Regency Pleasures and Sins Part 1

‘Soap,’ Katherine replied briskly. ‘A lot of soap. Some towels and, Phil, let me have your spare shaving tackle.’

‘What, for that jailbird?’

‘For the husband you have found for me. As I have to spend the night with him, I would prefer it to be without his beard and whatever is living in it.’ She turned her back on him. ‘Come along, Jenny. Is there anything else you can think of?’

‘A comb,’ the maid volunteered as they shut Katherine’s door behind them. She looked at her mistress, her lower lip quivering. ‘Oh, Miss Katherine, that it should come to this!’

‘Yes, well, it has. Now stop it, Jenny, or you’ll have me weeping too and I cannot afford to do that.’ She began to search in drawers for towels. ‘There, these 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 it in most things for the scent. It is supposed to be helpful for courage and against nightmares.’

‘That will be useful.’

To his surprise she raised her eyes and looked directly into his. ‘I do not think you are in want of courage, Mr Lydgate. Do you suffer nightmares? It would not be surprising in this place.’ Her eyes dropped again to the bandage she was carefully wrapping around his right wrist.

‘Waking ones only,’ he rejoined, trying to keep his tone light. ‘Having the luxury of sleep in which to have a proper nightmare is rare here.’ Her fingers quivered again as she tied the bandage off and took up his other wrist. He wondered if she could feel his pulse hammering. ‘Will you not call me Nicholas—or Nick? That is what my friends call me.’

‘And where are these friends, Nick?’ Again those intense brown eyes met his.

‘In France.’

‘I see.’ She finished with the bandages and began to tidy away her ointment.

‘And what do your friends call you, Katherine?’

That produced another upward look and a flashing smile that showed even white teeth before she was serious again. ‘Katherine. My brother calls me Katy, but I dislike that.’

Nick reached out his hand and tipped her face up. ‘I shall call you Kat. Has anyone told you that you look like one, with your heart-shaped face and those big eyes?’

‘No.’ He could see from the emotions that flitted rapidly across her face that she was not sure she was flattered, then she decided she was. ‘Very well, you may call me Kat.’

He let his fingers just pinch her chin before releasing her. ‘Husband’s privilege, Kat.’ He could have kicked himself. Instantly the shutters came down and her hands tensed. How to retrieve it? ‘Are you hungry, Kat? I confess I am. Why do you not set out the food you have brought and I will tidy away the other things?’

He had been about to say ‘make the bed', but reference to that would hardly be tactful at the moment.

‘Very well.’ She stood up with her back, fortunately, to the bed and began to open the hamper. Nick threw back the lid of the other basket and pulled out sheets redolent of lavender and pillowcases edged with fine lace. For a moment he stood there, letting the feminine softness and sweetness sweep over him, then he stripped off the harsh blankets and made up the bed.

When he turned back the table was laid and she was watching him, a touch of colour staining her cheeks. But she had stopped trembling. Something within him knotted and he felt his loins tighten. Damn it, have some self-control, he snarled inwardly. She was frightened and adrift, cast there by her selfish brat of a brother; the last thing she needed was to be aware of how much she aroused him.

‘This looks good.’ He held a chair for her, then sat, reaching for the bottle of claret and the corkscrew. ‘Why, you have even brought glasses.’

‘I confess I did not look forward to whatever the prison authorities deem suitable in place of china and crystal.’ Katherine smiled at him. ‘And I asked Jenny to slice the meat; I did not think I would be allowed in here with a carving knife.’ She began to heap meat on his plate—beef, ham and chicken—then spread butter on rolls and passed him two. ‘Go on, eat, and do not even think about the food you have been eating the past days.’

The taste of good, simple food was like an explosion in his mouth. Nick tried not to wolf it down, not to gulp the wine Katherine kept pouring into his glass, but when he finally put down his knife and fork and reluctantly shook his head at her offer of another chicken leg, he feared he had exhibited little grace. She appeared unconcerned, however, sitting toying with a slice of chicken and some bread and butter. He caught her eye as she took a drink of wine and she smiled again. ‘Dutch courage,’ she admitted. ‘Would you like some cheese, or Jenny’s famous plum cake? Both together are good.’

Nick held out his plate wordlessly. After this meal, in this company, he felt if he died in his sleep tonight he would be content. ‘Do you need it?’

Her nose wrinkled in puzzlement. It was a new expression to add to those he was beginning to learn, and emphasised the cat-look even more. ‘Dutch courage,’ he explained.

‘Oh. Yes.’

‘I should not wonder after your first sight of me. It frightened me when I saw myself in a mirror. Am I so frightening now?’ Another woman would have prattled, or retreated into silence or rushed to reassure him. Katherine put her head on one side and contemplated him seriously.

