Wages of Sin Read Online Free PDF

ominous click and Jane was alone with her terror.
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    The next few days dragged unmercifully. Confined to her room, Jane grew pale with lack of exercise and poor food. She watched wistfully from her casement as the business of the house went on without her. Boredom made even the smallest event - from the cook pursuing a recalcitrant chicken round the yard to the gatekeeper’s daughter playing in the dust - something to be savoured to while the weary hours away. Robin flung longing glances towards her window each time he passed, but she withdrew, lest she bring retribution on his innocent head as well as her own.
    She wandered over to her mirror and smiled wanly at her reflection. At least there was one consolation; time also seemed to have tempered her stepfather’s rage. Despite his threats he had not been near her chamber since the dreadful confrontation with the midwife. Three times her mother had ventured in to see her, unlocking the door with care and glancing over her shoulder before slipping through, but her nervousness and the fresh bruises on her skin had only served to intensify Jane’s guilt. She sighed. Better to suffer alone than see the suffering her impulsive behaviour had brought on others.
    The sound of laughter and chattering outside in the courtyard brought her back to the window and she stared down in amazement at the crowd of servants thronging their way towards the gate. They were dressed in their best, even the lowliest kitchen maid flaunting a fragment of ragged ribbon in her hair. Behind the common throng rode her mother and her attendants, a splash of vivid colour in a sea of grey and brown and green. What was going on?
    Realisation dawned. Of course! It was the Mayday Fair. The maids would have already been out at dawn to wash their faces in the May dew and now everyone from the oldest to the youngest would be off to join in the revelry on the common green.
    A wistful sigh escaped her lips as she thought of what she was missing. The striped maypole, set up in the centre of the green. The brightly coloured stalls and booths scattered round the edge of the common, their wares spread out to tempt hoarded coins from greasy purses. Gypsy fortune-tellers promising luck, love and fortune to anyone gullible enough to cross their palms with silver. Hucksters and pickpockets and sweetmeat sellers. Lovers holding hands oblivious to everything but each other. Old men and women remembering their youth as they carefully nursed their ale and watched with bright beady eyes, storing up gossip for months to come.
    Last year there had been a dancing bear and the year before that a bull-baiting - though she hadn’t enjoyed that. She shivered at the memory of the excited faces and greedy eyes watching eagerly as the dogs were tossed into the air to lie twitching and bleeding in the dust. Still, even that was better than being shut up inside while everyone else was off enjoying themselves. Depression descended like a grey cloud as the empty house settled round her, enveloping her in silence. She hadn’t realised how much she took the usual hustle and bustle for granted: voices calling from the courtyard; the sound of feet pattering along the corridors as maids fetched and carried; the normal comings and goings of a busy household which were simply an accepted part of life. It was only once they were gone that you missed them. She shivered. It felt as if she was the only person left alive.
    A faint scratching noise made her gasp as all the forbidden ghost stories Alice had whispered to her when she was a child rushed back into her mind. She pressed one hand to her breast to still the pounding of her heart, laughed breathlessly and scolded herself for her own stupidity. Now she was being ridiculous. It was nothing but a mouse scuttling behind the wainscot.
    She paused, feeling suddenly cold. There was something! She held her breath and strained her ears to listen. This was no figment of her overheated