The Misbegotten by Katherine Webb

discovers anything from you, I will have your teeth out. Do you hear me?’ Dick’s voice was hard; he took her upper arm in a bruising grip. Starling grinned in the half-light.
    ‘You mean to say, she believes you to be sweet and innocent, too?’ she said. Dick released his grip and gently rubbed away his fingermarks.
    ‘Yes, just so. Apologies, Starling. I am on edge. I want . . . I want everything to go well. With the wedding, and for my new wife. She is a fine creature, clever, and accomplished . . . with her by my side, my fortune and position can only improve,’ he said. Not clever enough to spot Dick Weekes for the tomcat he is , Starling thought, contemptuously.
    ‘My soul is consumed with jealous rage, sir. For it does sound as though you love this sweet and innocent and clever and educated Miss Rachel.’
    ‘Aye.’ He smiled, somewhat foolishly. ‘I believe I do.’ Starling stared at him, and for a minute found nothing to say. He was a dark shape, his face outlined by second-hand light from the pub. Starling stepped back into the deep shadows in case her dismay was plain.
    ‘Then perhaps, after she is home, you won’t come to meet me any more?’ She tried to say it lightly, as if she barely cared. Dick hesitated, as though the thought hadn’t occurred to him.
    ‘Perhaps not, Starling. Perhaps not.’ His words, so careless, stabbed at Starling. She had a sensation like falling, like things being taken from her control. She smiled, as she always did to conceal such feelings.
    ‘We’ll see. Perhaps this milk-white angel of yours will keep the hunger sated for a while, but variety is the spice of life, as Sol Bradbury likes to say. Come then, let me give you something to remember me by.’
    She led him up the ladder into the hayloft, and there teased and coaxed and mocked him until his face was ruddy and his teeth clenched in a seizure of utter lust and frustration, and then she straddled him and rode him hard, feeling her own pleasure spread up her spine like a warm tide rising. Afterwards, she laced her small breasts back into her bodice and watched Dick angrily as he caught his breath. Her senses always seemed heightened at such times, and suddenly she could smell the reek of horse piss from the stables, and the cloying scent of Dick’s sweat and seed. She wrinkled her nose, and wiped herself with a switch of hay. Dick ground his fingertips into his eyes, where dust from the hay was irritating them, then blinked at her and grinned.
    ‘Oh, I shall miss you, Starling,’ he said.
    ‘We’ll see,’ she replied, shortly.
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘What I say. Now, I ask a privilege of you, since we are to part.’
    ‘What?’ He was instantly suspicious. ‘I already said I will not lace the wine any stronger. If Mr Alleyn should keel over dead . . .’
    ‘Nothing to do with him. I want to meet your new bride. I want to meet Mrs Rachel Weekes, and understand why I am so suddenly set aside.’ And perhaps I will spill some blood-red wine on her pure white gown while I’m at it.
    ‘You can’t,’ he said at once. ‘I wish to . . . draw a line. Between this old life, and the new one starting.’
    ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ said Starling, annoyed. ‘A new wife cannot make you a new man. You’ll still be Dick Weekes, son of Duncan Weekes . . . nothing will change that.’
    ‘Shut your mouth, Starling. I mean to start anew, and you won’t stop me. I won’t let you stop me.’ He caught her wrist and held it tightly, not letting go when she struggled.
    ‘Leave off!’
    ‘Not until you swear to be discreet.’
    ‘If you let me meet her, I will swear it.’ They struggled a few seconds more, then Dick released her arm.
    ‘Very well. Two nights hence, I shall bring her here for our wedding feast. You can play the serving wench for a time, or something. Or merely watch from a quiet place. But you will not speak to her. Understand?’
    ‘A wedding feast at the Moor’s Head? Ah, lucky Miss