Ruby McBride (27 page)

‘Why should I work when I can go for nothing? Anyroad, they’d be unlikely to take me on, with my record. And I wouldn’t like you to cut your hair, Ruby.’

‘Why not? It’ll grow again.’

‘I don’t like women with short hair. Not ladylike. You can wear my slouch cap.’ He made her tuck up her hair into a knot, then pulled the cap over it. ‘Perfect.’

They were testing out the gear for their plan at the entrance to the tunnel down by the Roman fort, the only place they could think of away from prying eyes. It was cold and damp in there since the tunnel led almost as far as Duke’s Lock at the junction to the Bridgewater Canal. Ruby had no wish to go too far along it in case she should come across the baron waiting at the other end. Even being here,
so
close to the water, made her feel anxious and jumpy. She kept glancing along it, half expecting him to appear out of the gloom.

It was Kit who decided that they would stow away in one of the lifeboats. ‘No one will think to look for us there.’ Ruby’s disguise, he explained, would come in useful once the ship was underway and they needed to venture out from time to time to look for food. ‘There must be scores, if not hundreds, employed on a big freighter like that. Most of them won’t even know each other. We can just mingle with the other blokes when we need to for meals and such like, and vanish when we don’t. No one will suspect a thing.’

Ruby sincerely hoped that was true, but it all seemed much more dangerous than her fanciful imaginings had led her to believe. Yet hadn’t she grown used to taking risks over these last few years? Surely, it was worth the gamble to get away from the baron, go to Canada, and find Billy. ‘I really don’t want to go without our Pearl.’

Kit laid a finger to the side of his nose. ‘Ah, now, I’ve been asking around again, and got word that she’s working in a pub Rochdale way. I’m going over there this evening, s’matter of fact, see what I can find out.’
 

Kit had decided that she might never hand over the pendant if he didn’t offer up Pearl in return.

Ruby’s face came alight with joy. ‘Really? Oh, Kit, you are so clever.’ She let out a great sigh of happiness. ‘Do you really think you can find her?’

‘ I do.’

‘`Oh, what would I do without you? I really don’t know how to thank you.’

‘That’s easy. I quite fancy you in those trousers, so maybe you could start by considering actions rather than words.’

He pulled her roughly into his arms, clenching the soft curve of her buttocks and pressing her hard against him. Ruby felt his arousal and chuckled as she shook her head, the fronds of thick brown hair whispering over her flushed cheeks. She pushed his hands away, while at the same time lifting her face to be kissed, almost bubbling over with excitement as she laughed up at him. ‘Not yet, Kit. Not till we’ve left these shores far behind and there’s no further danger from my tyrant husband. Till then, you have to behave yourself. You must see that.’ She playfully tapped his hand away from where it lingered at the buttons of her waistband.

‘You’re a lovely lass, Ruby, but hard on a chap. A tease, nothing less.’

He wasn’t pleased by her refusal, she could tell. But then the growing impatience in his face was more frequently evident these days. She arched a provocative glance at him from beneath her lashes. ‘It’ll be worth the wait in the long run.’

He might well have been tempted to persist to try his luck, were he not wholly satisfied with Pearl’s offerings in that direction. Besides, he had other, more important matters on his mind. ‘You’d best give me the pendant, pet. It’ll be safer with me.’

‘Why?’

He smiled pityingly at her, as if she were half stupid. ‘Now how would you defend yourself, a skinny little thing like you?’

‘Defend myself against what ... against who?’

Kit could feel the tension in his jaw, just as if his teeth were clenched for all he was actually smiling at her. ‘Theft. Against whoever tried to rob you. It happens all the time on ships. We’ll need eyes in the backs of our heads once we get on board.’

She smiled brilliantly at him. ‘But I shall always have you beside me, Kit. I’ve nothing to fear. Don’t worry, the pendant is tucked away nice and safe. Go on, go and fetch our Pearl. I can’t wait.’

Swallowing his fury, he spoke through gritted teeth. ‘I’ll bring her to our meeting place at the end of the tunnel next Thursday, an hour before sailing.’

Ruby frowned with disappointment. ‘You won’t let me down, will you? You’ll have her with you?’

‘When have I ever let you down?’
 

As he swaggered away, leaving her to pull her frock back on over the trousers so that Bart wouldn’t suspect what she was about, Ruby wondered why, deep inside, she felt the slightest bit sick, as if something wasn’t quite right. Was it the excitement of being about to see Pearl again after all these years. Or was it fear for the risks they would take, the hazardous journey they were about to embark upon to a new land. Or because the thought of making love to Kit Jarvis suddenly seemed like a betrayal of sorts?

‘You daft ha’porth,’ she told herself as she strode away through the tunnel. ‘Now you
have
lost your marbles. How can you betray a man you never asked to marry in the first place, and don’t even love?

As she swung around the corner out of sight, a soft voice echoed in the darkness behind her. ‘How indeed, Ruby McBride? How indeed.’

Chapter Nineteen

Ruby lay drowsy in the glowing warmth from the coals, filled with languor after their love making. Beside her lay the long, hard body of her husband. If she wished, her fingers could stretch out and stroke his naked, gleaming flesh. The very thought set her imagination racing, recalling the shameful pleasures of the last hour, reawakening that hunger in her which never seemed to be quenched. The merest butterfly kiss from her finger tips and he would turn to her, filling that aching need once more. She did no such thing, of course. Wouldn’t that be a true betrayal of her beloved Kit? This man didn’t give twopence for her, his own wife. Kit, on the other hand, had sacrificed his life and suffered untold privation and punishment on her behalf. That was the difference between them, the evidence of their love.

