Edith Layton (20 page)

At least she could work at something decent for a living, she thought…and paused in her thoughts when she did. When her aunt had told her to leave her house, she hadn’t had anywhere to go or any way to earn a living. Selling fish would have been preferable to walking the streets. She’d gone to Ewen because he’d been her only refuge. She’d gone along with his proposal because she’d been thrilled by it—and maybe, she admitted now, because she’d been afraid not to. She listened to Gilly with new respect.

“So I dresses like I does, and I does a man’s work for a man’s pay. Hard work. But it don’t kill me. Starving would. That way I can keep Betsy and me safe and fed. Betsy does her bit. too, don’t think she don’t. She’s young, prettier than she can stare, and she’s got taking ways—that’s how come she sells flowers in the park. I take her to the flower market at dawn and she gets a tray of them. The girls that sells good get more to sell the next day, and choicer blooms, too. The flower vendors get to know which girls do good and them that don’t sell don’t get no more, ’cause there ain’t nothing worth less than flowers you get in the morning by that night. Could be, with luck and hard work, she’ll have herself a regular corner to sell flowers on when she grows up. That’s prime work for a girl.”

“What about marriage, children, a proper home?” Bridget asked.

“Nothing wrong with that, but where’s a girl like Betsy going find a gent?”

“I was talking about you.” Bridget said gently.

“
Me
?” Gilly said, looking just as shocked as the boy she was pretending to be might have been by that notion.

“Gilly, you can’t pretend to be a boy forever. How old are you now?”

“Be sixteen in a month, but no one got to know that,” Gilly said angrily.

“But they will.” Bridget said, looking at Gilly’s smooth face. She saw the way the light breeze blew her baggy shirt against her slim body. It showed evidence that her days masquerading as a youth were nearly over. “You’ve already got the face of a woman, Gilly, and your body is changing, too. Will they hire you to do the jobs you do now when you look like a woman?”

“Oh,
that
!” Gilly said, her fair skin growing red, “I binds ’em at home, keep ’em wrapped tight, and who’s the wiser? And I keep my mug dirty, so no one notices it much. Listen, Miss Bridget, I ain’t a fool. Them that knows me knows what I am. They know I carry a knife, too. and that I know how to get revenge. I just dress like this so them that don’t know me don’t get any ideas.

“I know you mean good, but don’t tell me fairy stories about a good man and a good marriage, for it ain’t for me. I told you. A man grabbed me once when I was about Betsy’s age. I don’t want
no
man to ever touch me again.”

“Did he…?” Bridget asked, and then stopped. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t her business. And suddenly she didn’t want to know.

“Yeah.” Gilly said bitterly, “he did. all right. A big tub
of a man, who liked little girls and liked it even better when they screeched. I knew he was a bad one, we all did. I even stayed away from his shadow. But I was young, like I said, and couldn’t watch every second. He got me in an alley. I got away, but not in time. He done me, hard and hurtful and laughing as he did. But he paid for it.”

“They arrested him?”

“For grabbing a slum brat like me and having her? What of it? Who’d listen? Who’d care? They’d just think I was dumb for not asking for money. As to that—there’s some that would’ve tried to hire me if they’d known, and I ain’t talking about the folks from my part of town. Who do you think buys the kids there?” she scoffed. “Men from my neighborhood ain’t got that kind of money.

“I had no family. My ma was sick as a horse after having Betsy. What could she have done even if I told her, eh? I just had my friends in the street, and they was mostly my age. But I got him, all right. I ain’t never nosed on anyone.” She saw Bridget’s confusion and explained, “Never laid information with the Runners, I mean, though I knew enough even then to put half London on the gallows. But I watched, and then I told them about a purse he grabbed.”

“They arrested him?”

“They hung him high,” Gilly said with grim satisfaction. Her eyes grew a distant look, and Bridget knew she wasn’t seeing the country scene anymore. “I was there to make sure. I jumped up and shouted and waved at him as he walked from the cart to the gallows so he could see me. I cheered when they put the noose on his neck, and I shouted ‘Coward!’ and ‘Chicken guts!’ when he asked for a hood for his head. I watched every second. I cheered
when he was kicking and spinning like a top, and I kept cheering till he was dead as a mackerel.

