‘Then,’ said Simon softly, ‘you’ll have to find a way to afford it. Because, my dear, if you don’t I shall make sure the entire county knows what you get up to with your plump little girls. There’ve been quite a few of them over the years, haven’t there?’ he said. ‘All the seductions of those pretty daughters of the local landed gentry. And all those trips to London to pick up street girls–Oh yes, I know all about that, Thomasina. An old school-friend saw you near Seven Dials in the summer–he recognized you from when he used to stay at Quire in the holidays. He was surprised to see you in that part of London. You were striding along with what he described as a very queer look in your eye, and he couldn’t imagine what you were doing there. But I can imagine,’ said Simon. ‘You were after the girls, weren’t you? The ones who don’t much mind if they do it with a man or a woman, providing there’s money to be made.’
‘No one would believe any of this,’ said Thomasina, but she felt as if she had been punched in the stomach. She thought: how much does Simon really know about me? Supposing this friend of his followed me? Along to the familiar turning off St Martin’s Lane, and into the place where the seven streets meet. Seven Dials. And from there into the little yard nearby. Number 17 Paradise Yard, that’s the address. I wrote it down, even though I’d never forget where my cat-faced girl lives.
‘I’ll bet there are a few whispers about you in Amberwood as it is,’ Simon was saying. ‘Believe me, Thomasina, it wouldn’t take much to fan the flames of those whispers, and inside a week you’d be a byword. And on top of that, I could tell them about your latest adventure, and that’s first-hand information, isn’t it? I can describe it exactly: how you’re paying me to make your newest little paramour pregnant. How we’re enjoying those cosy threesomes in bed together–except that Maud isn’t enjoying them, is she? You’ve had to lock her up to stop her running away, and I’m having to drink myself into insensitivity every night because oddly enough, Thomasina, I don’t much care for doing it to a female who finds it–and me–so repulsive. But I think you’ve got your way–I’ve heard her being sick on three mornings in succession.’
There was a moment when Twygrist’s whispering darkness swooped around Thomasina’s head almost knocking her off balance. Maud was being sick in the mornings–she was being sick. After a moment, she was able to say, ‘I don’t believe you. I empty the commode and the washing bowl–I’d have known.’
‘She’s sick out of the window,’ said Simon exasperatedly.
Thomasina stared at him, and then, because he could not be allowed to get the upper hand, said, ‘I don’t believe you’d talk about any of this. You wouldn’t come out of it so very well yourself, would you? That arrangement we had—’
‘My dearest girl, I shouldn’t give a tuppenny damn what people in Amberwood said about me, because I shouldn’t be around to hear it,’ said Simon. ‘I’d be back in London, living on your money. But a tale like that wouldn’t do me much harm, you know. The women would eye me with that particular kind of nervous fascination they always reserve for libertines. And most of the men would be rather envious–I told you, didn’t I, that it’s every man’s private fantasy to be in bed with two women together? Even if one of the women is you.’
From within the turmoil of Thomasina’s mind, two things came uppermost. One was that if Maud really was pregnant, Simon’s spiteful greed must not be allowed to taint the future of that small Josiah. Her thoughts flew ahead to the whispers that would hiss round Amberwood. Something odd about young Josiah Forrester’s conception, people would say. Something unsavoury. And her lovely boy would find himself shunned and cold-shouldered. That must not be allowed to happen.