The Promise Read online

  His pale blue eyes studied her suspiciously for a moment. “And you will do whatever I command you to do?”

  She swallowed once. “Whatever.”

  “Are you a virgin?”

  She stared at his shirt and nodded. “I am.”

  Silence ruled the chamber while she waited, and then relief swept through her as he took a step back, releasing her arm. “This could prove quite…diverting.”

  He stepped back, eyeing her with his hands on his hips. She fixed her gaze on his face.

  “Very well. I’ll pay you the difference. And my wife shall not know anything of our arrangement.”

  She nodded.

  “Then I command you to take your clothes off…very slowly. And when you are finished, I wish for you to lie on the desk.”

  Rebecca stared at the dark mahogany desk. Her gaze moved away, lighting for an instant on Sir Charles’s sex, blotchy and swollen and horribly potent. She turned quickly toward the hearth.

  “As you wish,” she said, bending to pick up her straw hat.

  It was there, just as she’d hoped it would be. It was her only chance.

  There was no hesitation in her actions now. Her hand darted to the poker, her icy fingers closing on the brass handle. Then, in one swift movement she whirled around and smashed the iron rod with a sickening crunch into the head of Sir Charles Hartington as he leaned, quite exposed, against his desk.

  CHAPTER 2

  She had killed the man.

  Dropping the poker, Rebecca covered her mouth to stifle her own scream of horror. The crimson liquid pumped from Sir Charles’s scalp and soaked into the rug in a rapidly widening arc. He lay sprawled face down on the floor, his head away from her. In her haste to reach the door, she tripped over an outstretched foot and landed heavily on her hands and knees beside him. Immediately leaping to her feet, she gasped at the sight of her attacker’s warm blood covering her hands. She stared from her hands to his inert body.

  She had certainly killed the man.

  “No!” she sobbed, running her palms again and again over her skirts. “No!”

  Her fingers were trembling violently as they tried to unlock the door. Glancing fearfully over her shoulder, all she could see of him was the head of powdered, golden hair now streaked with the dark shades of his own mortality.

  The key turned, and Rebecca stumbled into the hallway. She only managed a few wobbly steps toward the staircase, though, before crouching down and retching violently on the brilliantly flowered carpet.

  “Miss Neville...Rebecca.”

  She lifted bleared eyes and saw the butler coming down the stairs. The serving maid Lizzy was directly behind him.

  “Oh, my God! What have you done?”

  She had no chance to answer Robert as another serving maid began to screech at the library door.

  “Blood!”

  And still louder.

  “Murder!”

  Rebecca covered her ears and shook her head as she staggered to her feet. The shouts and the chaos surrounded her, but she couldn’t answer. There was no sound in her throat but broken gasps for air.

  And then she ran.

  She felt hands reaching for her. Shouts behind her. She didn’t stop, though, flying down the steps to the front door and opening it before they could reach her.

  On the street she saw flashes of faces in the yellow arcs of lamps. Voices and shouts. On she ran as fast as her feet could carry her. She was not even a block away, though, when cries of murder rang out. The sounds of running footsteps. More shouts.

  At the crossing street, Rebecca turned the corner and then stumbled off the high curb and into the thoroughfare. Regaining her balance she tried to dash across as the darkness of the park on the far side caught her eye. But the rush of a carriage coming straight at her froze her in her tracks. She could not move, could not breath. Stunned, she watched the hooves of the horses pounding toward her.

  So this was to be her end. There would be no hanging. She would be trampled escaping the murder.

  “Get out of the way! Out of the way, you fool!”

  Rebecca saw the coachman struggle with the horses, but she couldn’t move. The carriage veered to the left. The horses reared as they plunged past, and she felt a hand pull her away as the wheels of the carriage thundered by.

  The next moment, she found herself sitting on the street. Faces were staring down at her with evident concern and surprise, but not one of them looked at her accusingly.

