Pit Bank Wench (37 page)

‘But I have not given you my answer, not at all.’ He leaned forward, touching her arm as she made to stand.

‘Then perhaps you will give it to me now?’ Emma replied coldly.

‘The bruise on your cheek? That comes of defending the lad?’

‘I tried to stop a man beating him, yes.’

‘I see.’ He withdrew his hand but his eyes stayed on her face. ‘The passage to Ireland, it will take money. Does the lad have it?’

She had not thought of that. It would be a pittance he earned at the digging, and the little left from his keep he had sent home regularly every month. She had often given him a hot meal, finding some insignificant chore he could do in return, but even that amount saved had gone home with the rest.

‘I’ll agree to his travelling with me, but the Church cannot bear the cost.’

‘It will not be required to.’ Emma stood up. ‘The money will be paid.’

‘Then have the lad meet me at the Turk’s Head at six this Thursday morning.’ The priest rang for his housekeeper. ‘Goodnight to you, Mrs Price.’

‘
The money will be paid.
’ Emma walked beside Daisy who carried the child, the words echoing over and over in her mind. Would she have enough? Shoving one hand deep into the pocket of her skirts, she felt the hard round shape of the coin sewn into the lining. She had sworn not to part with it except to fling it into the face of the man who had shamed her.

But what was pride against a boy’s happiness? Slowly she withdrew her hand. If that shilling was what it took, then she would give it.

But she would not abandon the promise she had made herself then. The promise to take revenge on Carver Felton!

Chapter Twenty-Five

The bequests Paul had made to members of his household had been paid and the same amount added from Carver’s own pocket in recompense for the delay he had caused.

Now he sat on his huge bay stallion, reining it in as he looked down at the excavation for the new waterway, gliding like a great black snake across the heath. The Irish navigators he had brought in had done well, the work was almost finished.

‘The loading sheds were put up yesterday.’ The site manager pointed to a group of timber buildings set on a small rise opposite. ‘It only remains to lay the rails to run the bogies to the basin.’

Carver glanced over to the huge depression dug into the earth. Filled with water it would berth several narrow boats at a time, some offloading materials while others loaded coal for transportation. The project had gone exactly as predicted, but he could take no joy in it now.

‘When can the joining be made?’ He forced himself to show an interest.

‘Depends on the brickworks,’ the manager replied, his glance following the wide slash in the earth. ‘We need to use only blue bricks, they be the best for lining canals, Mr Felton, the strongest brick for engineering works. But to make them takes a special kind of marl, a very dense clay. They brings it all the way from Stafford and the magnesium oxides it contains turns it blue in the firing. That’s why the bricks be known as Stafford Blues. But it takes time to get that clay to the brickworks at Wednesbury and they be waiting on a load now. Consequently we be waiting for bricks.’

‘Hmm!’ Carver watched the men below, some feeding mounds of wet clay to others working along the bed of the canal. ‘Any other troubles?’

‘Them navvies work well enough. They have spats between themselves but they get sorted out, mostly by one called Brogan. He seems to keep the others in line without reference to me, though I did give a man his tin a while ago. On Brogan’s advice.’

‘And what’s that building over there, the wooden one set apart from the tents?’ Carver asked, not interested in whether or not a man had been dismissed.

Bringing his glance to follow where Carver indicated the manager shaded his eyes against the glare of the sun.

‘Part of it be a canteen. The navvies built it in their own time, and the one called Brogan paid for the wood out of his own pocket. I made sure he used none of the company’s materials.’

‘A canteen.’ Carver ran his eye over the low one-storey hut, another smaller one joined at right angles to it. ‘And which of them is the chef?’

The manager smiled dutifully at what he saw as his employer’s attempt at humour. ‘I don’t know about chef, but the cooking’s done by a couple of women. One of them was the cause of my sacking the man I told you of a minute since.’

‘You sacked him over a woman? A common prostitute?’

‘No, Mr Felton, sir, she be no prostitute. Or not as I knows of anyway. I don’t allow none of them sort on the site.’

‘Why else would a man risk getting himself dismissed?’ Carver turned his attention back to the excavation.

