will do. And some soap, a comb …’
‘What are you going to do, Miss Katherine, when he’s … I mean, when you’re a …?’
‘When he is hanged and I am a widow?’ Katherine enquired, her tone harsh. ‘I will find a small country town to move to with you and John and I will earn my living taking in pupils for foreign languages. My French and Italian are excellent and my German would be good if I applied myself a little.’
‘And Mr Philip?’
‘Mr Philip will have to find some employment himself, I am afraid, Jenny. I cannot think for all of us any more.’ Something was falling on to her hands as she folded the linen towels, something wet making dark splashes on the fabric. She was crying. Blindly Katherine raised her hands to her face and found the tears were pouring down her cheeks. Her shoulders began to shake and she sank onto the bed, curling up and weeping as though her heart would break.
‘Oh, Miss Katherine, don’t now, don’t, you will make yourself ill. Oh, it is so wrong that you have to go back to that terrible man tonight, so wrong …’ Jenny, the same age as Katherine and devoted to her mistress, had been struck almost dumb with terror at the sight of the unkempt, sinister figure of the highwayman. The thought that Katherine—slender, fastidious, chaste—was going to have to give herself to him was hideous. She wrapped her arms around her and cried too.
Eventually Katherine found the tears were stopping and sat up, sniffing and groping for a handkerchief. She found two and passed one to her maid and they sat curled up together on the big white bed, mopping their reddened eyes. ‘It is not the highwayman I mind, Jenny,’ Katherine ventured, surprised to find that was true. Tonight was a frightening prospect, but it would have been whoever the man was, and the setting made it worse. ‘He was kind and not at all coarse in how he spoke to me or what he did. I think he was a gentleman once. He makes me feel safe somehow. Perhaps it is because he is so big!’ She smiled at the maid’s scandalised face.
‘You know I always tell you the truth, Jenny.’
‘Then why are you crying?’
‘Nerves, I suppose, and the shock of that prison. And realising just how desperate our situation is. None of it seems real—and then it is all too real.’ Discovering just how Philip had used and betrayed her hurt almost beyond anything. And she felt bad about using Nicholas Lydgate in their plans. True, he had nothing to lose and perhaps, as he said, there were some benefits. But he was a human being in the most dire of situations, literally at the door of death, and they were using him for their own ends. It left a bitter taste in her mouth; Philip would think her mad for refining upon it.
‘Now, Jenny, pack those towels into a basket, put in the soap and the comb … oh, and this.’ She plucked a book from her night stand. ‘Then go and ask Mr Philip for the shaving tackle. Then find John and ask him if he can spare a shirt or two and some breeches and a jacket for Mr Lydgate. I will buy him new to replace them. He will know what else is needed.’ She sniffed resolutely and scrambled off the bed. ‘Ask him to take a hackney and go as soon as possible, please.’
Alone at last, Katherine went to sit at her dressing table and survey the damage her fit of crying had caused. Red eyes, red nose and blotched cheeks—how she envied ladies who could shed a decorative tear and all it did was to make their eyes shine more brightly. When Jenny came back she would have a bath, wash her hair and rinse it with jasmine water and then, when it was dry, lie down and rest with cucumber slices on her eyes—always supposing there was a cucumber in the house.
Thinking about Nicholas Lydgate made her determined that she was going to deliver her part of their strange bargain. In the middle of that noisome hell-hole he was going to have one night with a woman who smelt delicious and who went to him willingly. Doubtless he would have preferred an experienced Cyprian, but she would just have to do.
Katherine realised she felt better. She was still terrified, but the sense that she was behaving towards her stranger-husband as she ought was calming, as was the realisation that she had a plan of sorts for when it was all over and the immediate threat of the debt was removed. Then the reality of what the end of this meant hit her again: before the debt was due she would be a widow and her husband would have gone to a shameful public death.
The clock over the gate of the prison struck eight. Nicholas Lydgate straightened up from the table where he had been sitting, reading the volume of poetry his surprising new bride had added to the eminently sensible basket she had sent him. Soap and Byron were both welcome, although he would gladly have traded the entire works of the poet for an ounce of soap if that had been the choice.
Was she going to come? He would not blame her in the slightest if she did not. He ran one hand over his freshly shaven chin. Another luxury he had her to thank for, although the turnkey had stood over him while he shaved and had removed the razors the moment he had finished with them.
The door rattled, swung open and Mr Rawlings, a turnkey at his heels, looked in. ‘Your wife is here, Standon, or Lydgate, or whatever your name is. I will come to collect her at eight in the morning. Ma’am.’
In fact it was her coachman, the man he had seen earlier, who came in. He shot Nicholas a suspicious glance, measured him up and down with critical eyes, then gave a sharp nod of approval before he dumped a hamper on the table and another large basket by the bed. ‘You clean up better than I’d have suspected,’ he remarked with a grunt. ‘All right, Miss Katherine, I will be here all night if you need me.’ This parting shot came with another hard stare at Nicholas as the door closed behind him, leaving Katherine standing alone just inside the threshold.
He made no move towards her as she lifted her veil from her face and untied her bonnet, which she placed on the bed. Then she simply stood looking at him, her hands clasped in front of her. Her face was calm and lovely, but he could see the hem of her gown vibrating with her trembling. There was a thud and a howl of rage from somewhere close by and she started, her face pale.
Nicholas took a quick stride. ‘Here, let me take your pelisse. Come and sit down at the table. You have brought still more supplies, I see. I cannot tell you how grateful I am for the ones earlier; I hope I present a slightly less unnerving spectacle than I did before.’ He felt he was talking too much, but, until she seemed willing to speak, he could not be silent.
She sat obediently and finally managed a small smile. ‘Yes. I have brought food and drink and clean bed linen.’ She reached out a hand and touched gently the raw marks on his wrists where the shackles had rubbed. ‘And bandages with some of my own salve. Those must chafe horribly where your cuffs touch. If you take off your coat and roll up your sleeves, I will bandage them now.’
His immediate reaction was to refuse. She should not be sitting in a cell, tending to a felon’s wounds. But she had to spend the night here, come what may, and it seemed to be helping her to have something practical to do. He stood up and did as she asked before sitting again and holding out his arms for her attention.
‘Oh …’ she bit her lip at the sight of the sores, but to his surprise it was compassion, not revulsion in her tone ‘… how can they justify such heavy, tight irons? It is cruel.’ She unscrewed the lid of a jar of greasy green ointment and began to smear it on his wrists with light fingertips. The little shock of sensation he had felt when he took her hand in his in the chapel ran through him again. ‘I am sorry, did that hurt?’ He had not realised he had moved. ‘It is mainly wood sage, chickweed and betony, but I have put in thyme as well.’
Her voice seemed stronger discussing the herbs. ‘What does the thyme do? I thought that was a pot herb.’
‘It is, but I like to put