‘How frightening do you think it is for a virgin to find herself alone in a bedroom with a husband she has known for perhaps two hours in all?’ She gestured to show it was a rhetorical question. ‘No, I was not frightened of you then and I am not frightened of you, as a person, now. You made me feel … safe.’

This was not the time to preen himself because she had paid him a compliment. ‘But you are afraid of me as a man? I will not hurt you, I promise you.’

Her answer was a little shake of the head and a rueful smile. ‘Of course. It is just foolish shyness. Now, what more would you like to eat? There is another bottle of wine.’

They finished their meal and packed the hamper together, leaving the new bottle of wine to sip. Nicholas saw Katherine’s eyes keep straying to the bed, then jerking back. He was having increasing difficulty keeping his mind off it himself.

‘Tell me about yourself,’ he asked abruptly. ‘Where are your relatives that you find yourself in this coil?’

‘I have none. None except my brother.’ Her fingers were idly running up and down the stem of the wine glass in an unconsciously erotic glide. Nick crossed his legs and forced himself to concentrate. ‘Our parents died some years ago. We were not well off, but we had enough with careful management.

‘Unfortunately, Philip has a weakness for both drink and gambling and the money just leaks away. We had to let all the servants go but John and Jenny; they only stay with us out of loyalty. Then last year, while I was away, Philip sold the house and the furniture without telling me. I only found out the other day, at the same time that he revealed that he had tricked me into signing the papers for a loan of five thousand pounds.’

‘Hell’s teeth! The bloody fool.’ He did not apologise for his language and provoked a reluctant smile.

‘Yes indeed. I know he is my brother and the head of the family, but I have to confess to wishing I could say exactly the same thing. But you see why I had to take this way out of my difficulties? I honestly believe I had no other choice but this or debtor’s prison. Or to become a kept woman.’

Nick shook his head. ‘No, no choice, and you should never have been put in that position. I had no idea from what he and his friend told me.’

‘Ah, well, it is no good crying over spilled milk. Tell me …’ she curled round in the chair ‘… what made you become a highwayman?’

‘Nothing.’ Nick made a sudden decision. He was not going to lie to her. ‘Nothing made me a highwayman. I am not Black Jack Standon. I was drugged, tricked and framed and the devil of it is, I have not the slightest iota of proof on my side.’

Chapter Four

Katherine looked deep into the dark eyes opposite and read anger, frustration and truth. She was not married to a highwayman, she was married to Nicholas Lydgate who was falsely accused and was due to be hanged in five days’ time. Fear ran through her, knotting her stomach.

‘What happened? Who did it?’

‘You believe me?’ He sounded incredulous, as though he had not expected this reaction.

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Why? Why should you believe me, Kat?’

Katherine thought about it. ‘Instinct? I trusted you from the beginning, I am not sure why. I look into your eyes and I see the truth. I am used to living with a weak man, one who lies and twists. I believe I can recognise a strong and an honest one when I meet him.’

Nick flushed, half-turned from her, running his hand over his face as though to smother some emotion her trust evoked. ‘Thank you for that.’

‘So what happened?’ she prompted.

‘I had just returned from France. I had been on the continent for some time and it was years since I had been in England. I went first to Aylesbury, hoping that an old friend was still there, but they told me he had moved away long ago. I decided to go to London, it seemed as good a place as any while I thought about what to do next.

‘Just outside Hemel Hempstead the road runs over an area of rough grazing beside the river, called Box Moor. It had been a filthy day—wet, driving rain and cold with it. It got dark early and I was trying to decide whether to push on to King’s Langley or turn off to Hemel Hempstead when I saw an inn ahead. Not much of a place, certainly not somewhere gentry frequent, and when I walked in I thought either they or I were drunk.’

‘Why?’ Katherine reached for the wine bottle and poured herself a glass without thinking. His voice was easy to listen to, strong yet well modulated. Nick removed the wine from her hand, topped up his own glass and put the bottle out of reach.

‘They recognised me. For a few seconds people turned as if to greet me, hands were raised, the landlord reached for a tankard and began to draw ale without being asked. A pretty barmaid ran over and gave me a kiss.’

‘But did they know you?’

‘No, of course not. The moment I stepped out of the shadows into the light of the bar it all changed. Shoulders were turned, men went back to their cards and their pipes. Even the barmaid flounced off.’

‘Then what happened?’ Katherine was so engaged with the story and the wine was so warm in her veins that she forgot her reticence at being alone with Nicholas. It felt like being alone with an old friend.

