Paternoster by Kim Fleet Page A

said your father was paying that?’
    ‘He’ll pay what remains after I’ve sold everything I have. Even my horse, Rachel. I love my horse.’
    That cracked her. She rose and slapped him hard across the face. Darby reeled and crashed on to the sofa.
    ‘Rachel, I wish …’
    She never heard what he wished, for at that moment, hammering shook the front door, the force vibrating through the house.
    ‘They’ve come,’ Darby said, his face white.
    ‘Don’t let them in,’ Rachel cried, as the front door opened and boots were heard on the stairs. A thickset man in a long brown coat shoved a bill at Darby.
    ‘You’re expecting us, Mr Roach?’ he said. ‘Here to reclaim goods unpaid for. Off you go, lads.’
    The lads – two swarthy brutes – grabbed the sofa and tipped Darby on to the floor, then hefted it out of the room.
    ‘You can’t just take my furniture,’ Rachel cried, squaring up to him.
    ‘Yes, I can miss. None of this is paid for. Now out of the way, I need to roll up that carpet.’
    More men came, with bits of paper they thrust at Darby. One went through her closet, snatching her gowns, underclothes, shoes. Another unhitched the looking glass from the wall and carted it away. The ornaments were wrapped in paper and stacked on a cart. Her jewellery box was plundered and the contents stuffed into pockets. A receipt for the goods taken was made out and handed to Darby.
    He slumped on the bare floorboards, his head in his hands, as more and more tradespeople arrived to claim what was rightfully theirs, terrified they’d miss out on the loot. Rachel wept as the house was dismantled around her. Her delicate chairs were lumped outside and swung on to a cart, and carried off to grace someone else’s house. Some other Marylebone whore, her star rising, decorating her love nest with the best of everything. To think she’d dreamed of trading up to Westminster. Now she’d sell her soul to keep her smart little house and Darby.
    ‘Do something, Darby,’ she cried, as they dismantled her bed. Their bed, where they’d lain entwined and he’d sworn he’d never let her go, ever.
    ‘Do what?’ he said.
    ‘Stop them!’
    ‘I can’t,’ he said, shaking his head.
    ‘But where am I to go?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘You said you’d protect me. I have no lodgings, no money, only the clothes I stand up in.’
    He fixed her with a look she didn’t like. ‘You’ll find a new favourite soon enough,’ he said. ‘Go back to Mrs Dukes.’
    ‘Go back to …’ She couldn’t. How the other girls would crow. High and mighty Rachel Lovett, who’d snagged herself a wealthy lover and now was above common whoring, back to the seraglio and submitting to anyone who paid a few guineas for her favours.
    Kitty inched into the room. ‘Miss, they’re saying they’re taking everything, miss, and I haven’t been paid this quarter’s wages.’
    Rachel turned to Darby. He shrugged and looked away.
    Hand on her hips, she addressed Kitty loud enough that everyone in the house could hear clearly. ‘Well, Kitty, it seems our master, Mr Darby Roach, cares nothing. He’s advised me to be a common whore. No doubt he’d counsel you to do the same.’
    At that Kitty burst into tears and fled the house.
    ‘Off you go, miss,’ a large self-important-looking man announced. ‘The lease has been sold.’
    ‘But where …’ She pleaded with her eyes to Darby. He ignored her, just dragged himself up from the floor and dusted off his breeches. He bowed to her. ‘Good day, Miss Lovett,’ he said, and strode from the room.
    ‘Darby!’ she called after him, but the self-important man had her arm in his grip, and was hustling her downstairs and out on to the street with a well-practised shove in the back. She sprawled on the pavement. Two women stopped to watch, and a boy laughed.
    ‘Damn you, Darby Roach,’ she cursed under her breath.

    They hadn’t stripped her body, these men who stripped her house and closets. Maybe