‘For smacking a woman in the mouth!’ the manager answered bluntly. ‘I don’t allow that neither. No matter what the woman’s trade, I won’t have no workman of mine knock her about.’

‘And the woman?’ He was not really interested. Carver’s question merely served to prolong the conversation.

‘Seems she was protecting a young lad that was being beaten, and for that she was knocked down. One of the men came running for me but by the time I got over there Brogan had already beaten the other fellow half senseless.’

‘This Brogan seems to take a lot on himself.’

‘The others respect him, sir, and he’s fair in his dealings with them.’

‘And why was the lad being beaten?’

‘He was homesick, so the men said. Not surprising seeing he could be no more than twelve or thirteen at most. His talk of his mother and being back in Ireland irritated Flynn and so he set about the lad.’

‘Then sacking the man was the right course of action.’ Carver turned the horse about.

‘The woman paid the lad’s passage back to Ireland, wouldn’t take no help from the navvies neither. Said they needed all they had to send to their families.’

‘Indeed.’ His reply indicating an end to the conversation, Carver set his horse to a walk.

‘Arr sir.’ The manager’s voice floated after him. ‘She be a good, kind woman that Emma Price.’

Jerking so hard on the reins that the horse whinnied in protest, Carver wheeled around to face his site manager. His mouth so tight the words would hardly come, he snapped: ‘What name did you say?’

‘Why, Price, sir. Emma Price.’

He had not misheard. The blood cold in his veins, Carver sat immobile. It could be coincidence, a maiden name and a married name the same, the name was common in the area, it need not be her . . .

He gripped the reins convulsively as thoughts rioted in his mind. But then again, it could be; Paul had found her, his letter had said so. It had also stated she was married.

The last word sounded like a bell in his brain.

Emma Price was married, it would do him no good to see her now. He should leave. Now.

Touching a heel to his mount he set it to a canter, his eyes fixed on the low canteen hut.

Having almost reached it, he heard a woman’s laughter, the happy sound accompanied by the delighted squeals of a child.

Reining to a halt he watched as they tumbled together in a heap. The hair was long and beautiful but it was the wrong colour, it was not the colour he saw in his dreams, that delicate gold-brushed silver falling softly about a lovely face . . .

‘I beg your pardon.’ He spoke quietly, not wishing to alarm the girl whose eyes were already widening as she stared up at him. ‘Can you tell me where I might find Emma Price?’

‘Who is it?’ The child struggled free of the skirts she had spread about it. ‘Who is it, Aunt Daisy?’

His glance falling on the child as the woman grasped its shoulders, Carver sat stunned. Eyes dark as midnight, hair black as a raven’s wing and marked with a narrow silver streak.

‘
. . . the remainder of my estate, in its entirety, I leave to my brother’s son . . .
’

Paul’s words hammered in Carver’s heart.

He was looking at his own child!

‘Come along, you two, it’s time . . .’

At the door of the hut Emma’s face drained of colour. Suddenly she was back in Felton Wood, staring terrified into ice cold eyes as a tall man slid from his horse.

‘
. . . you will know me every bit as well as you know my brother, maybe even a little better . . .
’

Words she heard in her every nightmare since rang deafeningly in her brain.

‘No!’ Emma’s hand flew to her mouth and the dread in her eyes was echoed in Carver’s heart as he glimpsed the golden ring on her finger. She was another man’s wife, though her name remained the same. Another man’s wife . . . but the child was his.

Holding the boy’s hand protectively, Daisy went to Emma’s side. ‘Will I fetch Liam?’

Forcing his mind to function clearly, his eyes still on Emma, Carver said quietly, ‘There will be no need for that, I mean you no harm. May I dismount?’

Voice locked in her throat, Emma nodded dumbly.

‘I wish to speak with you, Mrs Price.’

Daisy’s quick ears caught the title but not by a single flicker did her eyes tell him he was wrong. Still holding the boy’s hand, she looked at the man who was his image.

‘If you have anything to say, mister, then it be best said indoors, not out here where half the world can hear.’

‘A sensible idea, Miss . . . ?’