“There was some wild boys at the hanging that day. gents like your Sinclair, young and dressed fine. One sees me shouting and laughing and he says, ‘Damme! But there’s a girl with spirit,’ and he laughs and tosses me a coin, yelling, ‘For your enthusiasm!’ A whole golden boy, just for being happy to see a man hanged,” Gilly said, shaking her head. “Easiest money I ever made.”

Bridget saw some dreadful conflict in Gilly’s eyes. “And you spent the coin?” she asked carefully, wondering if Gilly had kept it as a trophy of that terrible day.

“Did I just! I had me a fine dinner that night to cap a fine day!”

Bridget said nothing. It was the pointed silence that made Gilly speak again. Her thin shoulders slumped. “Yeah, don’t say it. I’m ’shamed of myself. Cast up the lot of the best dinner I ever et, right afterward. Guess it was too much all at once.”

“I’d guess it was the way you earned the coin.” Bridget said softly. “You’re not as hard as you’d like to be, Gilly. You’ve a good heart, and in spite of all your efforts, you’re only a young girl, after all.”

“I ain’t been young for a long time, Miss Bridget,” Gilly said.

It was true. Bridget couldn’t imagine Gilly’s pain or her life; she knew that now. But she tried to think of something to say to take the terrible look from the girl’s eyes. “They hang people for snatching purses?”

“God love you, but they hang them for a handkerchief,” Gilly said in wonder, looking at Bridget as though she’d stepped down from the moon. “See, that’s what
I’m trying to tell you,” she said urgently. “You know a lot, Miss Bridget, but nothing about life. Or men. You’re the one that got a good heart. But you’re living in a dream. You ain’t married, and you’re just making it worse for yourself by staying here.”

Bridget looked at Gilly and was suddenly amazed she’d been upset by what she’d said about Ewen. She saw the pathetic imposture for what it was: a young girl dressed as a younger boy. Gilly was brave, but small, defiant—pathetic, really. She was uneducated, even with all her hard-won street sense. Her sad experience colored her thinking. With all she knew, there was so much she did not—could not—know.

“Gilly,” Bridget said firmly, “my husband didn’t lie to me. I know that. You will too someday. But you don’t trust men enough to even try to see it. Do you believe all women are as immoral or foolish as the ones who sell themselves are? No, of course not. Not even all the women who sell themselves are that. Then you must see that not all men are brutal. You remember your father. Was he a good man?”

“None better!” Gilly said quickly. “As I recollect,” she added conscientiously.

“Then you have to realize there are others like him. Perhaps not many where you live. No, even there I’m sure there have to be some who are decent men, men of nobility even if not nobly born, men who treat women with loving respect and gentleness
because
of their own strength, not in spite of it.” She paused, wondering how she could possibly explain gentlemanly behavior, loving behavior, much less all the wonderful, secret things men and women said and did with each other, in love and for love.

“There’s so much you don’t know about a grown man’s gallantry,” she went on, “his code of honor that won’t permit him to hurt anyone weaker, or any woman, especially one he loves. When such a man loves you, and you love him, then there’s no question of doubt, or fear of him.”

“Aye!” Gilly said savagely, “that’s it. When a
good
man loves you, maybe. Aye, I can maybe see that. But your Viscount, he’s another piece of work, he is.”

“Gilly, I told you—”

“I know, but you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gilly said in exasperation. “Listen, I ain’t talking through my hat. He’s up to no good. I seen your aunt and your cousin, and they know it, too. Yeah.” she said as Bridget drew in a sharp breath, “the one that looks like a doll in a shop window, and that long Meg of a mother of hers. I went to the kitchen at their house to talk with them that works there to find out about where Betsy and you were, and they told me the whole of your story. But one of them ratted, and so then in comes your aunt
and
your cousin, all noses and whiskers twitching. When they heard what I asked, they give me an earful, too. I know they wouldn’t have wiped their feet on me most days, but they didn’t care what I was, they were that happy to tell the world about you and the Viscount.”

“They’re jealous. They wanted him for Cousin Cecily. They—”

“They seen him at a big fancy ball the night before, Miss Bridget. With another woman.”

