Richard suddenly felt nauseous as he recalled the night of the rebellion and the humiliation that she had brought upon him. From the surreptitious glances and covert whispering that he had encountered in the streets afterwards, he knew that word of his degradation had been spread by the gossipers—or nabblers—as they called themselves.
His breathing became faster and he began to sweat.
The temperature of the room seemed to have risen dramatically in seconds.
He fanned his clammy face with his stack of documents and looked at the people around the room. Nobody else was sweating or suffering under the heat. Just him.
Richard closed his eyes and let the seat behind him take his full weight, as he fought with his own memories. He was there again, on the Priory Ground, feeling everything that he had felt in those few seconds when he was assaulted by her, then flung unceremoniously from his horse. He couldn’t control it, couldn’t suppress it.
He sat up, wiped his brow and tried to concentrate.
He was back in the hot silent room.
He gaped at the five commissioners.
‘We call Alderman Thomas Honeysett to present evidence for the town and corporation of Hastings,’ one of the commissioners appealed.
‘Good luck,’ Richard said, pressing the documents into Thomas’s expectant hands.
Richard watched as he began to make his way forwards to present his case.
Then, with a weak smile, he noticed the look of horror in Eliza Lovekin’s eyes.
Chapter Sixteen
18th April 1827, The America Ground, outside Hastings, Sussex
Whilst her sisters were in the kitchen washing themselves, Harriet, Christopher and her mother ate breakfast at the table in the chilly parlour. Harriet had got her way: she was now able to sit at the table and eat with her mother and not with her sisters, but that privilege had come at a terrible price. She would give anything for that privilege to be unearned if it might have changed her father’s destiny. The haze of despondency that had fallen onto the house after her father’s death pervaded into every corner. It was as if the house itself was in mourning for Joseph Lovekin. The fires were seldom lit and the shutters rarely opened; the house had taken on the atmosphere of a subterranean crypt.
She nibbled her bread and cheese spiritlessly. She glanced up at Christopher, who offered her a half-smile. His foot touched hers reassuringly.
It had been over two weeks since Christopher had kissed her. The act itself had taken her by surprise, yet what had shocked her most about the incident were the unfamiliar feelings of yearning and pleasure that seemed to oscillate somewhere deep inside her—in a place that she hadn’t even known existed. But those feelings were manifestly tied to shame and guilt; her father—her father’s body to be precise—had been just a few feet away when they had shared their moment of intimacy. The certainty that she shouldn’t be feeling anything other than deep and utter sadness had meant that the kiss had not been repeated and those inexplicable flutterings inside her had been fiercely repressed. The following day, during a moment of quietness, Christopher had taken her hands in his and leant in for a kiss, but she had backed away.
‘Is it all because of him?’ Christopher had asked.
Harriet had known to whom he referred but had acted bewildered. ‘Who?’
‘Your friend from the corporation.’
‘No,’ Harriet had asserted, ‘and he don’t be no friend of mine, neither.’
Christopher had gone to leave but had stopped himself and turned back. ‘Do you be knowing that he went into Mr and Mrs Wood’s cottage during the storm? He were warned not to, but he insisted.’
Harriet had been startled by this news, yet she wasn’t sure why. Richard had told her that he was going to see if his help were required. Yet why hadn’t he returned? Or told her that he had tried to save her father?
‘Don’t that be striking you as odd, after what he were trying to do that other night, when he came with the constables?’ Christopher had asked.
She had shaken her head and watched Christopher march from the house incredulously, but the truth was that she did find it very odd.
Harriet reluctantly took another bite of bread and cheese. The sounds of the three of them chewing and swallowing, seemingly magnified in the still air, irritated her. Christopher absolved himself of the uncomfortable atmosphere by feigning to be absorbed by the food in front of him and her mother had that same vacant expression that had beset her face since the funeral and that had only worsened still since the inquest.
As good as alone in the room, her thoughts returned to yesterday’s visit to the Town Hall. She had gone ostensibly with the intention of seeking Richard’s assistance with the inquiry, but her true motive had been to determine her feelings for him. There was a connection between them, but she couldn’t work out what it was. One thing she was certain of, it felt different to the warm, comfortable feeling she felt about Christopher.
Determined to find out, Harriet had arrived at the Town Hall yesterday just as he was leaving. She had called out but he hadn’t heard her, so she had followed him. It was slightly thrilling to her, to be trailing him along the High Street, ducking into shop doorways or angling herself behind folk headed in the same direction. But there had been no need for such discretion—he had not turned around once and the journey had been short, ending quickly in a shocking bitter disappointment. That Richard had visited her father’s grave had baffled her as she had peered around the corner of the church at him. Her sense of disbelief had sharply switched to anger when she had witnessed the clear look of contempt and revulsion on his face. He had taken her for
