Ruby McBride (25 page)

He had denied Kit the most precious gift a girl could give to the man she loved. Wiping the tears of misguided self-pity from her eyes, Ruby vowed that she would never,
ever
,
allow it to happen again.

She consoled herself by the thought that it was only her body which had betrayed Kit, the romantic sweetheart of her lost youth, that she could at least still give him her heart. In a way, she loathed Bart all the more for tempting her into these sinful pleasures. She had been young, a virgin still. What hope had she of refusing? He had taken advantage of her, for which she would never forgive him, she told herself.

But at the end of that first day, Ruby cooked supper as always and when the time came for them to go to bed, he simply jerked his chin in the direction of his cabin, telling her that was where he expected her to sleep in future.
 

And to her intense shame, a pulse of excitement began to beat low in the pit of her stomach. Ruby had obeyed without protest, her mind a blur of confused emotion, a furious resistance mixed with desire. She told herself that she could do nothing to prevent what was about to happen as he possessed complete control over her.

Yet later, when he came to her, his glorious golden body as naked and strong as she remembered, she was more than ready for him, greedy for whatever he had to offer.

Following his failure with Giles Pickering, Bart was moody and bad-tempered for days, hardly saying a word to anyone. The men were largely philosophical about his lack of success, although there were a few grumbles. Plans for a strike fizzled out. Men still slipped in and out of the cabin for discussions of an evening, but Bart went out and about with them less frequently. He seemed to spend more of his time working the boats, which was what Ruby loved best. She didn’t ask him why this was so. Nor did he offer any explanation.

The year progressed at its own pace. The days were long, sometimes twelve or more hours at a stretch, and often cold and wet. The routine grew familiar to her, filled with activity and interest whether it be loading crates of pottery or rolls of cotton, negotiating locks or making rope fenders. Yet the work was hard and unrelenting, Bart himself equally so. Once, she slipped on the wet boards of the deck and cut her chin. He staunched the bleeding but allowed her no time off work to recuperate, despite a raging headache as a result of the fall.

‘I’m worn out. I need to rest up a bit.’

‘You can’t demand that I turn my hand to honest endeavour and not pull your weight.’

Ruby was outraged. ‘Of course I pull me own weight. Are you saying I’m trying to skive off? Flippin’ cheek!’

‘Don’t turn soft on me, Ruby McBride. I can’t stand a woman who expects to be cosseted all the time. Real work is much harder graft than pulling the odd con trick.’

She didn’t dispute that, and because an honest, safe life was what Ruby craved, she gritted her teeth against the pain, mopped the blood from her injured chin and battled on, worrying whether the cut would leave a scar.

In the bitter winter months he gave her a thick overcoat to wear, known as a ‘duker’s rough’, and taught her how to wrap strips of hessian around her legs to keep them dry. Some days Sparky might be working with them, perhaps at Number Three Dock where the Irish ships berthed, or Number Four for the London ships, or carrying wheat from the Canadian ships. Ruby would always pay particular attention to these, half hoping she might see Billy. Hadn’t he said how one day he meant to go on a big ship?

And in all the time she worked with her husband, Ruby rarely had any money of her own, save for the few coppers he gave her now and then to buy herself a pie or mug of tea when she gossiped with Aggie and the other women. She would complain that it wasn’t enough, that she deserved to be properly paid, just as Sparky was.

‘Why do you? I buy the soap, candles, paraffin, tea and provisions. I provide coal for the fire, clothes for your back, what need have you for more?’

‘It would show that you value me. I deserve it, for the sake of my pride if nothing else; a need for my own independence.’ And he would snort with laughter, as if she had made some sort of joke.

‘I thought you believed in the rights of workers?’

‘I do, but apparently that only proves I’m soft in the head. Besides, if I gave you money, Ruby, you might take it into your head to run away. You’re still my wife, but your reluctance in the role is all too evident. If I gave you too much independence you might be tempted to abscond, as I believe you have done before, more than once.’

