some askance glances, some whispers and mutterings, making Lewrie wonder were his breeches buttons done up proper, or was a used cundum dangling from a coat pocket.
Frankly, it had been a damned sad night. Tess had noticed his moodiness and tetchiness, and had tried to jolly him out of it…'til she'd learned the reason for his detachment.
She'd sat up in bed, a quilt and the coverlet wrapped round her, and her arms about her knees, with a pensive look on her pretty face.
'Ye'll not come t'me no longer, Alan me dear?' she'd said with a hitch in her voice, and a swipe at her eyes with a fist. 'Sure, am I too expensive? Is that it?'
'No, Tess, it's not the money… though I'm not a rich man, not really,' he'd tried to explain, practically curled up around her, with all the pillows under his shoulders and head.
'That dark-haired girl ye were with, then? D'ye wish ya were with her, the more?'
'Not if I wish t'live!' he'd said with a wry laugh, explaining Eudoxia Durschenko… and her fierce father. 'There's no one else I wish t'be with… ye know I'm married, no matter how badly that has turned out. She and I…'tis distant, now. Might improve…?'
'Dear man, 'tis rare, the single man who comes here,' Tess said with a wry look and a toss of her hair, a stab at a smile before she turned pensive again. 'I know how men are… how well I know, and how the world is. I just hoped… '' She broke off and lowered her head to her knees, shielding her face with the spill of her hair.
'That I could take you under my protection?' Lewrie softly asked, reaching out to stroke her head. In answer, she looked up for a second and jerkily nodded yes, before burying her face again.
'There's a fellow, though…,' Lewrie had posed. 'The slim man with me in the coffee-house? Peter Rushton, Lord Draywick. He's rich as Croesus, and… he asked about you. I don't know.' Lewrie sighed and shrugged lamely. 'Really rich. Mad t'find where you were. Devil take me, but… I told him. He's very amusing.'
'He ain't you!' she'd whispered, her urge to cry out muffled, and a bit sniffly, as if she wept.
'But he could get you out of here, Tess… with grand lodgings of your own. But the one fool t'deal with, not…,' Lewrie told her.
'Hmph!' was her comment on that.
'Did I have it in my power… was I free t'do so, I'd get you out of here,' he swore. 'And… not just t'have you to myself.'
'Ye really care that much about me?' she'd asked, lifting her head, brushing back her hair, and swiping her eyes free of tears once again. 'Aye, I do wish someone would, sure. 'Tis not the life they promised back in Belfast.'
'Some procurer?' Lewrie had asked.
'I got in a speck o' trouble,' Tess said, sitting upright, and smoothing the coverlet over her thighs. 'We weren't shanty-poor, like most in Ireland… but, poor enough for all th' children t'know they must make their own way, soon as they could.' Another wry smile, or a rueful quick twist of her mouth that could pass for one. 'Mum an' Da was just scrapin' by, an' without th' rest of us workin' and sendin' 'em sixpence th' month, they'd haveta sell their loom an' go on th' road, beggin'. Got me a place, a good'un, I thought, tattin' lace… I'm clever with me hands, d'ye see, an' quick. And Mum an' Da taught me readin' an' cypherin', so I had me numbers, an' that's why I thought th' feller who run th' shop moved me up. I was makin' ten shillin's a month, an' sixpence sent home was no bother a'tall! An' that with me room an' board all found. 'Til th' feller who run it, well… ye can guess why he paid me so well.'
'How old were you, then?' Lewrie had asked, dreading her answer.
'Fifteen,' Tess said with a slight sniff and a shrug. 'Before, I was workin' th' looms with Mum an' Da, but where we'd get enough to eat, all of us t'gither, was th' problem, so I had t'go out on me own. Like th' poor pig farmer'd say when th' corn runs short… 'root, hog, or die,' d'ye see,' she said with a mirthless little laugh.
'How long ago was that?' He had his fingers crossed.
'Two year ago,' Tess told him. 'Th' feller promised more pay, an' he come through with a bit of it, an'… he wasn't that bad a man. 'Twas his son was th' real devil, him an' his friend, brought in t'manage, who took advantage of th' fetchin' girls in th' shop, an' when his father lost int'rest in me for a new-come, that was when it got bad on me, an' I schemed t'git outta there. That's when I got in th' trouble.'
So she's seventeen, round the age when a lot of poorer girls get married, Lewrie thought with a sense of relief. He put an arm out to her, and she gratefully slid into his embrace, cuddled up next to him. 'What sort of trouble?' he asked.
