‘Listen, I’m going to give you a couple of days to speak with Margaret before I go ahead and book the flights. We can come another time when it’s less… awkward for you.’
‘No,’ Morton insisted. ‘Book the flights.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Totally. You can stay here with us. I think Aunty Margaret was planning on treating herself to a few nights in the Mermaid, so we’ll have the space.’
‘Okay,’ Jack replied. ‘I’ll get right onto it.’
‘See you soon, then,’ Morton said with a wide smile.
‘See you, then, son. Goodbye.’
Morton put the phone down and stared at it for an inordinate amount of time, as he replayed their conversation in his head. ‘Oh. My. God,’ he said to himself, with a nervous chuckle. An odd tenseness tightened in his stomach. What on earth was he going to say to Aunty Margaret? What should be the epitome of normality—his mother and father together to celebrate their granddaughter’s first birthday—felt to him like the unfolding of a very large train wreck.
Morton pulled out his mobile phone and selected his Aunty Margaret from the contact list.
Phil was bored. He was sitting in the lounge of his council flat, flipping the gold guinea up in the air, playing heads or tails. Pointless, really; there was just him home, sitting here in front of his laptop watching the time slowly counting down on his eBay auction listing. Heads it sells. Tails it doesn’t. He flipped the coin, just as the time turned red, indicating that the listing had less than one minute to run. Tails.
‘Damn it,’ he said, as if the outcome of the sale really was in the hands of the flipping of a coin.
The bid changed. £650.
Forty-seven seconds to go.
‘Come on,’ he grumbled.
Thirty-two seconds.
New bid. £890.
‘Yes!’ he enthused, slamming his fist onto the desk, making the coin leap.
Twenty-two seconds.
£950.
‘Come on, new bidder!’
Sixteen seconds.
£1,020.
He clenched his fists and leapt up, unable to contain his excitement.
Five seconds.
£1,120.
Listing Closed.
Phil yelped with delight, picked up the gold guinea and kissed it.
Chapter Four
4th March 1821, Aldington, Kent
An unusual sound stirred Ann Fothergill from fitful sleep. With a grimace, she turned onto her side, plucking at an aberrant piece of straw which protruded through the palliasse on which she lay. The sound—if there had even been one, which she now doubted—had stopped. She pulled the woollen blanket up to her chin and drew her knees to her chest to ease the shivering. As with most mornings, her first thoughts turned to drink, specifically rum and water. Just one or maybe two glasses usually saw her straight.
She rocked onto her back and turned towards the fire grate. Nothing but soot. Now that she was awake, she really ought to get up and remake it. If not for her sake, then for his.
Reluctantly she stood up, tugging the blanket around her shoulders, and approached his bed. His eyes were shut and his mouth slightly agape. Same as she found him most mornings. Most of the time, in fact.
Ann pressed her hand gently to his forehead. Her fingers met with a light dampness and she peeled back one of the several layers of blanket which covered him from chin to toe.
A short, grating groan emanated from his throat as his head rolled to face towards the shuttered window.
She heard the sound again—raised voices from downstairs, she realised. One voice was undoubtedly that of the mistress, Hester, but the other belonged to a man. Deep and hoarse. Most irregular-sounding in a house which, for the past three weeks, had contained just two women and the young boy, John. The man’s voice both intrigued and perturbed her. Who was he and what was he doing here?
She padded lightly over to the door. It was open—as it always had to be, one of the many strict conditions imposed upon her by the mistress. With her neck craned towards the direction of the conversation, she raised a hand to cup her ear. She sniffed in annoyance, hearing nothing but low murmurings. Deliberate, no doubt to stop her from hearing.
Ann sniffed again as she heard the stairs moaning under the weight of two sets of feet. She was half-minded not to move. After all, she wasn’t doing anything wrong. The mistress had said nothing about standing by the door. But what about the man? He could be anyone. She quickly stole from her position and just managed to flop down onto her palliasse before Hester waltzed into the room with a deliberate touch of the dramatic. She clutched at the tips of her shawl, as though it might fly away of its own volition, were she to let go.
The gentleman behind her—and from his fine blue coat and high black polished boots, Ann knew that he certainly was a gentleman—stooped down to get under the low door frame. He was in his mid-thirties and a fine figure of a man.
‘This be a surgeon—a real surgeon,’ Hester blurted, nodding in Ann’s direction as she laboured the word ‘real’.
‘Doctor Papworth-Hougham,’ he introduced, the front curls of his long black hair dipping over his eyes with the nonchalant tip of his head. He pushed back against the fallen locks with the thin fingers of his left hand, placed his red leather case down beside the bed, and then turned to the patient.
‘Nice to be a-meeting a man in your profession,’ Ann said, tucking her lank hair behind her ears. For his benefit,