She hated him even more when he was right. But mostly for his control over her, and did not hesitate to tell him so. ‘You can’t treat a woman as if she were a chattel, a horse or dog that you happen to own.’

‘Indeed not. A horse is a damn’ sight more useful, although maybe a woman can supply other benefits.’
 

Then he’d pull her into his arms and begin to make love to her till she was purring with pleasure and had quite forgotten the thread of her argument. It shamed Ruby that despite her love for Kit, this man could still make her shiver with need. He had only to put his hand on her thigh and her pulses would start to race. She must be a wanton, a loose woman, to have such strong physical cravings for a man she professed to loathe.

Spending time with Kit, Ruby told herself, was all that kept her sane. Though wary of taking unnecessary risks, they continued to meet secretly. Whenever she had a little free time she would run to him, eager for his kisses, his assurances that he still loved her. Were her husband ever to suspect that she had a lover, albeit a chaste one thus far, she knew his rage would be incandescent.
 

There were times when he seemed to watch her ever more closely, and she feared all might be lost, but then the moment would pass and Ruby would dismiss the idea from her mind. Discovery was a frightening prospect. Bart would be unlikely to believe in her innocence, nor take kindly to the idea of being cuckolded, even if, strictly speaking, it were untrue. And he was not a man to cross.

But surely her love for Kit rose above such base concerns. He was her romantic ideal, a boy who had suffered as she had suffered throughout a punishingly short and difficult childhood. They were soul-mates. Unfortunately, because of the clandestine nature of their meetings, she couldn’t entirely relax or give him what he asked.

‘I couldn’t, Kit. I’m still his wife, it wouldn’t be right,’ she would p
rotest, whenever he begged for more.
 

‘Why would it matter if you did betray him?’ Kit would demand to know. ‘Isn’t he the much-hated baron, a husband you loathe?’

She really couldn’t explain, even to herself. Ruby seemed to be in a state of total confusion about what was right and what was wrong, let alone understanding her own confused emotions.
 

‘Love making, in the purely physical sense, is unnecessary to prove the depth of our love,’ she told him. And, to be fair, he finally seemed to accept the situation with remarkable aplomb which, perversely, irked her all the more. How could he be content to allow matters to go on in this way indefinitely when she was in a constant agony of suspense? Wilful and contradictory as ever, she longed for him to sweep her off her feet and run away with her to Canada, to fulfil her dream.

‘We’ll be together soon,’ she promised. ‘We won’t always have to skulk about in back alleys, content with a few fumbling kisses. As soon as we can find our Pearl and get away from this place, everything will be different. We’ll be together for always then.’

‘It takes a deal of money to get to Canada,’ he would say, fondling her breasts and wondering if he could ever hope to persuade
her to change her mind. She was a handsome piece of goods was Ruby, not so luscious as Pearl, nor so yielding, but a fine woman all the same. He always hoped that today might be his lucky day. ‘There’s little point otherwise, is there? We need a bit of cash put by, as well as being safe from that tyrant of a husband of yours.’

‘I’ve told you, I have no money of my own, and I’ll not steal a penny piece off anyone, not even off him.’

‘But he owes it to you, Ruby. For back wages if nothing else.’ Drat the woman. She was too damned stubborn.

So many times over the weeks and months following, this conversation would be repeated in various ways, but always ended the same. Kit would appeal for her to take money from the baron, reminding her of the difficulties of living rough, that he still hadn’t found himself a job despite looking for one from dawn to dusk.
 

Ruby would listen and her soft heart would go out to him, full of love and sympathy, and yet she would obstinately refuse to rob her husband of anything, not even her own fidelity.

Months slipped by and nothing was resolved between them. Ruby, blithely ignorant of the dangerous undercurrent of Kit’s resentment, felt riddled with guilt at seeming to fail him. She believed in him utterly. Yet she enjoyed her life with Bart working the barges, and the passion-filled nights, details of which she never divulged to Kit, or even allowed herself to dwell too closely upon the feelings they evoked in her.

