He merely seeks to use you. If he cared for you, he would not have brought you here. You know full well, Meg, he may be all flattery and honey when he’s sober, but once he starts drinking—well—I’m the one who patches you up. I’ve seen the results of his behaviour once too often. Oh, Meg, please think about it.’
‘I try not to think. I accept what there is.’
‘Don’t give him the chance to hurt you again. I implore you.’
Meg’s face clenched up like a fist as she fought to keep her voice under control. ‘I need no instructions from you on how to conduct myself.’
‘Of course not—but really I am most concerned about you.’
‘Save your concern for someone else,’ she grumbled ungraciously. ‘I’m quite capable of taking care of myself.’
‘Are you?’ Delphine pressed. ‘I beg you to go away somewhere—for Maisie’s sake as well as your own. She is but a child and deserves better than this. You once worked in the theatre as an actress, touring the provinces. Could you not go back? It has to be better than this.’
Meg’s lovely face became almost ugly as she looked down at Delphine. ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to gain by this,’ she said nastily, ‘but I’m not going anywhere. I can look after myself—as I’ve always done. I won’t leave Will. I can’t.’ She looked away. ‘That’s the way it is.’
Unable to understand Meg’s loyalty and devotion to Will Kelly, Delphine’s heart sank with defeat. Meg had grown partial to Will’s silken tongue and good looks whilst on tour with an acting troupe; when he’d offered to take both her and Maisie to London and a better life, she’d packed her bags and gone with him—to Mrs Cox’s place, to become one of her whores. Now she was at the service of any lecherous rogue with gold in his pockets and Maisie stayed in the nearby orphanage. Will was the first man Meg had loved. She would do anything to keep him. He had been the first male to reject her, scorn her, beat her, awake in her all the fury of which only hell has the like, yet she would not leave him.
‘And Maisie? Can you look after her?’
Meg’s eyes narrowed and anger sparked in their depths. ‘I know what you’re thinking, but don’t,’ she said fiercely. ‘I’m her mother—not a good mother, I admit, but I am still her mother. Do you think I’d let any one of the dirty brutes who come here touch her? I’d kill her and myself before I let that happen—after killing the man who tried.’
Delphine nodded. ‘I know you would. But there are men who come here who would take a young girl—whether she was willing or not.’
‘They won’t. You don’t understand one thing about me. Do you think I don’t worry about Maisie? That’s why I put her in the orphanage. If anything should happen to me …’ She swallowed audibly, weakening and allowing her emotions to show. ‘I worry about what would happen to her.’
‘Nothing is going to happen to you, Meg, but if it did, then I would do my utmost to take care of her.’
Hope welled in Meg’s eyes as she gripped Delphine’s hand. ‘Would you?’ she whispered. ‘Would you do that for me?’
‘Of course I would.’
‘You promise?’ Meg urged, her eyes dark with anguish.
For the first time Delphine heard a tremor in her voice. She was conscious of strong conflicting urges—though she ached to vent her impatience, she was tempted, too, to put a sympathetic hand over Meg’s. She resisted both compulsions and forced herself to think calmly for a moment about the promise she was about to make should anything happen to Meg. Her heart sank precipitously at the thought.
‘Yes, Meg. I promise. I would see that she came to no harm.’
‘Thank you.’ Her voice trembled on the words, and she looked away, jaw clamped tight. Then she looked back at Delphine, eyes bright and tearless. ‘You should go. I’ll see Maisie gets back to the orphanage. I’ve no customers so she can stay with me tonight. I’ll take her back in the morning.’
Delphine rose, standing for a moment in grave silence. ‘Very well,’ she said eventually, gazing at the sleeping child. ‘But think about what I’ve said, Meg. Take Maisie away and put this place behind you.’
Without another word she left, exceedingly vexed by the interview. She was anxious of the influence this place would end up having on Maisie, for deep in her heart she knew Meg would not leave while Will Kelly continued to have a hold over her.
She paused, hearing a moan, and lingered at the top of the stairs, transfixed. Someone had left a bedroom door ajar in his haste to bed his companion. Overcome by a strange sense of curiosity, she moved hesitantly towards it and peered through the crack.
One of the girls was doing what she was paid to do. Delphine flinched, about to draw back—but she could not.
At first she felt shock, then she felt her body growing warm. Her spirit seemed suddenly quite apart from her body. Like a rabbit before a stoat, she was mesmerised. Two naked bodies, arms and legs entwined as they writhed and sprawled on the bed, moved in a voluptuous rhythm. Against her will, Delphine felt her body respond to what she was seeing. Her pulse was beating faster; every nerve seemed to tingle.
She drew a long, shuddering breath. What was happening to her? The two people she was observing were strangers to her. How could their impassioned movements awaken these dark longings in her blood? Loose women, she knew from her mother’s lectures, were the only women who took pleasure in such things. Attempting to calm her mind as well as her body, she shrank away, her body trembling. She felt like a little girl at a keyhole.
Suddenly she was snatched from her preoccupation by the sound of a voice close at hand. It was a loud, brutish voice, belonging to a heavily built man with thick fair hair and a coarseness that dominated his heavy features. As he ascended the staircase, his dark gaze assessed her with a scathing vulgarity. He wore a coarse linen shirt stained with food and ale, and dark-velvet trousers fastened with a wide belt.
This was Will Kelly, a swaggering, ill-mannered brute who drank, gambled and seduced his way through life. He had close-set, foxy, clever eyes that missed nothing and a way of looking at Delphine that made her flesh crawl. He carried with him a smell of the poverty-ridden streets that turned her stomach. When she had first laid eyes on him, his manner had conveyed to her that this was a man of intense cunning, utter ruthlessness and terrible danger.
He watched as she approached him, standing with his feet wide apart and his huge fists resting on his wide hips, his grey eyes cold and unfriendly.
‘So! What have you been up to, Miss Cameron? Interfering again?’
‘Not at all,’ Delphine replied haughtily, determined to remain unruffled, even though beneath her skirts her legs were trembling at his nearness. ‘I’ve been to see Meg—and there’s no need for you to shout; my hearing is perfectly sound.’
‘Not thinking of entering the profession, are you?’ Moving closer, he reached out his gnarled, dirty fingers and gripped her chin roughly, turning her face from side to side, showering her with spittle as he spoke. ‘You’re comely enough, I’ll give you that—a tempting wench.’ He grinned lewdly. ‘I’m a reasonable man. We could come to an understanding.’
Delphine glowered at him, pushing
