Page 55 of A Sham Engagement

Elenora was right at that moment becoming more than a little restless in Martha Sharpe’s parlor. Having fortified herself by eating several more slices of the excellent pound cake and washing this rather unsuitable dinner down with a good half-dozen cups of strong sweet tea, she was feeling ready to face all eventualities. The thought that Jack had gone off without her into the depths of the slums had begun, with her rising spirits, to trouble her more and more. She should never have allowed herself to be so easily dissuaded from accompanying him.

“I think, Martha,” she said to her hostess, with some asperity, “that you need to tell me the whole story behind this, for I suspect there’s more to it than either you or Jack has divulged.”

Martha glanced at young Ruth, whose ears must have been on high alert. “Time for you girls to get ready for bed, I’d say. You go and tell my Betsy and Lucy to get the little ones in their beds for me. And you big girls can have some hot cocoa in the kitchen. I’ll be up later to tuck you all in and hear your prayers.”

Ruth’s rather thin mouth set in a discontented line, but she set her sewing down and with an abrupt curtsy, took herself off. No doubt all these other girls Martha had mentioned would be waiting agog to hear what was afoot from their spy in the camp.

Elenora set down her empty teacup. Where to start, now they were alone? At the beginning. “What sort of an establishment, exactly, do you run here?” Best to be upfront and clear from the start, and the fact that it appeared to be full of more girls than one mother could possibly be responsible for bringing into the world seemed something that needed delving into, despite Jack’s brief explanation.

Martha shifted uneasily. “I’m not sure his lordship’d want me being free with what he does here.”

As if that wasn’t suspicious in itself.

Elenora shook her head, determined not to be put off. “Nonsense. I am his betrothed, and the fact that he brought me to you in his search for his son must prove to you that he holds me in his confidence. So therefore I should be in yours.” She bestowed a beaming, and falsely positive, smile upon her hostess and leaned forwards in her seat. “So, pray tell me all about it.”

Martha bridled a bit more. “It’s a long story, Miss Elenora, and goes back years.”

“Start at the beginning then. You will find I am all ears. And it seems, at this moment, that we have time for you to tell me everything.”

Martha nodded, although with a show of reluctance. “I first met his lordship when he came to the tavern me and my husband, Reuben, were running in Limehouse. A lot of young bucks liked to come there and drink, down with the rough trade. To see the other side of life to what they’re used to in their big houses to the west. After, when I was safely out of it, he told me it was something called a ‘rite of passage.’ I thought he was no different to the others, doing it for a dare, I’d say. But that night…” She hesitated as though she might be reaching a bit of the story she didn’t want to divulge.

“Warts and all,” Elenora said, a phrase she’d long wanted to use. “Tell me everything. Leave nothing out. Nothing at all.”

Martha nodded, a resigned expression settling on her face. “That night we had a singer in the tavern. Young girl fresh arrived from Wales. Her name was Mary Warren.”

Edward’s mother, of course.

Curiosity consumed Elenora. She had to know this story now. She had to find out about the as yet mysterious young woman who’d found her way into Jack’s life and out of it so abruptly. “Go on.”

Martha sighed. “She was lovely to look at. Like one of those china dolls you see in shop windows up west. I always wanted one of them when I was a littl’un. Never got one, but that didn’t stop me wanting one. Black hair down to her waist, skin like…” She searched for a word. “Like a pearl, all glowing and fresh. Eyes that sparkled and a figure any man would want to call his own.”

“And did Jack call her his own?” Although she already knew the answer to this. Was that a nub of jealousy forming in her heart? Mary Warren had been the love of Jack’s life and given him his adored little son. He’d made it clear how much he’d loved her. Or had he?

Martha nodded. “She lit onto him soon as she saw him. Recognized him for what he was and saw how smitten he was, too. Her ticket out of the rookeries. A girl as lovely as her could go a long way with a rich benefactor, and she knew it. Either that, or she’d have ended up on the street, selling her body to the highest bidder. And she could sing too. Like a lark, I’d’ve said. Later on, folks called her the Welsh Nightingale, when she was famous and singing in those big theaters up west.”

“But what does she have to do with you running this house?”

“It’s how I got to know his lordship. Through Mary. And how he got to find out how unhappy I was with Reuben.”

“Why were you so unhappy?”

Martha dabbed her eyes with the corner of her apron as though the recounting of her story cut her to the quick. “Oh, when we first were wed, and he were young and handsome, he was kinder to me than any man I’d ever met. He could be a charmer when he wanted to be, could Reuben. My ma and pa said I was marrying beneath me, but, like a fool, I wouldn’t listen to them. We were both young and in love, but love doesn’t last, Miss Elenora, take it from me. If it ever exists, which I’ve had cause to doubt in my life.”

She sniffed. “And I didn’t know, back then, that he was getting himself involved with the Limehouse gang.” She shook her head. “The money was nice, of course, and he wasn’t backward in buying me pretty things when I was young, and pretty things made me prettier, but then I found out where it was comin’ from. Well, we had words, and more, because I thought I knew him and had found I didn’t… That was the first time he beat me senseless.” Her matter of fact words dropped into the cozy sitting room with a thud that echoed.

Elenora swallowed. A man, Martha’s husband, who must once have promised to stand by her and care for her, had beaten her unconscious for daring to raise an objection to his criminal ways. She wasn’t such a numbskull to think that sort of thing didn’t go on between husbands and wives. She’d seen a few wives of Papa’s tenants sporting bruised faces before now. But this was closer to home, somehow. “And did Jack find out what your husband was doing to you?”

“He saw. Not the beating, which wasn’t the first I’d had from Reuben by a long chalk. No, Reuben was always careful to lay into me somewhere no one’d see. He didn’t like having no witnesses. Not even in front of our younguns. No, Jack saw me after, behind the bar, with my face all swoll up and sore, my ribs broke, only no one to take no notice of the bruises. No one save Jack. The folk in The Angel, that was our tavern’s name, they saw, but they knew Reuben and they said nothing. Turned a blind eye. Turned two blind eyes. If any of ’em had said something, they knew they’d’ve received the same. Or worse. Reuben was getting himself a reputation, by then. He was well in with the Limehouse gang and no one goes against them. Not then and not now.”

Her matter of factness shocked Elenora. What could she say to Martha’s tale of suffering? And this courageous woman had allowed her precious son to take Jack to meet this man, whom she’d escaped from. To walk into the danger of the rookeries to save Jack’s child. Bravery could lurk in the most unexpected places.

Martha wiped eyes which had grown watery and moist. “I didn’t think a swell cove like your Jack would’ve cared, but he did. He got me away from Reuben, with my children, and set me up in a little house. Safe away from him. I don’t know what he said or did, but Reuben didn’t come after me. Jack’d got Mary well away by then in a nice little house up west, but he’d kept coming back to The Angel—I think to keep an eye on me. I think Mary asked him to. She knew, you see.”

She paused. “That’s why Reuben bares him such a grudge. He thought Lord Jack stole me away to be his doxy.” She chuckled. “Stupid idea when the lad had already got Mary, fresh young thing that she was, but Reuben’s a jealous man, and he don’t forget if someone’s bested him. No, he’s happy to bide his time, that one. His favorite saying’s that revenge is a dish best served cold.” She shivered.

“Does Jack know this?”

“He does.”