Page 3 of The Marriage Debt
This morning she had got up and dressed in the old dimity gown that was now blotched with Philip’s tears. She had arranged her heavy honey-blonde hair in a simple knot and spared no more than a glance for her face. Now her brown eyes were wide and drenched with unshed tears, her lower lip caught in her teeth, her face was white and strained. She had strayed into a nightmare and the nightmare was real.
Philip stood up and tentatively put his hands on her shoulders. She could see him in the glass, the features which were so feminine in her face merely showed the weakness on his. ‘They would not lend me any more,’ he explained. ‘They seemed to feel you would be more reliable.’
‘You tricked me into signing?’ She spun round so she was facing him, his hands still on her shoulders. ‘You lied to me?’
‘I thought you might not quite like it…’
‘I would have refused and you knew it!’ Katherine had spent much of her twenty four years excusing her younger brother, picking up after him, managing as best she could on their increasingly straightened means since the death of their parents. She had never let her occasional anger with him overwhelm her affection, but now anger surged like a tidal wave, unstoppable.
‘How could you? How could you lie and cheat just to gratify yourself? How could you risk everything, not just for yourself,but for me as well? You are selfish, Philip, selfish beyond belief.’
He stepped back from the force of her fury, his face crumpling again. Philip had always traded on his looks, his charm, his happy-go-lucky attitude. To face criticism from the one person he believed would indulge him in anything seemed to rock his entire world.
‘Katy, Katy don’t be like this.’
‘Like what? Angry? Afraid? Oh sit down, Philip, this will do us no good. Is there anything you can think of, Arthur? Anything at all?’
‘I have been giving it some thought,’ he said, his relief that her outburst was over very clear. ‘The only thing for it is marriage.’
‘To whom, pray? Our breeding is good, but Philip has no title and that is the only thing likely to recommend him to some rich chit wanting to marry his daughter to the gentry. And good blood is nothing in the face of huge debts, a reputation for heavy drinking and no title. And who do you think is going to want to marryme? No dowry, on my way to the debtors’ prison. I do not hold myself cheap, Arthur, but I can’t delude myself that I have any of the charms necessary to attract a husband blind enough to pay my debts as part of the bargain.’
Arthur looked distinctly uncomfortable. ‘That was not quite what I had in mind, Katherine.’
She thought she understood his meaning and felt the blood rise hot in her cheeks. ‘If you think I am going to make myself some man’s mistress in order to pay Philip’s –my– debts, you must be mad, Arthur. Or are you offering me the position?’
‘Good God, no! I mean, would be honoured of course, but I have no money, trust fund doesn’t pay up until I’m thirty...not that I wouldn’t want…’
Katherine waved a hand at him. ‘Stop it, Arthur. I did not mean it. If it comes to that, why doesn’t Philip find some wealthy widow to squire about, one sees it all the time.’ She did not waitfor an answer to her bitter enquiry. ‘But I am not selling myself. I would rather go to prison.’
‘No, you would not,’ Philip muttered.
‘How do you know?’
‘We were in Newgate this afternoon. There are debtors in there. It is hellish.’
‘What on earth were you doing in Newgate?’ Even the name made her shudder.
Arthur cleared his throat. ‘Because I had an idea. We were finding you a husband.’
Chapter Two
He had been right. His display of anger in throwing his plate at the visitors had not been forgiven. The dark man raised his head as the familiar early evening sound of shuffling feet penetrated the heavy door. There was the thump as the stew pot was set down, a rattle as grilles were opened to ladle out the disgusting slop in one cell after another, the duller sound of the water bucket grounding on the flags.
The sounds reached his door and passed by. Resigned, he reached for the beaker and tipped it to his lips. A small trickle of water touched them. He was used to the taste now, grateful he could not see the colour clearly. He ran his tongue around as much of the damp interior as he could reach and set it down again.
He had spent six years living the life of an adventurer, the course he had chosen for himself in defiance of everything he had been brought up to respect. It had given him freedom, amusement, some moments of intense pleasure, some fear, much insecurity. He could have been said to have lived life to the full, those past years. Was it worth the price of his life? It seemed someone was calling in the debt and he had no choice. He had never been one to rail against fate: you changed what you could and put up with what you could not. Pride was all he had brought with him out of that old life, it was going to have to be enough to see him out of this one.
The rats, who knew the prison’s routines even better than he, skirmished in the straw, waiting for their dinner which unaccountably had not appeared.
In the study of the house in Clifford Street Katherine stared at the two young men as though they had sprouted feathersand began to cluck. ‘You went to Newgate prison to find me ahusband?’
‘Let me explain,’ Arthur said hurriedly. ‘I know the son of the Governor and he plays cards regularly with the Assistant Governor and some of the wealthier prisoners who can afford to pay garnish – that’s the money for better food and accommodation and so on. So that’s how I can get in and out of the prison.’
‘I don’t wish to get in and out,’ Katherine said tartly. ‘I want to stay out in the first place.’
‘Yes, I know that. But me knowing the Assistant Governor and Christopher Hadden – that’s the Governor’s son – means that I can see how we can put my plan into operation. They are both in debt to me, you see. Not much, but Hadden’s on a short string from his father and the Assistant Governor knows there’ll be hell to pay if the old man finds out he’s been involving him in deep play.’
Katherine sank back in the chair. This was like some insane dream. Any moment now she was going to lose all touch with reality and that was dangerous. She could not let herself sleepwalk into whatever desperate scheme the two young men were hatching.
