Suzanne Robinson Read Online Free

served as the family’s only stove. She poured water into a pan and set it on the brazier. It would take a long time to boil, but she had heard that heating the water would make it healthier.
    “Now,” she said to Alice, “where is that mending?”
    Alice pointed to a heap of clothing on one of the pallets that served as bedding for the children. While Prim sewed, she drew from Alice more of the family’s history, their hopes and their adventures. She listened at first, but after a while Prim’s thoughts returned to the black-haired ruffian, as they had too often since she’d first seen him. He’d been so different from all the others who had hunted her. His person and clothing had been clean; Prim had discovered long ago that poverty made cleanliness difficult. Therefore he was a successful ruffian.
    And he was alarming in his perfection of form. Prim was ashamed of herself for dreaming of the man. She had created pleasant fantasies before, but thesedreams had little magic in them. In them she felt no sweeping, selfless love; she felt desire. Well-brought-up young ladies shouldn’t dream of touching a man as she imagined she touched this black-eyed villain.
    Her dreams began with him standing over her, half in darkness, his head lowered in that mysterious and menacing attitude. His hair concealed all but his eyes. These were raised to look at her with that strange expression that frightened and attracted her at the same time. What was it about his eyes that gave him such power? When he assumed that stance with his head lowered, he didn’t smile. One might think he was about to threaten murder from the severity of his expression, but in her dreams, that look seemed the precursor to pleasure, dark, wild and forbidden. She hoped never to see him again.
    “Are you still going to the fish market tonight, miss?”
    “We must have something to eat.”
    “But I can go, miss. I done it lots.”
    “You do too much,” Prim said as she set a mended smock aside. “Tonight you must get some rest.”
    Alice nuzzled her face against the sleeping baby’s head. “Pa wants more rent.”
    When she had sought refuge with the Kettles, Sidney had demanded payment for room and board, then promptly went to the tavern down the street to drink until he’d used up the entire amount. If Sidney wasn’t supplied with drinking funds, he became violent. Alice and the children spent much of their time scrounging for money to keep him inebriated and pacific.
    Prim lifted her skirt and withdrew a shilling from a pocket in her petticoat. Handing it to Alice, she said, “Give him this.”
    Alice gave her solemn thanks and slipped the coin in her apron pocket. “You should go home, miss. It ain’t’ right you being here. This place isn’t good enough for you.”
    “This place isn’t good enough for you, Alice, or for anyone. And you know I can’t go home. The man we saw knows me, and he’ll be watching Lady Freshwell’s house.”
    Prim had no family except her brother, John Harold, who was at Oxford. After her father died, John Harold had inherited the family estate, and it was in trust for him while he was at university. As the son and heir, he had gotten almost everything. Like Sidney Kettle, Prim’s father had been fond of liquor and left his family with little upon which to live beyond the entailed estate.
    Prim had a meager sum of her own, not enough to purchase her own home, but enough to provide her with food and clothing. With John Harold away at university there did not seem to be enough money to support Prim at home. A manager took care of the estate, but John Harold was to close the house. Eventually, out of duty, her aunt Freshwell had offered Prim a place as her companion. In desperation, Prim had accepted.
    By now Lady Dorothy Freshwell no doubt thought Prim dead. Prim assumed her aunt had sent servants to search for her when she didn’t meet the carriage at the appointed time, but they had, of course, failed.What she