Page 31 of The Spy Who Loved Her
But he could not make himself say the words, when he wasn’t certain he believed them himself. Always there had been that odd, niggling doubt.
“Christ,” Chris said. “I need another drink.” He cast a glance about the tavern, lifting his hand to signal once again to a barmaid. “Can’t imagine what a woman so heavy wiv babe is doin’ here. She looks fit to burst.”
“Probably she’s got another month or more left,” Rafe said, though he winced when the woman bumped her protruding belly upon the back of a chair on her way over. “She’s Dannyboy’s mum,” he said. “That’s why I chose this tavern.”
“Is she, now?” Chris peered at the woman, as if attempting to divine which of her features she might have imparted to her child.
“Bit young,” Rafe said. “Probably she’s five and twenty and the very most.” Which would have made her a mother at fifteen, most likely.
Chris scoffed. “It’s often the way o’ things, outside yer exalted circles,” he said. “Take a walk down any alley in St. Giles some evening. Ye’ll see girls even younger, already with babes clingin’ to their skirts. Me own mum was lucky to make it to seventeen ‘fore the earl got her wiv babe.” He dropped his voice to a murmur as the woman approached once more, sliding coin across the table toward her in payment for the drinks she delivered. “Quiet, ain’t she?”
Yes. Except when she wasn’t. “From what I can tell, she and Dannyboy stay in a rented room nearby. He came by earlier, probably to tell her he’d come home for the day. He tried to hug her, but she’s a bit ungainly in her present condition. She dropped a glass and cuffed him for causing the incident.” Exasperation, he thought. The strain of a day’s labor had left her with little patience for her son. She had made up with him later, or so it had seemed, but Rafe had been left with the impression that it wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. That perhaps Dannyboy had grown a little too accustomed to not knowing if it was affection or chastisement he might receive in any given moment.
“Then perhaps she won’t mind if Em—”
“He loves her,” Rafe said. “She’s his mum. She’s all he has.”
He hoped that he had misunderstood, that it had been only a bad day for her, and that Dannyboy would never have to learn the lesson that unrequited love was among the most painful experiences a body could suffer. That eventually, one had to understand that some things were beyond one’s ability toobtain. That the only thing one could do for it was to let it go.
After all, Rafe had yet to let the lesson fully take himself.
∞∞∞
Deep in the evening, well past dusk drifting into night, Emma lay awake in bed nursing a wretched headache and a plague of cramps. It was not an unfamiliar state, this monthly affliction, but still it was an unwelcome one.
Her mother had been just the same; like clockwork once a month she would take to her bed, there to remain for at least the first few days of her courses. Only a healthy dose of laudanum had eased the discomfort, though it had also resulted in her mother becoming rather vague and scatterbrained.
Emma had given it a try a time or two, and while it had been effective in its relief of the pain, she hadn’t much cared for the way the laudanum had made her feel otherwise—vacant and detached, as if she were an outside observer to herself. Ginger and yarrow tea provided minor relief at best, but still it was better than the alternative, which was simple suffering.
Even the moonlight streaming through the window felt far too bright, the light falling into her eyes making her head pulse with pain. She twisted onto her side, her knees naturally drawing up as if to protect herself from the pain in her abdomen, hoping that sleep would settle over her soon.
Somewhere not too distant, there was the sound of a man clearing his throat. Her heart pounding in a sudden surge of fear, Emma bolted upright, the abrupt motion pulling at every aching muscle.
Rafe stood just inside the door, a frown etched upon his face at the violence of her reaction. “I’m sorry if I startled you,” he said. “It wasn’t my intention.”
“I thought you were an intruder,” she said, through the ferocious tightness of her throat. “What are you doing here? It’s Thursday.”
“My business concluded earlier than expected.”
Her fingers snarled in the tangled material of the sheets. “I—I sent a note with Dannyboy,” she said awkwardly.
“I received it.” Still he showed no inclination to leave. Instead, he peeled his coat off of his shoulders and cast it over a chair. “It was delicately phrased, I’ll grant you. But I have got a sister. It wasn’t difficult to understand what you were implying when you said that you would not be in a fit conditionfor company for a week or so. I can only guess that you must be in pain.”
She could feel the heat of her cheeks, the vibrancy of the flush that slid over them. “It’s not the sort of thing a woman speaks of in mixed company,” she said. “If you understand the nature of my ailment, then why are you here?”
“I didn’t wish to wait a week to see you.” He said it so nonchalantly that for a moment Emma could only stare as he plucked free the knot of his cravat, unwinding the fabric from his neck.
But when he tugged the tails of his shirt from where they were tucked into his trousers and pulled the garment off over his head, she was galvanized into speech. “I don’t think you entirely understand. I ambleeding,” she stressed.
“I understand perfectly,” he said. “What, had you imagined I might fall into a swoon at the mere mention of it? I’m not so squeamish as that. Have you got a bathing room?”
A bathing room? “Of course I have,” she said. “It’s just through there.” She indicated with the wave of a hand toward the door.
“Good. My sister swore by the healing power of a hot bath. I’ll ring for one.”
“There’s no need. The house is plumbed. You just—bang on the pipes and wait a few minutes for the scullery staff to set the water to heat.” It had been a costly endeavor, but then she had had an average of twenty children at a time residing with her for years now. If she hadn’t modernized, then keeping all of them clean would have been a never-ending cycle of heating and carrying cans of water, with time for little else in between.
“Even better.” He disappeared briefly into the bathing room, and a moment later she heard the dull clank of the pipe. He strode through a thick stream of moonlight as he returned, and it painted the skin of his chest in a silvery glow. “How bad is it, then?” he asked as he sat upon the edge of the bed, bending to remove his boots and stockings.