  With senses suddenly acute, she looked up as the carriage stopped a short distance away. The driver was shouting at his team of horses and trying to start the carriage again. From the tiny window, a young woman’s ashen face peered out.

  When their gazes connected, Rebecca knew. In that face she saw desperation that matched her own. She dragged herself to her feet and ran toward the carriage, stretching out a hand.

  “Help me!” she called. “Please, take me!”

  From the corner of her eye, she saw a mass of people rounding the corner.

  “Murderer! Hold that woman!”

  The carriage was already rolling when she saw the door swing open. She could barely hear the weak commands from inside but saw the driver look back at her.

  With renewed strength, Rebecca dashed for the open door and climbed inside as the driver cracked his whip. The carriage jerked forward and in an instant was racing through the streets of the city, leaving the shouting throng far behind.

  The pale woman in the carriage drew the curtains, and darkness enveloped the two riders. It took a long moment before Rebecca managed to catch her breath. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she heard the driver shouting at the team of horses as he slowed to turn a corner.

  The woman who sat across from her stared searchingly at Rebecca. On her lap, beneath a well-made cloak, she held a small bundle.

  “I am innocent.” Rebecca heard herself blurting out. “My name is Rebecca Neville. I...I lived at Mrs. Stockdale’s Academy in Oxford up until a month ago.”

  Her rescuer continued to study her in silence. The woman was young…not much older than Rebecca. Her clothes bespoke obvious wealth. But there was fear in her drawn, pale face…a look of desperation that Rebecca could see now even more clearly.

  “I...I was hired to be a tutor...by Lady Hartington...for their three children...and then her husband arrived...” She lost the words as a knot rose in her throat. She dashed tears off her face with the back of her stained sleeve. “He tried to...he attacked me...the wife was away...I swung the poker at him. I killed him…and now they are after me. But he tried to...to...I...”

  She couldn’t continue. Burying her face in her hands, Rebecca leaned forward and lost herself in her own misery as the carriage jerked roughly from side to side. A moment later, a delicate handkerchief was tucked into her hands. She took it gratefully and wiped her eyes.

  “I am sorry. I shouldn’t have involved you with…”

  “Do you have family?” The woman’s voice was kind but weak, as if she were in severe pain.

  “I don’t...although I was told tonight that I might have a relation...” She shook her head hopelessly. “I have no one to go to. For all of my life I’ve been told I was an orphan.”

  “No matter what he did, they will hang you.”

  Rebecca stared down at her hands in her lap. The stains from Sir Charles’s blood, mixed with the ink she’d spilled earlier, created grotesque markings on her dress. The white handkerchief against it was a shocking contrast, even in the darkness of the coach.

  “I would not have acted any differently, even knowing the consequences.”

  She stabbed again at her tears. There was a noise from the woman’s lap. A small mewling cry. Rebecca’s eyes rounded as she watched her rescuer push aside the cloak and reveal an infant tightly swaddled in blankets.

  “He is awake.” There was tenderness in the young woman’s face as she looked down on the baby in her arms.

  “So small!” Rebecca found hersel
f whispering as she leaned over to look at the child.

  “He was born only this morning.”

  Her eyes lifted to the pale face. “Are you...the mother?”

  The woman smiled faintly. “I am Elizabeth Wakefield. And yes, I am the mother.”

  The carriage lurched and Rebecca laid a hand on Elizabeth’s knee as the woman winced with pain.

  “You are not well. It is too soon for you to be leaving your bed after delivering a child.”

  “I...I am well enough...to look after my son.” She ran a finger over the infant’s furrowed brow. “I am calling him James.”

  There were other questions racing through Rebecca’s mind, questions more important than the child’s name. Where was her husband, for example, and why was it that Elizabeth was traveling alone at this time of night with her infant son? But the sadness that enveloped the woman, the love that shone in her eyes as she looked down on the baby, restrained Rebecca from asking anything more.