‘Tully,’ she snapped. ‘Daisy Tully.’

‘Perhaps you would lead the way, Miss Tully?’

‘Can we go outside again, Aunt Daisy?’

‘Later Paul,’ Daisy answered as the child pulled his hand free.

Carver’s glance flashed to the boy. Those eyes, the hair, the set of the features, they were a replica of his own, yet she had named him Paul. A sudden dart of pain shot through him as the silent questions formed. Had she and Paul been lovers? Could the child’s looks be merely a prank of nature?

Ignoring the ritual of offering tea, Daisy turned to Emma who had dropped, trembling, into a chair.

‘I’ll take Paul into the bedroom then I’ll be back.’

‘No. He would be better outside in the air. Would you go with him, please, Daisy?’

‘If you be sure.’ She glared at the dark man, his eyes still fixed on the boy. ‘But I won’t be far from the door.’

‘I can do it myself. Watch, Aunt Daisy.’

Excited at the prospect of another game the child moved forward, one hand extended in front of him, feeling each object as he made for the door.

A look of disbelief on his face, Carver watched him go then, turning back to Emma, his eyes asked the question.

‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘Paul is blind.’

‘You named him Paul.’ Carver spoke first. ‘But he is not Paul’s son, is he? He’s mine!’

Breathless, she made no reply.

‘He is my child, why was I not told?’

The tone of his voice chasing away the shock of seeing him, Emma drew in a sharp breath.

‘Why? Why tell you . . . so you could laugh? The Doe Bank wench who dared to love a Felton.’

‘It would not have been that way.’

Her courage returning, Emma stared at the man standing over her. He had stood over her in the same way in the woods as he’d prepared to take her virginity, but this time it was something infinitely more precious for which she must fight.

‘Wouldn’t it?’ Her trembling over, Emma’s voice was steady. ‘If one Felton could not be seen to have anything to do with a pit bank girl, why should the other be keen to acknowledge her child?’

‘Emma . . .’

‘Mrs Price . . . my name is Mrs Price!’

It was like a slap to his face and he winced at its sting. ‘I beg your pardon, but whatever
your
name, the boy’s is Felton.’

‘No!’ Emma felt the tingle of returning fear.

‘He is my son!’

‘He is not your son!’ She was on her feet. ‘You have no right to him. You sold that right in Felton Wood – sold it for a shilling!’

Carver’s face blanched and the light seemed to die from his eyes but his voice was firm.

‘What was done that night cannot be undone, but the boy shall not be made to suffer for it.’

‘Will he
suffer
? Does being with his mother cause a child to suffer?’

‘Being without a father does.’

Her fear increasing, Emma recognised the determined tone of that voice, the tight set of the mouth. Not yet three years old, her son displayed the same characteristics when he wanted something denied him. Some of her fear reflected in her voice, she answered, ‘Paul has a father.’

At his sides, Carver’s hands clenched.

‘He has a
stepfather
.’

‘That is all he needs.’

‘But it is not all I need . . .’

He said it softly but Emma sensed that beneath the softness an iron fist was prepared to strike.

‘. . . I need my son and I intend to have him.’

‘Why?’ Emma’s cry was bitter. ‘Where is the logic, the purpose in that? You can have other children.’

‘
It is regrettable but virtually certain: you will never father a child.
’

Sharp and clear the words returned to him. There would be no other son for Carver Felton.

‘So can you,’ he answered. ‘Why deny this one what is his by right? As for logic and purpose, it is logical for a man to want to pass his fortune to his son. That is my purpose for being here. I acknowledge my son and I will have him.’

‘It was him, wasn’t it?’ asked Daisy, perched beside Emma where she sat watching the sleeping child. ‘That was Paul’s father.’

‘Yes.’ It was no more than a whisper.

‘What did he want?’

‘Paul.’ Emma’s voice shook. ‘He wanted Paul.’

Daisy did not need to ask if Emma had agreed. The fact that she had not moved from the child’s side since the man had ridden away was answer enough.

‘He can’t prove that Paul be his.’

‘Look at him, Daisy. They’re the image of each other. What other proof is necessary?’