‘I asked for a room and stabling for my horse. The landlord was reluctant, surly even. If it had not been such a foul night, I would have walked out and found another lodging. I wish I had! But I persisted and eventually the girl showed me to a room. Not much of one, but it would do. I saw my horse settled and had a meal. The atmosphere was strange; they were uneasy, as though waiting for something, and people would slip out and come back in again.’

‘Um, the privy?’ Katherine suggested.

‘That is what I thought at the time. Then it all went very quiet. The barmaid brought me a beaker of rum. It was to help me sleep, she said, because it was such a rough night.’

‘You drank it and it was drugged?’

‘It was. I made my way upstairs, wondering why my legs were so weary, but I put it down to the long ride. I pulled off my clothes, I think. I can remember falling on the bed, then nothing until I was shaken awake.’

‘By whom?’ Katherine swallowed with tension.

‘A captain of dragoons, two of his men, the local magistrate and his parish constable. The magistrate had a bandage round his head and was in a towering rage. It seems he had just been held up at gunpoint on the Moor by Black Jack Standon, scourge of those parts, and had been hit on the head and lightened of his watch, card case and rings. The man had become such a menace over the past few months that the dragoons had been stationed in the vicinity to catch him and the magistrate put them hot on his heels.’

‘But why did they think you were he?’ Katherine demanded. ‘A perfectly respectable traveller …’

‘A man bearing a close resemblance to a tall, dark, black-eyed highwayman. And a man, apparently drunk on rum, slumped on a bed in a shady inn known to be one of Black Jack’s haunts. My clothes and all my possessions had gone and I was dressed in the clothes you saw me in today. My horse had vanished and in its place was a distinctive black gelding with one white foot and a white blaze. Black Jack’s horse. The barmaid put on a particularly good act, throwing herself on my chest and sobbing that I was not Black Jack. Naturally that looked as suspicious as hell.’

‘But you told them who you were? Surely your friends …’ Once again the light went out of his eyes, just as it had when she had asked him about his dependents. Katherine watched the strong line of his jaw tense before he answered.

‘There is no one. Everything I had to prove my identity had gone. The trial was a foregone conclusion and so was the verdict.’

‘So Black Jack escaped the dragoons. And all he has to do is lie low for another week or so …’

‘Five days to be precise, as of noon tomorrow.’

‘Why are you not angry?’ Katherine demanded. Fury was building in her on his behalf. ‘The coward might just as well have shot you in the back!’

Nick shrugged. ‘Anger will not do me any good. He was caught like a rat in a trap and got out of it with some quick thinking. It was just his good fortune that I have no way of proving who I am. Most people would have been shown to be innocent within days; as it is, the hunt will be off—he could not have predicted it.’ He looked keenly at her. ‘Now, Kat, don’t cry. Why are you crying?’

‘Because I am angry,’ she said, rubbing furiously at her eyes with her handkerchief and glaring at him, defying him to read any other emotion into her sudden spurt of tears. He looked back, an amused smile tugging the corners of what she was increasingly aware was a very sensual mouth. His eyes were dark and steady on her and she swallowed. He was a very attractive man. A very big, very masculine man and any minute he was going to …

‘I think we should go to bed, Kat.’

She had been expecting it all evening, knew it was inevitable; still she could not suppress the little gasp of alarm.

‘Kat, I said we should go to bed, not anything else. We can talk if you like or we can go to sleep, but that is all, I promise.’

‘You don’t want to—’ Her voice failed her.

‘Make love to you? Yes, of course I want to,’ he said matter of factly. ‘I am a man, you are a very attractive young lady who just happens to be my wife. But I have no intention of forcing an unwilling woman.’

‘You would not be—I mean, I would not be.’ Katherine swallowed. This was very difficult. ‘We had a bargain. I am resolved to honour my side of it. How else can I repay you?’

‘With a daily supply of plum cake for a week?’

‘Do not laugh at me!’

‘I am not, I respect your courage and your sense of honour. I should not have said what I did about the marriage being consummated. Of course it does not have to be: all that is needed is for us to be seen to have spent the night together.’

‘But we are married, we are here and you said you wanted to.’ Inwardly she flinched. Did she sound as though she was begging him to make love to her? Of course she was not, it could not be that making her feel confused and disappointed and hot inside.

‘I have been doing some thinking.’ Nick got to his feet and began to shrug off his coat. ‘What if you were with child as a result? You will have a hard enough time of it as it is without carrying a highwayman’s child.’

Katherine’s internal turmoil took a new frightening swoop. ‘I never thought of that.’

‘Yes, well, it happens. Now please, Katherine, get into bed. I have been dreaming of a good night’s sleep in a decent bed for weeks.’

‘You have the bed then, I will sit up.’ She felt as panicky as if he had begun to make love to her.