  Instead, she sat back, thoughts about her own situation crowding her brain. Thoughts about how insignificant her entire life had been. Thoughts about how quickly it was going to end when they tried her and hanged her for Sir Charles Hartington’s murder. Her hand drifted unconsciously to her throat as she wondered for a moment how painful it was to hang.

  Her eyes focused again on the mother and child across from her, and she wondered if there had ever been a moment such as this in her own life. She wondered if her own mother had ever held her with such tenderness and…

  She shook her head and looked away as emotions tightened like a fist in her throat. Too late for such thoughts, she scolded herself. Even if Jenny Greene were indeed her mother, it was far too late for such thoughts.

  From the time she’d been a little girl, Rebecca had been raised with Mrs. Stockdale’s constant reminders on the value of virtue that must accompany the improvement of a girl’s mind. Indeed, she had grown into womanhood schooled on the difference between right and wrong and, more importantly, on the fragile nature of a woman’s chastity. Much more so than with the other students, it seemed, the schoolmistress had been keen on constantly reminding young Rebecca about the necessity of hiding her “unusual” looks, of binding and taming her willful and flame-colored tresses. No, nothing should ever be allowed to steer her—even momentarily—off the narrow path of decency and respectability.

  It all made sense now. Mrs. Stockdale’s persistence had simply been the result of her suspicions about the “bad” stock Rebecca had probably issued from. Indeed, she wondered with a pang of bitterness, though, what her former schoolmistress might think of her actions tonight.

  The carriage rumbled to a sudden stop. Rebecca’s heart leaped into her throat. She clutched her skirts in her hands and stared at the closed door of the coach. She could smell the rank odor of fish and rotted wood, and guessed they were close to the Thames. “I suppose...this is the end.”

  “There is a boat waiting for me here.”

  Elizabeth’s words drew Rebecca’s gaze.

  “I am taking a boat from here to Dartmouth where James and I will be boarding a ship headed for America.”

  All Rebecca could do was hold her breath.

  “I am...I am not well. And we are traveling alone.”

  A tear rolled down Rebecca’s cheek as she stared into her guardian angel’s face.

  “I want you to come with us.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Philadelphia, in the Province of Pennsylvania

  April 1770

  “We cannot teach a deaf boy in our school, Mrs. Ford. We simply cannot do it.”

  Rebecca forced herself to remain seated on the wooden bench and stared irritably at the headmaster of the Friend’s School. “Jamey is not deaf, Mr. Morgan. Hard of hearing, that is true, if you are standing by his bad ear. But not deaf.”

  The middle-aged man adjusted the spectacles on his nose and stared down at the papers on his desk. “I have had both of my teachers spend time with thy son—separately and together. They each say that thy son hears not a word. The lad cannot even speak, for all they can tell.”

  “He is only nine. He was…quite nervous the day I brought him here.”

  The headmaster shook his head. “Mr. Hopkinson tells me he saw the lad running on the wharf with some other boys last week, and he didn’t respond to his greeting in any way.”

  “How many nine-year-old boys do you know who would speak to an adult while they are in the middle of mischief-making?”

  “So, thy son is a mischief-maker, as well?”

  Rebecca let out a frustrated breath and unrolled the papers she was holding on her lap. “I was speaking of boys at play. Jamey is not a mischief-maker, Mr. Morgan. He is a very bright and vigorous lad who shows great promise in learning. Just look at these papers, sir.” She placed the sheets on the man’s desk. “These are samples of his handwriting. He can read, too. And I have already been tutoring him in mathematics, and he does quite as well as many of your own students.”

  The headmaster took the papers and leafed quickly through them.

  “Now, you tell me, sir. How could I be teaching him these things if he were deaf?”

  “Mrs. Ford…” He paused, carefully rolling the papers up and holding them out to her. “Thou art a talented teacher. Many of our students have benefited greatly by being tutored by thee over the past few years. A number of parents cannot praise you highly enough for thy way with their young ones. But about thy son…”

  Rebecca took the rolled bundle from the man’s hand.

