Sinful. Charlotte Featherstone
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night?” she asked, trying to think of anything other than Matthew’s hand on her body.
“Mrs. Carling didna’ say anything, so I imagine it went very well.”
With a nod, he closed the door and hefted himself up onto the carriage box. With a whistle, the horses began their slow canter from the east end to the small house in Bloomsbury where she lived with Lady Blackwood.
On the nights when Jane worked at the hospital, Mrs. Carling, the housekeeper and cook, took over the duties of companion. Theirs was a small household—Mrs. Carling, Jeanette, the maid, herself and George, who acted as coach driver and stable hand. Yes, it was a small household, and a ragtag one at that, but they were all satisfied with their lot in life. Lady Blackwood paid them on time, and treated them with respect. None of them bothered to concern themselves that they hadn’t had a raise in a few years. What was money, if one was treated like a slave? Lady Blackwood treated them as though they were family, especially Jane. A fact she would be forever grateful for.
Long ago, Lady Blackwood had lived in one of the largest town houses in Mayfair. She had been young and beautiful and full of gaiety. She had been the wife of the Earl of Blackwood, and appeared to have held the world in her palm. That had been the outside image. Inside, however, her world had been one of terror and pain. After years of suffering physically from her husband’s beatings, Lady Beatrice Blackwood had scandalized society by leaving her husband and seeking a divorce.
What courage it must have taken her to decide on such a course. She had been a pampered lady from the womb. Everything had been handed to her, and yet, she had left everything she had known to become a woman who was ostracized by her peers and her friends, a woman who’d had to learn to live by her wits and the very small monthly sum the courts demanded her husband pay her, as well as the small inheritance left to her by her father.
Divorce was still a stigma. Jane wondered how Lady Blackwood had endured it, being a social pariah all those years ago.
The carriage rounded the corner, and Jane glanced out through the warped glass to the sidewalk where women and children were setting up carts of fruits and vegetables. A fishwife, busy tossing the early-morning catch onto the table, shooed away a stalking cat, which curled its body around her gown’s tattered hem.
The black soot and the acrid scent of coal permeated the air, mixing with the heavy veil of fog that had rolled in from the Thames. This was the East End, and the place where Jane had been raised.
Every morning on her way home from the hospital, she watched the activity, the hollow faces, the worn expressions of the women. And every time, she thanked God that Lady Blackwood had found her that one night and taken her in from the pouring rain. Jane shuddered to think about what her life would have been like had she not been found and whisked away from this place. Would she have survived long enough on her own to have a similar hollow, empty expression on her face as the women before her had?
Her life had been drastically altered that night. She had been given shelter and food. A bed, free of bugs, and a blanket that could not be seen through. Lady Blackwood had tutored her, teaching her to read and write, to sew and do needlepoint. She had taught her how to conduct herself in society, but most important, she had showed her what it was to live by your convictions.
Years ago, Lady Blackwood had taken an illegitimate, homeless waif without a future, and given her a life. Jane knew she could never repay such a debt.
She had been, and still was, beholden to Lady Blackwood for the life she’d been given. Lady Blackwood was a most excellent employer, providing Jane with food, clothes and lodgings, as well as permission to work as a nurse. She had two afternoons off per week, to do whatever it was she wished. She had a mother of sorts in Lady B., and no amount of money could ever replace that.
She was content with her life. Happy, she thought. Yet now, after leaving work, a little kernel of discontent began to gnaw at her. She could not stop thinking of her patient—Matthew—and what he had done to her, what he had made her feel.
During the years spent with Lady Blackwood, Jane thought she had learned all she needed to know about being an independent, free-thinking woman. Tonight, she had discovered that she had never learned how to indulge her female needs. She’d had needs before, and she was not ashamed to admit that she had eased them with self-discovery and her own touch. But nothing compared to that heated searing deep within her as Matthew’s skin connected with hers.
The rumble of the carriage ceased, and the conveyance swayed to the left, then halted, abruptly bringing Jane’s thoughts to the present. She should have been tired after being awake all night, but she felt an odd hum in her body, as if the stale, coal-sooted air had given her a second wind. Not even the thick fog that still rolled throughout the city was enough to make her eyelids droop.
“’Ere ye are, miss. Home at last.”
“Thank you,” she said as she took George’s hand and alighted from the carriage. Although her feet and back ached like the devil, Jane felt a buoyant energy coalesce within her. She wondered if it had to do with the thought of returning to the hospital and her patient that night.
Through the thickening drizzle, she saw the warm glow of the oil lamp that sat on the rosewood table before the bow window of the small town house. The soft, lumpy outline of Mrs. Carling could be seen lighting the other gas lamp that rested on the hearth. The house was awake, and that would mean that a pile of warm scones and butter, and a pot of hot tea would be awaiting her.
Picking up the hem of her gown, Jane ran up the steps that lead to the home she shared with Lady Blackwood and let herself inside. The scent of cinnamon and sultana raisins greeted her, and she closed her eyes inhaling the aroma as her stomach protested loudly.
“C’mon in, gel,” Lady Blackwood announced from the breakfast room. “I can hear your insides rumbling from here.”
Tossing her cloak and bonnet onto the hall chair, Jane swept into the breakfast room and took the chair opposite Lady Blackwood, who was dressed in her morning gown and cap.
Her employer was a large woman, with kind, sparkling eyes and a heart the size of her body. Her hair, once a dark walnut and given to curl, was gray and thinning.
When was it, Jane wondered, that Lady B. had grown so old and frail? How had she missed it?
“Well, tell me all about it. What mischief did you get up to last night?”
Jane felt her face flush as the image of Matthew’s naked chest flared to life. “The usuals—consumptives, carousers and a few inebriates.”
Lady B. arched her brows, even as her intelligent gaze strayed and lingered over Jane’s glowing cheeks. “I do not like you working there, Jane. It’s a dangerous part of the city.”
Which made Jane ask herself what Matthew, with his obvious aristocratic blood, had been doing in the East End last night.
“How was your night?” Jane asked as she reached for a scone. “It was damp last night.”
“That tonic young Inglebright sent over works like a charm. I slept like a babe.”
“Lovely. He said it would. Dr. Inglebright is most knowledgeable.”
Lady Blackwood’s shrewd gaze traveled over her. “My dear, has the young doctor claimed your heart?”
Jane chuckled and smeared a large pat of butter over the steaming scone. “Of course not.”
“Then why do you stay there, Jane? If not to see Inglebright every night?”
“Because I must.”
“I am truly grateful to you for all you have done. Old Dr. Inglebright is well satisfied with our account and agrees that the debt is settled. There is no need to keep on at the hospital.”
Jane took a sip of tea then a bite of her scone, fortifying herself for the argument to come. It always arrived every morning.
“Jane, that part of the city is just not safe—at any part of the day, let alone