If anything happened to Henry, the Trust would require her to quit her home. She would be forced to go to her brother and his penny-pinching wife in Suffolk and live off their largesse. That would be the end of any hope of a well-connected marriage for Amelia, and for Sophie too for that matter.
‘I’m sorry, Josie, but you’ll have to find somewhere else to stay.’ She made to close the door but Patrick wedged his boot in.
‘It was no fault of Josie’s that Charlie set upon her,’ he said, in a low voice. ‘If you turn her away you will be as accountable as Mrs Munroe for her ruination.’
Rosalyn’s conscience tried to stay her hand but she overruled it. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered as she leant on the door.
Patrick’s boot remained. He leant towards her and compassion replaced the anger in his eyes. ‘I understand your alarm at the mention of the Tugmans, but I beg you, for the love of Mary, don’t let your fear add to Josie’s desperate situation.’
Rosalyn stared into Patrick’s imploring face for a moment then shook her head. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, as a lead weight settled in the pit of her stomach. ‘I truly am.’ She glanced at his foot.
Fury blazed from Patrick’s eyes then he stepped back and put a protective arm around Josie’s shoulder.
‘Come away, sweetheart,’ he said softly, as he drew her to him and guided her down the steps.
‘I’m sorry,’ Rosalyn said to their retreating figures, and felt a lump in her throat and tears springing to her eyes.
Patrick turned and gave her a look of utter contempt and then he and Josie walked across the square, their reflections elongated on the wet road.
Rosalyn closed the door and quickly went upstairs. She paused outside her daughters’ room and then went to her own. She closed the door and leant with her back against it. She stared blindly ahead as her soul accused her of being callous, despicable and loathsome to have turned Josie from her door and she didn’t argue. But what else could she have done? She had to protect her family. Tears streamed down her cheeks, then very faintly and far away, echoing somewhere in Rosalyn’s head, she could heard Ma Tugman’s spiteful laugh.
Chapter Nineteen
Patrick pushed open the door to number twenty Walburgh Street and stood back so Josie could enter. As she passed him their eyes met. In the dim light of the hallway, his face wore a furious expression.
Shaking the water from her hair, Josie continued down towards the scullery. There was a click of a handle and the door to the front room where Kate and Annie slept opened behind them.
‘Is that you, Pat?’ Kate’s voice echoed down the passage.
Patrick’s hand rested on Josie’s shoulders to keep her in front of him, with her back against his chest, shielding her from his sister’s view. She let her head tilt back onto his collarbone as the warmth from his body spread over her.
‘Aye,’ he called.
Josie closed her eyes, enjoying the reverberation of his deep voice in her own body.
‘I’m going around to Mattie’s, to sit with her for the night,’ she called. ‘Mr Hoffman’s let me have the morning off for Brian’s Mass so I’ll see you at the Mission?’
‘That you will,’ he called back.
‘Gus said he’ll be down at the Prospect if you’re in need of a drink later,’ she called out, just before closing the door behind her.
Patrick led Josie to the fire, then took a wick from the mantelshelf to light the candle on the table. She only had to reach out and she would have been able to trace her fingers along the muscles of his upper arms.
He turned back to her. ‘You’ll have to stay here and we’ll think of something else in the morning. You can have my bed and I’ll sleep down here. Annie and Mickey are at Mattie’s with Mam, so no one will know you’ve spent the night.’
Josie shrugged off his jacket and let her hands fall by her side. Patrick’s gaze flickered briefly down to the front of her gown.
‘It doesn’t matter, Patrick,’ she replied, her eyes resting on the top two buttons of his shirt, which were unfastened. ‘I’m not going anywhere because I am staying with you.’
He raked his hand through his hair. ‘What do you think Dr Munroe will say when he hears that? And your mother! They are likely to take the same view of you leaving their home as Mrs Cooper.’
A small ripple of uneasiness ran through her. ‘I won’t say Mam will dance a jig when she hears,’ she said, trying not to dwell on what her mother would say. ‘But I wrote to her and told her how I felt. I am hoping that she and Pa will have some sympathy. After all, they were in a similar situation twelve years ago,’ Josie pushed the unhappy thought of being cut off from her family aside. ‘But if not, then so be it.’
He shook his head. ‘No. I can’t allow you to throw everything away just because of that bitter old woman. I’ll sleep here and we’ll go back in the morning.’
Josie gave him a sad smile. ‘It will do no good. I will have slept under your roof and that will cast me as a woman of low morals in everyone’s eyes.’
‘But surely . . . if you told them why—’
‘I could try, but no one would accept the explanation.’ She went over to him and placed her hands on his chest. ‘It seems the choice about if and when we would ever be together has been made for us.’
A tortured look crossed Patrick’s face. ‘But Josie, there must be some way. Something we can do to put this right.’
She shook her head. They gazed at each other for a moment then Patrick’s hand slid around her waist and he kissed her.
‘I love you,’ he whispered, pressing his forehead onto hers. ‘I want to come home to you at the end of the day, I want to hold you as I sleep and find you beside me when I open my eyes.’ He kissed her slowly. ‘I want you to be my wife, Josie, and for you to have my children - but not like this.’
‘I know, my love. I know, but life doesn’t always play out the way we plan,’ she replied, her voice low. She kissed him lightly on the lips. ‘Now, Patrick, let us begin our life together even if it is not how we would have chosen to start it.’
