LITMIR.BIZ

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girl, however, was ruined. Even if Isaac managed to get her out and back across the city, it was all in Griswell’s hands – the puppetmaster, who had set the scene and controlled the outcome.

      Isaac shook his head, a hand to his mouth. “I didn’t – I didn’t agree to this.”

      “So long as you take my money, you’ll agree to whatever I want.”

      “You cannot leave her here, they’ll all think—”

      “Yes,” confirmed Griswell. “They will.”

      “The deal is off.” Isaac pushed himself to his feet. He was broad, tall and strong. The merchant was an old, sallow man. There was no competition between them and Isaac enjoyed the sudden fear in his eyes. “Take her home, to where she belongs. I will not let you compromise her like this.”

      Griswell flinched, but his tone remained level. “Don’t say you’ve grown soft, Roscoe?”

      “I want no part in this.”

      “If you’d done as I asked, these drastic measures could have been avoided.” The merchant looked over to where the sleeping girl lay, boredom etched into his features. “And stop posturing. There’s no need for violence; let’s not get the authorities involved. No one will care much for the girl’s fate, but strike a gentleman and there shall certainly be consequences.”

      “You will pay for this.”

      “I already have: I paid you.”

      Isaac clenched his fists around empty air. A quick jab to the throat and Griswell would be on the floor, eyes bulging, clawing for air. But as impulsive as Isaac was, he wasn’t a simpleton. Hurting him wouldn’t help the matter.

      Although, he thought, it would make me feel a lot better.

      “The discovery will be made in the morning, when she’s had time to wake up. I’d advise you to leave this place early, Roscoe, and to make sure you’re seen, so that the wrong conclusions can be made by the right people.”

      They’d assume it was a secret meeting, an affair, two lovers who could keep apart no longer. Because they didn’t know Ruth; they weren’t to know she was a perfect, bland and dowdy housewife. No, not a housewife, not yet, and now she never would be. Poor fool.

      “She doesn’t deserve this.”

      “Don’t tell me you like the girl?” The merchant paused in the doorway, with a pitying expression. “Oh, it’s more than that, I see.” A callous, mocking laugh almost tipped Isaac over the edge and had him forget common sense, the deal, his money. “You two do make a fine pair, Roscoe.”

      In the slim seconds before a fight is to take place, there’s a calm rage, a quiet anger. Isaac felt it now. “If it’s to be like this, then give me what you promised or you will not leave this room intact.”

      Griswell was too clever to be within hitting range. He took a hasty step backwards, one hand reaching out to ensure the door was where he’d left it. “What’s owed to you will be paid once my daughter is wed to Pembroke and no sooner.”

      “I didn’t agree to that.”

       To any of this, to that lost girl lying a short distance away.

      “What choice do you have?”

       None.

      And he’d gone too far to back out now.

      ***

      Only when the sky grew pale, with the colour running away at the edges, did Ruth stir. Isaac hadn’t slept. He kept his back to the door, legs splayed across the uneven floorboards, having listened to the downstairs sounds reach their drunken crescendo, before petering out in the early morning hours.

      There was a groggy noise – a strangled, startled sound – and Ruth dragged herself up – too quickly, it seemed, for her fingers folded around the cot’s sides for support. Her bleary gaze finally settled on Isaac and he did not shy from it, though shame rankled in his guts.

      Isaac didn’t move. “I couldn’t leave without making sure you were…” Again, as seemed to be the pattern around her, his usual charisma drained away. What was he meant to say after all that had taken place?

      “You?” She was not yet fully lucid, though her gaze spun around the room wildly. “What?”

      “Griswell brought you here last night. He arranged it all, to make it look as if…as if we…” Isaac trailed off, slowly getting to his feet, body knotted with dull aches. “He wants his own daughter married to that buffoon, but I didn’t think that he would…that it would come to this…”

      Would she scream, shriek, throw things? He wouldn’t blame her; he wouldn’t stop her either. Let her punish him. He could take a hit; he could take a thousand.

      “No.” Ruth bent forwards, still in her frumpy gown, hands pressed to her face. Silence found root and Isaac wouldn’t break it, not until she was ready. After a few minutes, Ruth spoke. “I will explain this to my uncle; he will believe me,” she said hurriedly into her palms, staring at them as though they didn’t belong to her. “If you tell him what you know, then—”

      “The damage is done, love,” replied Isaac softly. “The word will be across London by now, if Griswell is as efficient as I suspect he is.”

      “I am not your love,” she snarled. “I am supposed to be Mrs Pembroke.” Even as she said this to herself, the doubt seemed thick on her tongue and he could only watch her face crumple, as realisation set in.

      And yet she didn’t cry.

      He waited for it, but the tears never came.

      “I have some money. I can leave it with you,” said Isaac gently. “I’ve paid for the room until the week’s end.”

      “Get out,” she whispered, her words steel and ice and stone.

      “Let me at least—”

      “You have done enough, sir,” she told him, eyes rimmed red. “Trust me on that.”

      Gone was that cautious, awkward creature – the one he’d met barely a few nights ago. This woman knew she was an outcast, soon to be abandoned by society, lost, damaged goods, unless Pembroke still wanted her. No. Isaac knew men like Pembroke. He knew he’d never take her on now.

      He could see the thoughts moving behind her eyes, the plans, the mental process, the letters she would surely write and the solutions she would seek.

      She was a practical woman, yes, she would be fine – he needn’t worry – this wasn’t his fault. Women like her were survivors, weren’t they? Like he’d had to be.

      Isaac moved automatically and without thinking. He grabbed his meagre possessions, all stowed in a satchel across his shoulder. The morning sun was already on the thin, poorly made windows, mottled with grit. He had never been here for the end result, to witness what happened afterwards to those whose fortunes he’d sabotaged. It hadn’t ever been like this before; the others had been different. They’d deserved it – or he’d told himself that to soothe what little conscience he had left.

      “Mr Roscoe.” She said his name like a curse, a promise. It forced him to halt in the doorway. He would hear her; he owed her that much. “I never thought I had it in me to hate anyone,” said Ruth coldly, as she pulled herself up onto her feet, hardly strong enough to stand. “Not until this very day, this moment.”

      Isaac nodded, his back to her, unwilling to face his sins. He was set on forgetting her, and all he had done, as soon as he stepped from the room and left that rotten city – a city capable of corrupting even the best of men. But fate had a different plan.

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