in every hour.…

She lowered her lashes again and stiffened her spine. What in the Lord’s name was the matter with her? Men of stature did not come here to flirt with serving wenches to sweep them away to lives of dignity and grandeur. They wanted what Molly called a “dashing roll in the hay” and nothing more.

She raised her head again proudly. One day she would escape this bondage. She would escape poverty, she would travel where it was wild and free and where she would disdain all those who thought themselves above her.

“Thank you,” he told her, referring to his ale. He watched her somewhat gravely, and it seemed that he
flirted no more. She liked his eyes; she liked the way that he looked at her, as if he saw far more than a wench or a servant.

And she smiled slightly in return, for he was genuinely kind, and she barely noted what she was doing as she set the other tankard down. His fingers grazed against her hand, holding her there as he watched her. Still, what ensued next was not her fault.