'What sorta trouble ya think a girl gets into, with two randy lads takin' turns with her, 'bout ev'ry night?' Tess scoffed, sounding bitter, and a bit amazed by his seeming naпvetй. 'I caught a baby an' was gonna be turned out with nothin' but me wages paid 'til the end of the week, so… I dipped into th' cash-box, an' I run t'Belfast where I didn't think they'd find me.'
'The babe?' Lewrie pressed, stroking her back.
'No one'd hire a pregnant girl, an' th' parish churches were no help, either,' Tess continued, ignoring his question. 'Just wanted me t'move along t'th' next'un, so I wouldn't be a burden on their Poor's Rate. Finally…'bout the time all me money's gone, an' I hadn't et in nigh a week, I met this flash feller, who promised he'd take care o' me… did I let him fetch me t'London, where he promised me th' Moon, do I go on doin' what I'd been a'doin' fer tuppence. 'Til I begun to show too much, that is,' she frankly admitted, with a wry moue. 'Got me a mid-wife, he did, but I never saw it, th' day after. He swore he put it in th' mercy box in th' door of a parish church, but… next thing I know, he's sold me t'Missuz Batson.'
'Sold you?' Lewrie gawped.
'Feller'd spent a lot on me keepin', an' th' birthin' an' all,' Tess pointed out. 'Then there's what she spent on me, all the dresses an' such t'get me started… hairdressers an' makeup, an' teachin' me t'speak right an' be charmin'?' Tess had said with a grin, as if it was the accepted way of the world. 'Don't rightly know how much she paid him, but she says I've worked it off, an' only have her now t'repay.
'I've even laid a little by for meself,' she'd naпvely boasted, 'an' sent a little t'Mum an' Da, like before. And sent them bastards at th' lace-works all o' what I stole, so they can't have me took up, can they? Mean t'say, I've made rec… recompense. 'Twas more than ten shillin's, an' they hang people who steal that much. In th' main, I'm doin' alright.' Tess had decided.
'For now, but…'tis a hard life,' Lewrie had commiserated.
'Nary so bad as most,' Tess had said with a little chuckle as she'd snuggled closer to him. 'Did I come t'London, just another poor girl, I'd'a ended a maid'r tavern girl, not makin' ten pound a year, an' maybe gettin' room, board, an' one gown an' pair o' shoes at Boxin' Day… an' still be took advantage of, for nothin'… a shillin' at best!' Tess had said with a derisive snort. 'No, Mother Batson's is a good place, for now. Soon as I pay back what she spent on me, I'm to get a third o' me earnin's all for meself, she says! Then I can come an' go as I please, maybe get a place o' me own… without dependin' on a feller like yer Lord Draywick, nor any man.'
'And do what?' Lewrie had asked her.
'Why, th' same as I do now,' Tess had declared, looking up at him askance, as if he was daft, giggling a bit. ' 'Til I've raked me up a pile o' 'tin' t'invest in th' Three Percents. Who knows? I could remove t'another town an' open a ladies' shop o' some sort, and turn respectable as anythin'. Find me a decent feller… a clerk or a farmer, an' might even marry. Someplace where no one'll know what I did, before.'
'So… even though you don't like the life, and do want to get out of here… you'll stay with it?' Lewrie further asked, confused by her initial sadness, then her blunt acceptance.
'What else is a poor lass t'do, Captain Alan? Tess had countered. 'It's not that hard a life, though it's a hard world,' she'd said in conclusion, then had groped under the covers to stroke his nudity. 'Well, if I can't convince ye t'take me under yer protection, there's th' rest o' th' night left us. If you're int'rested, o' course…,' she'd coyly whispered. 'Do I not see ya again, I'd wish a last grand night t'remember ya by, ya darlin', impressive man…'
'Oh, darlin', ye're own self,' Lewrie had responded, passion rekindled in an eyeblink, hands caressing, lips kissing from her neck to…
'Seen the papers, Captain Lewrie?' ex-Major Baird enquired as he sidled up to get a refill of hot tea. 'Thought they might be of interest to you.'
'Uhm?' Lewrie replied, snatched from his sad reverie.
'The dockyards… the Navy dockyard workers,' Baird chortled. 'They had the nerve to send a delegation to town, demanding their pay be doubled, and Lord Saint Vincent sacked the lot of them, yesterday.'
'Well, damn my eyes!' Lewrie exclaimed (rather a bit too loudly for the 'Respectable' waiting for breakfast).