The fight was over. Picking up the lamp and taking her hand, he led her silently through the house and up the stairs. He opened the door and she brushed past him and in to his room.
She gazed around at the small items he’d collected over the years, the large pink shell he’d found on a Tahitian beach, a carved mask he’d bought for a rub of tobacco in Bombay. Then her eyes rested on the cast iron bed with the patchwork counterpane, wedged against the wall.
Shutting the door quietly behind him, Patrick slipped his arm around her and turned her towards him. He studied her for a moment then pressed his lips on hers. Her mouth opened under his instantly but he held back, conscious of her innocence. Her hands ran over his shoulders and chest and he pulled his shirt open so he could feel her fingertips on his bare skin, thankful the summer heat had made him leave off his three-buttoned vest. Her hands explored tentatively and sent his senses reeling.
‘God, Josie,’ he whispered in her ear as he pressed his lips to her neck.
She tilted her head back as he inched the fabric away from her shoulder then slid her hands onto his chest and pushed him away. He stood back and watched in the soft glow of the lamplight as her hands went to the remaining buttons at the front of her bodice.
‘I’ll turn around?’ he said.
‘You don’t have to,’ she replied, pulling at the ribbon.
He stood mesmerised, watching as she revealed her chemise and corset. Then, with her eyes still averted she slipped the torn bodice from her shoulder and let it fall to the rag rug she stood on. Finally, she untied the laces of her skirt.
Patrick’s heart crashed in his chest but he forced himself to remain where he was, reminding himself that this was her first time.
Don’t rush at her, he told himself, as her skirt and petticoats followed the upper part of her gown to the floor.
She stepped out of the billowing fabric, kicked off her shoes and stood before him. His eyes ran slowly over her, taking in every curve and dip of her figure and then his gaze locked on hers.
He reached for her then, feeling the softness of her breasts against his chest. She trembled in his arms, and he kissed her forehead gently.
‘There, there, my pretty girl,’ he said, stroking her shoulder. ‘You don’t have to if you’re afraid.’
Josie turned her face up to his. A sensual smile spread across her lips as her hands delved inside his shirt and her fingers twirled the hair on his chest.
‘Patrick,’ she said in a low voice that caught him in the pit of his stomach. ‘I am
not
afraid.’
Patrick had listened to birdsong heralding the dawn in the four corners of the globe but none sounded as bitter-sweet as the chirping of sparrows outside his window that morning. As the first streaks of light peeked in through the curtain, he lay propped up on the headrest with his arms behind his head studying Josie’s sleeping face.
With the dawn breaking, Patrick couldn’t help but think of Brian, who would never hear birdsong, or anything else, ever again. In a few hours he would shoulder his dearest friend’s coffin and stand alongside Mattie and the rest of Brian’s family as they lay him to his eternal rest. Patrick couldn’t imagine never seeing Brian’s cheery face again.
Chapter Twenty
Ma wiped the spit from Charlie’s chin with the tatty rag she used as a handkerchief and a rare tear stung her left eye. When Harry had brought him home just before midnight, covered in stinking mud, she thought he was dead, but after pouring half a bottle of brandy down his throat he opened his eyes. To her utter relief she saw a spark of recognition. Well, in his right eye at least, as the left one hadn’t moved and its pupil remained unnervingly large.
Her eyes ran over his narrow face. What a beautiful baby he’d been! Such a sweet natured child, lying in his cot gurgling at her. Not red-faced and colicky like Harry. She never had to force gin in his mouth to settle him to sleep. No, Charlie had always been a good boy. And so clever, with his sharp wit and quick tongue and sense of style. Although Harry, her husband, had accepted Charlie as his son, it was clear as the nose on your face that he was the by-blow of that nob she’d pleasured a time or two. The one who’d liked a bit of dirt. And now this had happened to her dearest boy!
Her head pounded as a vision of Patrick dancing with Josie sprang into her mind and the small muscle around her right eye started to quiver. The men in the room shrunk back. Charlie gurgled and she turned her attention back to him.
‘What is it, my love?’ she asked, moving a strand of greasy hair out of his eyes. His good eye glanced down to where damp seeped through his trousers.
‘Get that slut of his back in here to change Charlie again,’ she called over her shoulder. The girl appeared and Ma struggled out of the chair beside the improvised cot to allow the girl to work. Harry shuffled forward and cocked his head to one side.
‘He looks better,’ he said, giving her an uneasy smile. The men behind him nodded rapidly and murmured their agreement.
‘Well, he couldn’t look fecking worse, could he?’ she spat back. Harry’s bully boys studied the floorboards. ‘I sent you down there to sink Nolan’s boat and you bring your brother home all but dead.’ She lumbered over to her eldest son. ‘You should have been looking after him, not trying to get your end away.’ She smacked him across the mouth with the back of her hand. ‘You’re as thick as your old man. I always said I should have strangled you at birth.’
A wounded expression flashed across Harry’s face and it appeased her temper a little.
‘But, Ma, Charlie was on top of—’
Ma smacked him again. ‘Don’t blame your poor brother. It was you who let that bastard Nolan get the drop on you. If you’d been about your business instead of waiting your turn, your brother wouldn’t have had his brains rattled.’
Harry clenched his fists. Ollie shuffled up alongside his boss. ‘He’ll be all right,’ he said, giving her a too cheery smile. ‘Remember, the Atkins boy kicked in the head by that dray horse? He didn’t open his eyes for a week and he’s dandy now.’