Bridget stopped walking. Gilly looked at her shoes and went on sadly, “Aye. With some fine-looking lady, a
real
lady and married, too, but one what’s famous for
being free with her favors. I ain’t saying I blame you for leaving them two, but there’s truth for you, though I’m that sorry to tell you. Listen, it ain’t your fault. Who could blame you? You’re a good girl, I heard that, too. And he couldn’t get you no other way, could he? So I’m betting he spun a pretty tale, and you wanted to believe him. Maybe most women would of, for he’s handsome and sweet-talking, but he’s a rake and no doubt of it.

“Some men like that,” Gilly said with a world-weary air, “they take a girl to Scotland and hire a blacksmith to tell them they’re wed. But they ain’t really in Scotland, and when the honeymoon’s over she never sees him again. Some don’t even want to bother traveling that far. They get their friends together and one poses as a vicar and says the words, but there ain’t no law behind it, God nor man’s. Then they all have a laugh after. All but the bride, who wasn’t nothing but a pigeon ripe for the plucking. I heared lots of stories like that.

“I was at the church that day, Miss Bridget,” Gilly said with dull finality. Bridget’s heartbeat accelerated, making her feel dizzy and light-headed. “You think I’d let my Betsy go somewhere new I didn’t know about? It looked like a wedding. Maybe it fooled me for a time, too. But even then I was suspicious, ’cause no one was there. No one but a few of his friends, and them leaving shortly after.”

Gilly shrugged. “You and me, we got a lot in common, though you wouldn’t think it to look at us. You’re full-growed, you got looks and an education and more manners than a duchess. But a man done you wrong, and you don’t have family nor money neither. At least I had some friends and more than a pretty face to see me through.”

Bridget’s hand went involuntarily to her scar.

“Yeah, ‘pretty,’ I said, and that’s what I meant,” Gilly emphasized. “More than that, too. Them eyes and that hair and that figure—you look fine, the scar ain’t nothing. No—it is something. It gives you a look, you know? It makes folks look at you harder, and what they see is so pretty it makes them stare. You’re beautiful but different. I guess that’s why he wanted you so bad. But he didn’t marry you, and there’s God’s truth.”

“He did!” Bridget said automatically. For if he did not, then she knew nothing of life, or men, or love, or trust. “He did,” she said again, remembering his voice, his face, his presence—so strongly it was as if he stood beside her now, tall and straight, with all his strength and certitude and power of personality upholding her. She could almost hear his deep voice and feel the warmth of his big hand enveloping hers. She stood in his shadow even though he was miles from her now. But he was in her heart. And for good reason. She wouldn’t even consider the notion that he’d lied to her, betrayed her, taken her the only way he could and then left her when he’d grown bored with her. It couldn’t be. She might know little about men, but she knew him.

How well, though? She hated the sudden thought, but she wasn’t stupid. She had to think of the possibilities. How many other men had she really known, after all? Her father, a few neighbors, her relatives, men in whose homes she’d worked, men who had either patronized or ignored her or tried to dishonor her. She’d never had a real suitor before Ewen came along. So how was she to know that wasn’t what a rake would do—could do? He’d said he was a rake, he’d admitted it the night they’d met and never denied it since.

But he’d also said he wasn’t a cad. He’d made that distinction himself the first time they’d met.

Because only a cad would take a woman’s love and say he cherished it, seem to return it threefold, while all along playing a game for his own pleasure. A cad would grow bored with the game once it had been won. Then he’d lightly discard his hard-won prize because there was another woman beckoning to him—a newer one, and so a richer prize to him.

N
o
. Bridget drew in a sustaining breath. He might have been a rake, but Ewen was not a cad. Some men might do such things, but not he. Never Ewen. No matter what they said about him, no matter what they claimed they’d seen him do. She knew better. His eyes hadn’t lied, and his lips hadn’t lied, either, not in their kisses and not in what he’d said.

But before he’d left he had said there was something he’d wanted to tell her: “
a thing
I
never thought
I’
d want to tell you, but then
, I
didn’t know how it would be with me and you
.”

And he’d just written that he’d something to tell her: “I
have things to tell you, things too difficult to put into written words
.”

His own words—the very things she counted on to keep her courage now—came back to haunt her.

He’d also written, “I
ask you to trust me, and to wait
.”