Jack Chiltern's Wife (1999) Read Online Free PDF

She would endure it stoically. Quite how much hardship she was not yet to know.

Chapter Two
    I f he stopped to think, Edward might guess what was in her mind, Kitty thought, as she climbed into bed that night, having first taken the precaution of hooking a chair back under the door knob, but it might not come to him until it was too late. And he might remain silent, not wanting to implicate himself.
    He returned the following morning just as she was finishing a frugal breakfast in her room after a sleepless night. He was accompanied by her maid. Judith Sadler was a woman of middle years, almost as round as she was tall, with reddened cheeks and small blue eyes which easily sprang tears, as they were doing now, as they embraced.
    ‘Oh, Kitty, my love, what have you done?’ she cried. ‘Your uncle is silent and white-faced and your stepmama is screaming at him what an ungrateful wretch you are. They would have it that I knew aforehand what you were going to do and the mistress bade the Reverend beat it out of me. They could not believe I did not know where you were, nor couldn’t I believe it myself. How could you break my poor heart so?’
    ‘I am truly sorry, Judith, but you might have stopped me—’
    ‘For sure, I would.’
    ‘But you came when I sent for you?’
    ‘And why would I not? If ever you needed a body’s help it is now, and who else but me could you trust?’
    ‘No one, dear Judith,’ Kitty said, looking over the grey head at Edward. ‘Was it very difficult?’
    He smiled, turning his hat in his hand, anxious to be gone. ‘I paid a young girl to call on the rectory and say Judith was needed urgently by her sister who was ill and needed someone to look after her children until she recovered.’
    ‘But Uncle William knows Judith has no sister.’
    ‘Mistress didn’t know it and the Rector was out,’ the maid said. ‘She was glad enough to let me go.’
    ‘Thank you, Edward,’ Kitty said.
    ‘My pleasure,’ he said, though he looked far from pleased.
    ‘What about that other matter?’ she asked, hoping that, in fetching Judith to her, he had not forgotten about the money.
    He put a small purse of gold coins and some paper money on the table beside her empty coffee cup. ‘I managed to call in a few debts and borrow some more, but I wish I knew what you were going to do. The Reverend is sure to think of me before long and then what shall I say?’
    ‘Nothing. I have written to him again, trying to explain why I have done what I have done. I pray he will understand and forgive me. Will you see that it is delivered to him tomorrow, after mid-day?’
    ‘Why not today?’
    ‘Because I don’t want him to stop me.’
    ‘He will say that I should have stopped you. And he would be right. I don’t like it, Kitty, not above half I don’t.’
    ‘You can have the letter delivered anonymously; he need not know you were involved at all. I told you, you can act the jilted suitor.’
    ‘I shall look a fool.’
    ‘No, everyone will say what a lucky escape you had.’ She took his hands in both her own. ‘I am truly grateful, Edward. I could not have managed without you.’
    He laughed. ‘Blackmail is a very strong weapon, my dear. I had no choice.’
    ‘You had, but I am glad you did not take it.’
    ‘Goodbye, my dear, and good luck.’ He kissed her lightly on the cheek and left.
    Kitty turned to Judith, who stood in the middle of the room with a small travelling bag and a basket at her feet. The poor woman looked pale and worried to death, but she was, above all else, loyal to Kitty and would follow her and look after her through thick and thin, fire and water.
    ‘Fact is, Miss Kitty, I ain’t exac’ly sorry to be leaving the rectory. Not that I would have left while you needed me—your poor dead mother asked me to look after you and look after you I will. I suppose that’s why your stepmama never did take to me. She would have turned me off the minute you were married.’
    ‘You goose,