  “…with regard to Jamey, thou art better off continuing as thou have begun. Perhaps ‘tis the bond that exists between a mother and son that allows thee to overcome the lad’s handicap. ‘Tis thou…and only thou…that he appears to respond to.”

  “But there is only so much more that I can teach him. There is only so far in life that he can go if all of his education comes from me.”

  “Based on what thou showed me here, thy son has already surpassed what most…laborers…or tradesmen might need as far as schooling in life. He has already done quite well by thee.”

  “No, Mr. Morgan! I will not allow my son to think that becoming a laborer or a tradesman is the best he can do with his life.” Rebecca fought to restrain her growing fury. “Despite one deaf ear, regardless of a misshapen hand, I will raise my son to be whatever he wishes to be. If he decides to be a doctor, then he shall be. If he wishes to become a lawyer or a clergyman, then I will see to it that nothing shall stop him. I will make sure that Jamey has every opportunity that exists for a boy growing up in Pennsylvania.”

  “Thy intentions are quite admirable, Mrs. Ford.”

  She glared fiercely at the headmaster and leaned forward on the bench. “Admiration is not what I came here for, Mr. Morgan. I came for understanding, openness, equality…things that you and the Society of Friends say you stand for. I came here seeking the opportunity of an education for my son.”

  The headmaster’s face turned a reddish hue, and he stared down at his hands. “I am sorry, Mrs. Ford. But we have given thy request quite some time and attention. But with only two teachers and myself, we are already handling over a hundred pupils. There is simply no way we can handle someone with thy son’s difficulties at this school.”

  Rebecca stared for a long moment at the headmaster’s balding head, at the thin spectacles that had slipped further down on the man’s nose. She stood abruptly.

  “Good day to you, sir.”

  ***

  The afternoon sun was lying like liquid gold on the spire of Christ Church when Rebecca stepped out onto the High Street, though she was hardly in the frame of mind to notice it. With one hand wrapped tightly around Jamey’s papers, and the other clutching the ribbons of her purse, she pushed through the bustle of activity that showed no signs of easing despite the lengthening shadows of the afternoon.

  “Good day to you, Mrs. Ford.”

  She turned her head and nodded blindly while making her way alo
ng the brick sidewalk. There were other schools. Perhaps the school in Germantown. But how to get Jamey there, day in and day out?

  “Fine afternoon, Mrs. Ford.”

  “That it is, Mrs. Bradford.” Rebecca forced a polite smile at the heavyset woman. Hiding her frustration with the headmaster, she lengthened her strides.

  They would move. If that was the only way she could get Jamey into a school, then so be it. She was willing to do whatever it took. New York. Boston. Wherever. And as far as jobs that she had here…there had to be other positions in other cities.

  Rebecca ignored the cries of vendors hawking everything from meat pies to apples to Dr. Franklin’s Gazette. As she turned the corner into Strawberry Alley, the curses of a carter driving his slow moving team of oxen into the activity of High Street hardly even registered as she pushed along the crowded dirt street.

  She had made a start—a life for herself and Jamey in Philadelphia over the past ten years. People knew her, respected her. She was never short of work, whether it be tutoring or sewing or helping in the bakery whenever Mrs. Parker needed to tend to her ailing husband.

  She passed under painted signs extending from rows of neat brick dwellings, signs noting drapiers and glaziers and cobblers and butchers working hard at their trades inside. Yes, there was work here, but if she had to go…well, she would find work in another city…in another colony. Anywhere, so long as she could find a school willing to overlook Jamey’s differences and treat him like any other boy.

  Rebecca carefully stepped across the alley—avoiding puddles and muck and traffic—to the red brick building that housed Mrs. Parker’s bakery. There, above the ever expanding Butler family, she and Jamey rented two snug rooms beneath the sloping roof.

  She nodded to Annie Howe as the thin, squint-eyed worker from the Death of the Fox Inn stepped out of the bakery with an armload of bread.

  “Oh, Mrs. Ford. There was a gentleman inquiring after you at the inn this afternoon.”