Page 108 of By the Sword
Still holding her gaze he said, ‘Do I look like the devil?’ She shook her head, and he continued, ‘Tabitha, I’m just an ordinary man and I loved your mother very much.’
She quivered with rage. ‘I don’t believe you.’
Bet interrupted. ‘‘Tis true, Mistress Tabitha, he did, and your mother loved him too.’
‘Then why did you go away?’ Tabitha challenged.
Jonathan tried to keep his voice even but he could hear the emotion at the edge of his words. ‘I was a soldier, Tabitha. I had to go away to war.’
Tabitha looked from one adult to the other. Her face crumpled, and all the years of hurt and loneliness spilled out ofher. Clutching her doll, she ran out of the room. Jonathan made to follow her, but Bet’s hand restrained him. He met her gaze, agonised and rendered helpless by the child’s pain.
Bet shook her head. ‘You must give her time, Sir Jonathan,’ she said. ‘Dame Judith’s filled her ’ead with all sorts of stories about you. None of ’em good.’
‘Devil take that woman,’ said Jonathan with feeling, subsiding onto one of the kitchen stools. He flexed the fingers of his right hand, trying to imagine them circling Dame Judith’s scrawny neck.
‘Bet, what will become of her when Dame Judith dies?’ he asked.
Bet shook her head. ‘Dame Judith’s the last of the family, save for a cousin who will inherit the house. I’ve already heard him say that he won’t take responsibility for a motherless bastard child but he’ll keep her if she earns her keep.’
Jonathan knew what meant. Tabitha would become a servant in her own mother’s house. He ran his hand through his hair in despair and frustration. For now, cold and unloving as it might be, she did at least have a home, but without the protection of her grandmother what hope was there for an illegitimate child nobody wanted?
He stood up and walked slowly over to the kitchen door.
‘What will you do?’ Bet asked.
He turned and looked at her. ‘I don’t know, Bet. I need some time to think.’
He stumbled back to his lodgings through the dark, familiar streets of Oxford. His feet had turned to lead, and utter despair weighed on his shoulders.
Giles had been right; it had been madness to come here. He would have been better off never knowing about the child.
He shook off that unworthy thought as he flung himself onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling beams. He couldnever live with himself if he abandoned his child again to such an uncertain future. He owed Mary and her daughter some atonement for the past.
But what could he do? Should he take her back to Seven Ways? Add another burden to Kate’s woes or take her with him into exile?
The last thought almost made him laugh. He couldn’t make a life for himself, let alone for a six-year-old girl.
The thought of his present parlous situation overwhelmed him, and for one of the few times in his twenty-eight years, alone in the concealing darkness of his inn room, tears gathered in the corners of his eyes and slid unchecked onto the none-too-clean bed covers.
Chapter 38
His head heavy and dull with lack of sleep, Jonathan stood outside the neat house in Turl Street. He had faced the worst any foe in battle could throw at him and he had known real fear, but nothing in this world could fully prepare him for an interview with that fearsome termagant from his past, Dame Judith Woolnough.
Several times he had made to knock on the door but his courage had failed him. He paced the street heedless of the curious stares of the passersby and with a deep, steadying breath raised his hand to knock and froze.
A child’s scream came from within the house.
The sound cut Jonathan to his heart and without further hesitation, he beat on the door.
Bet opened it, her face pale and strained.
‘Oh, Sir Jonathan.’ She grasped his hands. ‘Miss Tabitha told her about your coming here. I’ve never seen her so angry. She’ll kill the lass and then she’ll start on me.’
Jonathan did not wait to hear more. From the parlour came Tabitha’s voice, choked with sobs, interspersed with the shrill, strident tones of her great-grandmother.
‘Disobedient child.’
‘Grandam, don’t hit me.’
