The Darling Strumpet by Gillian Bagwell

present, she had matters of more immediate interest.
    Jimmy Cade, her client from that first night, had become a regular. Nell liked him well enough, and as Rose had said, there was a certain ease in bedding a man she was used to. She need not fear what the encounter would bring, and as she became more familiar with his preferences, she could better give him what pleased him, ensuring herself a steady source of money.
    In contrast to the hot haste of their first encounter, Cade became more relaxed with Nell, not only stopping to take his boots off before he joined her in bed, but frequently chatting with her after. He was young, but he had seen action in the war, and she liked to hear his stories about battles and military life.
    She watched him dress one hot afternoon, when they had dozed off after their bout and then awoken for a second round. His uniform made her think of her father, and she wondered if he had looked or moved as Cade did.
    “My da was in the army,” she said.
    “Was he? And where is he now?” Cade asked, struggling with his boots.
    “He died,” Nell said softly. “In prison in Oxford. He lost all in service of the king.”
    “Long since?” Cade asked, looking at her more carefully.
    “When I was but a baby. I never knew him.”
    “I’m sorry for it, Nelly. There were too many died, too many babes left fatherless.”
    Nell nodded silently. There was nothing to say, nothing that could express the pain that flooded her heart, the longing for something she had never known and would never know. Tears welled from her eyes, and she knuckled them away.
    Cade buckled on his sword belt and picked up his hat, then gave Nell’s damp cheek a gentle stroke. She wished he wouldn’t leave her alone, but he was already at the door and spoke over his shoulder.
    “I’ll see you soon, little one.”
     
     
     
    “WHAT WAS OUR DA LIKE?” NELL ASKED ROSE LATER. “WHY DID HE GO to prison?”
    Rose shook her head sadly. “I don’t remember much. I was very small myself. I remember him coming in the door and sweeping me up into his arms, laughing as he talked to me. Least, I think I do. Then he was gone. I remember Mam crying. It frightened me and I ran to her. But she pushed me away and shouted at me to leave her be.”
    The sisters sat in silence for a few moments. The past was locked away, behind an impenetrable wall. Their mother was the only link to that distant time. But Nell found it impossible to think of her mother as other than she was now—bitter, blowsy, and hard. Was it possible that Eleanor Smith had once been young and happy, had brightened at the sound of her man’s footsteps at the door, had had a tender smile for Rose and Nell or ever regarded them as other than a burden? If so, that woman was long dead. And Nell knew that Rose was her only ally in a harsh and unpredictable world.
     
     
     
    THE CONVERSATIONS WITH CADE AND ROSE SEEMED TO HAVE OPENED a rift in Nell’s mind, a doorway to a rolling mist of fear and sadness. She could not shake off the dark shadows, and for the rest of the day she was weighted with a profound sense of loss and terror.
    That night, Nell tossed fitfully before finally slipping into a dream. She was alone in a dark and narrow passageway. It might have been the lane outside her mother’s home, or the alley where she had spent the night when she had run away, or perhaps it was a place dimly remembered from deeper in her memory. It was night, and a thick fog swirled, obliterating the moon and stars. The wintry wind bit into Nell’s bare feet, penetrated the thin rags that covered her. Her teeth chattered in the cold, and she was so hungry that a pit seemed to gape at her very core. An aching loneliness seized her. She knew she would die if she did not find shelter and company.
    The fog deepened. She crept forward, reaching out a hand to feel her way. Her fingers scraped along something clammy and hard, like the stone landing steps left bare when the river’s