Yet she could not sleep.

This was proving to be the longest night of her life. Ruby lay, tossing and turning, agonising over whether she was doing the right thing, whether Kit really would manage to find Pearl, and whether she would be willing to drop everything and come with them to Canada at a moment’s notice. It was a great deal to ask of anyone, and her sister had ever been self-obsessed. She might have a good job in that pub, friends, a lover, even a husband. For the first time, Ruby realised that she’d given no consideration to this possibility.
 

‘Are you awake, Ruby?’ Bart’s voice came to her out of the soft dark.

‘I’m restless,’ she admitted, wanting to blame him for her sleeplessness.

‘Shall I soothe you?’ He lifted the heavy curtain of brown hair, smoothed it back from her hot brow. ‘You are over-warm. Are you sickening for something?’

‘More like we used too much coal on the flippin’ stove.’

‘Are you happy, Ruby?’

‘Why would I be?’

‘You gave every impression of it just now.’
 

She fell silent, unsure how to respond.

‘Have you yet forgiven me for making you marry me?’ His teeth glowed white in the light from the fire as he grinned down at her, wickedly sensuous in the gloom.

‘I certainly haven’t forgiven you for the risks you’ve made me take, most of them for no reason.’

‘For every reason. The work I do is vital for the dockers. I’ve explained all of that.’

‘You’ve explained very little. Who is this Giles Pickering you seem to have it in for? Why him, and none of the other employers? Why not the Ship Canal Company, who likewise have a long way to go to make life easier for their workers? Why always this Pickering chap?’

‘If I tell you, Ruby, will you keep it a secret? Just between the two of us?’
 

She looked at him, puzzled, his eyes glittering in the semi-darkness. Was that with anger or passion? She couldn’t quite decide. Even after all these years, he was still an enigma to her.

‘I know how to keep a secret.’

‘Very well. Giles Pickering is my father.’

Ruby was stunned into silence. This was the last thing she’d expected.

He abruptly sat up, rested his arms on his knees as he stared into the flickering flames. He began to speak, his voice hollow and bleak with remembered pain. ‘He was the one who disapproved of the girl I was to marry. She was called Alice, the sweetest, gentlest, prettiest creature you could ever imagine.

But her father was a grocer. In trade. Not good enough for the snobbish tastes of my father, even though he himself came up from nothing. A self-made businessman. I believe he spoke to her, went on and on about how she’d be “dragging me down” although she never admitted as much. The pressure made her ill and drove her to call the wedding off. In the end…’ He paused, as if fighting to control his emotion. ‘In the end she killed herself.’

‘Oh, no! How?’

‘Her family took her on holiday to Torquay to recuperate, and she flung herself off a cliff. I shall never forgive my father for that. Never!’

Ruby took some moments before answering. She wanted to ask him what sort of father could consider it beyond the pale for him to marry a grocer’s daughter, and what his mother had had to say on the matter. But somehow, with a man like Bart, it felt like prying. Then, without thinking, she crept closer and wrapped her arms about his hunched figure. ‘Revenge only hurts them what harbours it. It solves nothing.’

‘That’s easy for you to say, Ruby.’

‘No it isn’t, as a matter of fact. There’s been nothing easy about my life. I understand the feeling right enough.’ Sensing the tension in him, she smoothed a hand over his naked back, soothing, comforting. ‘There have been people I would’ve liked to get me own back on. Sister Joseph for one, not to mention that lot at the reformatory who were far worse. And I could have killed you stone dead once over, without a second’s thought.’

‘Once over?’

‘Well, still could, given half a chance, I suppose.’ She felt the vibration of his laughter and chuckled along with him, still stroking his back, but it didn’t occur to her to wonder why her threat sounded so hollow.

‘You make me quake in my shoes, Ruby McBride.’

‘You said you’d stop calling me by that name, once we were - you know - man and wife proper.’

‘Ah, but we’re not exactly, are we? It takes more than mere coupling to make a proper marriage, don’t you think?’ He turned to see her face, and Ruby nodded, her mind a turmoil of confused emotion. How was it he could tug so at her heartstrings?

‘Anyroad, you should stop and think before you do anything you might regret. You don’t really want me to play the whore with your own father, do you? Not just so you can blackmail him. What good would that do?’

He gathered her into his arms, holding her close. ‘How very sweet and caring you are all of a sudden, Ruby.’

‘Oh, I’m a proper little angel, me, when I want to be.’

‘I prefer it when you play the devil.’
 

Pulling her beneath him, he pushed her back on to the bed to spread out her arms, capturing her hands in his. But he didn’t start to make love to her as she expected, half hoped that he might, nor even to kiss her. He simply looked deeply into her eyes. Ruby found herself gazing back; a long, serious, thoughtful look, assessing, appraising, evaluating, as if each was seeing the other for the first time. Never had she known him to divulge so much information about himself, or for him to be so tender towards her. She felt sure he must sense the slow, hard beat of her heart, read her inner thoughts and secrets, her plans to leave him. It was this last awesome prospect which brought her from her trance.

‘I thought I’d go early to the house, at the end of this week.’

He looked momentarily surprised, as well he might since the change of subject had been startlingly abrupt. Ruby could have kicked herself, but didn’t attempt an explanation for fear of making it worse.

‘Is there any particular reason?’

‘Not really, only I need to rinse those net curtains through. I’m ashamed to have them on show.’ The talk of net curtains in the midst of all this intensity of emotion seemed incongruous, almost laughable. She could see the shutters coming down over
his rugged features, fixed firmly back in place before he coldly responded.