She had her little house, which she loved, but her dream of gathering her family about her seemed as far distant as ever.
 

Bart had taken great care not to make her pregnant, for which she was thankful. Lately, though, he’d begun to talk of them starting a family together, a prospect which filled Ruby with a strange mix of excitement and dread. This loveless marriage surely represented everything that had gone wrong in her life. She needed to escape before it was too late, before he’d given her a child and tied her to him forever. The father of her children must be her beloved Kit. Hadn’t he loved her for years? Hadn’t he sacrificed his young life, suffered the punishment of the reformatory because of his great love for her? Ruby knew that no man, not even Kit, would be willing to take on another man’s child. If she got pregnant, she might well lose him for good.

Yet neither could she risk letting Kit have his way with her. Not yet, or how would she explain a child to Bart? Oh, what a muddle.

She lay in Kit’s arms by the canal towpath and urged him to find a solution to their problem which, so far, he’d been quite unable to do. Even if they couldn’t be together all the time, at least being with him here, now, was more pleasant than lying awake night after night worrying over the matter till her eyes were red-rimmed through lack of sleep and she was too exhausted to work properly the next day.

‘There must be an answer, Kit. We just have to find it. I do mean to leave him. I
must
!
I can’t breathe living this way. I shall tell him that it’s you I love, that we need to be together.’

He thrust her from him, gave her a little shake as if to bring her to her senses. ‘For goodness sake, Ruby, if he ever found out we were seeing each other, he’d kill me. He might throttle you an’ all.’
 

Kit was appalled by this possibility, which seemed very real. He was keen to keep Ruby sweet and committed to him, yet anxious for her not to lose patience and leave her husband - not till he’d managed to work out a way to get himself a good slice of the baron’s assets. As his wife, Ruby had access to riches beyond his imagining, the kind of money Kit could never save in two lifetimes.

He just needed a little more time to persuade her to get her hands on it. Dissatisfaction was growing. Rumours were circulating around the docks that the baron had failed to help the workers’ cause because he hadn’t tried hard enough. Word had it that he’d actually sided with the management and done nothing more. Kit had no idea whether this was true or not.
 

What did surprise him was that little was known about Barthram Stobbs, except that he’d come to the canal basin mere months after the Ship Canal opened. He would like to know more about his past, such details were often useful, but everywhere he asked, he’d come up against a blank wall. No one knew anything about him except that he was a rebellious young man with a chip on his shoulder. It couldn’t be as big a chip as his own, which was why he spent so much of his time sweet talking Ruby with practised persistence.
 

‘As you said yourself, pet, you’re still his wife and, as such, you should demand your share of the profits.’

Ruby was shocked. ‘I couldn’t. I really couldn’t.’ She meant that her pride wouldn’t allow her to ask, yet couldn’t bring herself to admit as much. She’d certainly no intention of breaking the law and stealing it.

‘Aye, you could, Ruby. He doesn’t own you. He robbed you of your freedom, of your youth. Ask him for a proper share of the money. Demand it as your right.’

‘I ask him all the time but he just points out that I’m well provided for, and laughs at the idea of my wanting money of my own. He says he’s saving it for me. Anyway, I’ve told you, Kit, I don’t care about money. I just want you to find our Pearl, then we can be off.’
 

She pressed herself closer in his arms, lifting her lovely face to his, her eyes, lips, fingers, every inch of her pliant body begging him to understand her dilemma. ‘Bart hasn’t been cruel to me. In fact he’s quite considerate in his way, I suppose, so far as he’s capable. Some might say he’s a good husband, quite kind and considerate.’ She thought about this for a moment, privately admitting it was true, at least more true than it used to be. ‘But I’ll not rob him of what rightfully belongs to him. What I object to is the way he controls every inch of my life, every thought and decision I make. I just want to be free, free to be with you, and our Billy and Pearl. I can’t bear to be apart from you any longer.’