‘Tell me, sir, how much do you know about her?’
‘I know all that’s needful, my dear.’
Emily kept her voice sweet and even. ‘Needful?’ she asked. ‘Then I’m sure you’ll be aware she brought a large dowry that her husband stole from her, as the law allowed.’ She waited no more than a heartbeat and added, ‘More money than your wife commanded, perhaps.’
She stood, turning briefly to thank Rob’s mother for the meal, turned on her heel and left the room. As he stood, Rob saw his mother’s expression still blank, and his father’s eye hard with anger. Then he strode out behind Emily.
They were halfway down Kirkgate, Timble Bridge in sight, before she spoke.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘What for?’
‘I know you’d hoped for a reconciliation. But he just goaded me so much.’ She shook her head. ‘And he managed it in so few words.’
‘I was proud of you,’ he insisted. ‘That was the first time I’ve ever seen anyone better him. You left him speechless.’ She gave a sad smile and he pulled her close, her cheek against his. ‘And we never have to go back there again.’
‘When will she start talking?’ James asked. He was kneeling on the floor playing with Isabell. She laughed with clear joy, grabbing for his hands, trying to grab them before he moved them out of reach.
‘Soon enough,’ his father told him. He leaned forward and added in a loud whisper. ‘If she’s like most girls, once she starts she’ll never shut up again.’
‘I heard that, John Sedgwick,’ Lizzie warned him. She’d pulled the old pot off the hearth and was dishing the pottage into bowls. ‘You’d better watch what you tell that lad if you want to eat here again.’
The deputy winked at his son. It felt good to be home, to sit in the firelight with his family. Most of Isabell’s spots had faded, just as the apothecary predicted, and the fear had vanished.
‘Of course, your mam’s not like that,’ he told the boy. ‘There’s not another one like her.’
She placed the food on the table. ‘You’d do well to remember that, too,’ she said with a smile. She scooped up the little girl and sat, holding her carefully on her lap.
It had been a long day. A couple had been robbed as they made their way home from service at St John’s. Young, dark and poor was all the description the pair could offer. It could have been half the young men in Leeds. He’d set two of his men to go through the beer shops and look for someone spending freely; they’d taken him before the clock struck four. Roaring drunk and joyful, he still had one shilling left of the five that he’d stolen. For that he’d spend the next seven years in the Indies. If he was lucky he’d survive long enough to come home.
He’d followed hint and whisper from person to person trying to learn more about Solomon Howard. At the house of someone who’d once clerked for Darden he’d sat in front of an empty grate and heard the man tell how the factor counted every penny and every pound each day.
‘Him and the master, they’d shut the door behind them and plot and scheme for hours.’ The clerk pulled his coat tighter around his chest to try and keep out the chill. ‘God alone knows what they talked about.’
‘What was he like?’ the deputy asked.
‘A cold bugger.’ The man shook his head. ‘Loves his money. I’ll give him this, though, he’s clever. He knows what’ll sell where and how to get the best price for it.’
‘What about whores?’
‘I only saw him working, and it was nothing but business there.’ He thought for a moment. ‘There was a woman he had as a servant for a while, though. She might know something.’
‘Do you remember her name?’
‘Meg something-or-other.’ He shrugged and shook his head.
‘Meg Robinson?’ The deputy searched through his memory for women named Meg.
‘I don’t know. I’m not sure I ever knew her surname.’
It was enough to start Sedgwick down another road, and two hours later he found the woman named Meg Brennan. She was perhaps twenty, bulky and plain, a baby suckling at her breast, three more children filling the room with noise.
‘My man’s out,’ she said. ‘Drinking up his pay, most like. Same as bloody ever.’
‘You worked for Solomon Howard?’
‘Him,’ she snorted. ‘Aye, for four year before I met my man and this lot began popping out.’ She caught him looking at her. ‘I were pretty back then, everyone said, and trim, too. Why’d you want to know about him?’
‘We’re just asking questions.’ He smiled. ‘Was he a good employer?’
‘You mean was he all over me, don’t you, love?’
‘Was he?’
‘He was, and I let him because my mam needed the money and I didn’t know no better. Rough bastard as well.’
‘How old were you when it started?’
‘Twelve. I’d been there a fortnight.’
‘Didn’t you say anything?’
Meg Brennan moved the baby to the other breast and stared at him. ‘Who to, eh? I thought they were all like that. My mam kept telling me I was lucky to have a position with a man like him. She’d not have listened. I was the oldest, I had to work.’
‘Did he bring other girls there?’
‘Not as I ever saw, but he wouldn’t need to when he had me, would he?’
‘What did he do when you said you were leaving?’
‘He wa’nt as interested in me then. I’d filled out, hadn’t I? I worked out my notice and left. He wa’nt even around the day I went. No goodbye, nowt.’
‘Was he having other lasses by then?’
‘Aye, I expect so,’ she answered with a deep sigh. ‘But if he were, it wa’nt at home. Once he lost interest in me, he had me working all the hours God sent. Beat me if he didn’t like what I’d done, too.’
‘Hard?’
Meg stayed silent for a long time. ‘Aye.’
He rose to leave, feeling pained for stirring the dust of memories in her.
‘I don’t know why you’re after him,’ she said quietly, ‘but whatever it is, I hope you make the bastard pay for it.’
‘Penny for them,’ Lizzie said. James was in his bed, Isabell asleep on her mother’s lap, and they sat in front of the fire, enjoying a few quiet moments.
‘They’re not worth that,’ he told her. ‘It’s just work.’
‘When isn’t it?’ She reached over and pressed his hand. ‘Is it better now that Mr Nottingham’s back?’
‘He’s. .’ He struggled for the words. ‘He looks older now. Tired.’
‘You would be too if that had happened to you.’
‘Mebbe. He’s still sharp.’
‘It’ll be your chance to be Constable in time.’
‘If they offer it. This bloody mayor won’t, I’ll tell you that.’
‘There’ll be another mayor next year. Happen he’ll be better.’
‘I’m not sure I want it. When the boss was off. .’
‘When Mr Nottingham was ill you were a man short then and I hardly ever saw you. The Corporation wouldn’t pay to take on someone else. But think about it, John, there’d be more money, a bigger house for the children.’
‘We get by, don’t we?’
‘We do. Barely.’
‘Anyway, the boss won’t be going anywhere soon. Not until we’ve found Gabriel, anyway. So it doesn’t even matter yet.’
‘Yet,’ Lizzie said. ‘You could be Constable for a long time.’
‘Is that what you want?’
‘I want you to have your due,’ she told him firmly. ‘When he does go you’ve earned that position.’
‘Mebbe,’ he said doubtfully.
The Constable walked up Kirkgate well before dawn. He’d woken early, but Lucy had been up before him, the fire in the kitchen already lit and water boiling to wash the linens. She’d greeted him with a smile, bread and cheese already cut for him to break his fast.
‘I heard you moving upstairs,’ she said, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear and pouring a mug of ale. ‘You’ll need that to wash it down.’
The girl wasn’t afraid of work, he thought as his boot heels clicked against the stone. She was learning well, too, and taking the hardest of the work from Mary’s shoulders. He’d heard his wife with the girl the previous evening, teaching her to make bread, guiding her through the proportions and the kneading until she was satisfied. Show her once and the girl remembered, his wife said happily. Lucy seemed happy enough with her position, too, settling into a routine. He’d swear she was already putting on a little weight, her cheeks fuller and rosier.