A Rational Proposal (Furze House Irregulars Book 1)(34)
Verity swallowed. “What if he is?”
Kitty’s mouth set into a line. “He thinks he has me, therefore he makes sure to remind me that it is in my own interest to keep him comfortable. It is not what I want, nor what I expected when I went away with him, but... one adapts. When I judge it safe, I will escape to Newmarket, but I can never return to the girl I was, not after the things I have done, the things I have seen.” She met their eyes with the new, hard impatience Verity had noticed before. “My fate is no different to that of many gently-born women who are sold off to older husbands for what their fathers can get. There may be a difference in scale, but we are all counters in a game.”
Verity assimilated this. “What if... what if it were our game?”
“Our game? How could it be? How would we live? Forgive my indelicacy, but I could sell my own services and be rich. However, there are laws against bawdy houses. Fines and hard labour if you’re convicted of procuring for others.”
Verity shook her head slowly. “I told you of my hopes for Furze House as a home for Mama and me. Charles thinks it too large for two women to rattle around in, too large even for three women and a child. But treating it as a house of safety away from London, where we let rooms to respectable ladies to ply whatever trade they choose, whether it be cooking or making bonnets or fashioning fans - that would be a far more rational enterprise. We could hold card evenings or soirees now and again where gentlemen might come during the race meetings. Cards and music and light conversation is not procuring, is it?” Her mind threw up another possibility. “And then, and once our little parties become known, it would give those gentlemen of Charles’s acquaintance that he isn’t overly anxious to be seen meeting a perfectly legitimate place to brush against each other.”
“In Newmarket,” mused Kitty. “Up towards the race course? It has merit. That is the one place where such an arrangement might succeed. There would be several of us then? Like a boarding house, but one where we work together? I begin to like this scheme, Verity.”
“Molly Turner was saying she wished to get her mother and her children out of London. A laundry and repair facility in the yard would help make Furze House self-sustaining, would it not? You must know of other women who might be glad to swap the city for a country town. And the beauty of it is that to all intents and purposes, it would be a perfectly respectable dwelling.”
Julia and Verity walked with Kitty when she left the house. “I dared not stir outside all morning for fear I would miss you, so will be glad of the exercise,” said Verity. “How far may we go with you?”
“To the bottom of Bond Street will be safe. Then if Simon is waiting along Piccadilly and happens to glimpse you returning, I can say you had purchases to make.”
“I do not want to let you leave. I wish you would stay.”
A yearning look crossed Kitty’s face, instantly beaten back. “So do I now. These last seven years have been so hard I had almost forgotten my early life still existed somewhere. So much softness, and love, and refinement. To have it so close... Do not tempt me, Verity. Not until we have made secure arrangements. If I left Simon now, I would fear for Ann’s life with my every breath. I hope her new ribbons and the doll from Mama will prove to him that she is loved and of value as she is.”
Verity looked fondly down at her niece, and caught her exchanging a tiny wave with a street urchin who immediately took off down the road. She felt a pang of distress. There were always patched and ragged children around in London. Would that she could feed and clothe them all.
Where Bond Street became Piccadilly, Verity kissed her sister and picked up Ann to hug her. “Goodbye, sweeting, I will see you again soon. Your grandmama is looking forward to you spending the whole day with us. Goodbye, Kitty, you will let me know when?”
“I will. Dearest Verity, thank you so much for still being your lovely stubborn self.” She took her daughter’s hand and they walked resolutely away.
Verity turned to where Julia was tactfully studying a display of bonnets in a shop window. “She is so much changed,” she said, struggling to keep her tears at bay.
“Still beautiful though,” said Julia. “And her husband was waiting. You can see in the window...” Her voice changed. “Verity, don’t turn around. Look here quickly. Is that her husband? Is that Captain Eastwick?”
Verity gazed blurrily at the reflected street. “Yes, that is him. He didn’t trust her at all, did he?”
“I begin to think she should not trust him,” said Julia with unusual acerbity. “No wonder he does not normally come into our part of town. Verity, I was in daily contact with that gentleman not four months ago at the Cattsons’ house party in Shropshire.”
“What? How?” Verity looked at her friend in shock. “Why would he go to a house party and not take Kitty?”
Julia took a deep breath. “Because at the time he was calling himself Mr North and was the reason Mary Cattson was nearly ruined. He was the gentleman her parents paid off.”
“Good God, can it be possible? Kitty said he sometimes goes out of town and returns a few weeks later with money in his pocket. It that how he obtains it? By... by preying on the susceptibilities of young women? I cannot credit such a base thing.” But even as she said the words, she realised she could believe it. As soon as he’d walked into the room at Henrietta Street, she’d felt his dominance and had remembered how he’d always liked to be the centre of attention. He had charmed Kitty in very short order seven years ago for no other reason than that he could. Maybe it gave him a feeling of power. The only difference back then had been that he’d married the object of his pursuit instead of being bought off. “This is monstrous,” she said, feeling ill. “Disgusting. Poor Miss Cattson. To play with a woman’s heart knowing that he is married and will never make good on his promises. It is despicable.” She turned and started to hurry Julia back to the house. “I must write a note to Charles that you may tell him the way of it yourself. The footman will go to his chambers if he is not at home, won’t he?”