He put his other hand over hers again and squeezed it, pulling her arm through his so that they were closer together. “There, now, Maisie, there’s no need to worry. You’re with me, after all. He wouldn’t lay a finger on you.” Indeed, the man hadn’t noticed them, but began weaving one way up Lambeth Marsh while John Astley and Maisie turned down the other. “I expect he’s gone up the Marsh to buy vegetables for his wife. What do you think he’ll buy-swedes or turnips?”
Maisie chuckled, despite her nerves. “Oh, swedes, I do think, sir. They be much nicer.”
“And leeks or cabbages?”
“Leeks!” Maisie laughed as if she had made a joke, and John Astley joined in.
“That is an unsavory pub, that one,” he said. “I should not have brought you past it, Maisie. I do apologize.”
“Oh, don’t worry, sir. I be perfectly safe with you.”
“Good. I am glad, my dear. Of course, not all pubs are like that one. Some are very nice. The Pineapple, for instance. Even ladies can go there and feel quite at home.”
“I suppose so, sir, though I never been in.” At the mention of that pub, Maisie’s face lost its clear brightness as she was reminded of waiting outside it to see John Astley come out with one of the costume girls. Without quite meaning to, she pulled her hand a little way out of the tight grip of his elbow. He felt the shift and inwardly cursed. Not the Pineapple, then, he thought-she clearly didn’t like it. Perhaps it was not the best place, anyway-though it was handy for Astley’s stables where he intended to end up, it was also likely to be full of circus folk who might know her.
Before John Astley’s mention of the Pineapple, Maisie had been able to float along happily on their mild, flirtatious chat and her imagination. Naming the pub, however, forced her to acknowledge to herself his intentions. After all, a visit to a pub with John Astley was a concrete event. She hesitated. “I watched you riding with Miss Smith just now,” she said. “You looked so fine together.”
This was not where John Astley intended their conversation to go. He wanted to get it back to laughing over vegetables. “Miss Smith rides very well,” he answered simply, wondering how much Maisie had seen during the rehearsal. Had she heard what his father shouted at Miss Laura Devine?
For her part, Maisie was also thinking about what she had seen and heard, the piece of the puzzle that linked John Astley with Miss Devine. She thought about it, and found that his actual presence at her side-his broad shoulders and tapered waist under his well-cut blue coat, his gay eyes and ready smile, his light, sure step and firm grip, even the meaty smell of horse sweat on him-was far more potent to her than anything he had done to anyone else. With only a twinge of guilt for the kindness Miss Devine had shown and the warning she had given her, Maisie shut her mind to John Astley’s history and thought only of this moment. He might pay attention to many women, but why shouldn’t she have a share of that attention? She wanted it.
She even made it easy for him. When they emerged from the lane into Hercules Buildings, with the Kellaways’ rooms just to the right of them, Maisie said, “Here so soon!” in as sad a tone as she could manage.
John Astley immediately took her up. “My dear, I thought you would be pleased to arrive home safely! Are you expected?”
“No,” Maisie answered. “Not yet. I’ll help Ma with the cabbage, but really she’s not so busy.”
“What, no leeks or swedes for you?”
Maisie smiled, but he was leading her across the street now, and her stomach churned with the thought that he would soon deposit her at her door and she might never again talk to him or touch him.
“It has been such a pleasure escorting you home, Maisie, that I am loath to give up the sensation,” John Astley announced, stopping short of Miss Pelham’s house. “Perhaps we might take a drink together before I leave you at home.”
“That-that would be-very nice.”
“Perhaps the tavern at the top of the road would suit. It is close-we wouldn’t want to go far in this fog-and it has a snug little corner that I think you will like.”
“All-all right, sir.” Maisie could barely utter the words. For a moment she felt dizzy with a heady mix of guilt and fear. But she gripped John Astley’s arm tightly again, turned her back on her barely visible home, and walked in the direction he-and she-wanted to go.
5
Hercules Tavern completed the line of houses along Hercules Buildings just where it met Westminster Bridge Road, with the Pineapple shoring up the other end. It was bigger and more crowded than the Pineapple, with booths and bright lights. John Astley had drunk there a few times but preferred to conduct his seductions in quieter, darker places. However, at least there were no circus people here; nor did anyone look up as they came in.
John Astley paid a couple to move, and sat Maisie in a corner booth screened with shoulder-high wood panels that gave them a little privacy from their neighbors in the booths on either side, but with a clear view of the room. Then he went to the bar and got her a rum punch, with a glass of wine for himself. “Make it sweet and strong,” he said of the punch. The barman glanced at Maisie in her seat, but made no comment.
Once they were sitting together with their drinks, John Astley did not take the lead in conversation as he had out on the street. In fact, he felt little desire to talk at all. He had achieved his first aim-to get Maisie sitting in a pub with a drink in front of her. He felt he had done enough, and the rum and his physical presence would do the rest to bring him his second aim. He did not really enjoy talking with women, and felt he had little now to say to Maisie. She was a pretty girl, and he simply wanted solace from the more trying women in his life.
Maisie said nothing at first because of the novelty of sitting with a handsome man in a London pub. She had been to pubs in the Piddle Valley, of course, but they were dark, smoky, and poor compared to this. Though Hercules Tavern was itself only a shabby local pub, its wooden tables and chairs were better made than the rough, half-broken ones at the Five Bells in Piddletrenthide, where the landlord bought secondhand chairs from traveling bodgers rather than pay for Thomas Kellaway’s superior work. Hercules Tavern was warmer too, for despite the larger room, its coal fire drew better, and there were more customers to heat it as well. Even the pewter mugs for beer were not so dented as in Piddletrenthide, and the glasses for wine and punch were of a better quality than she’d seen in Dorsetshire.
Maisie had never been in a room with so many lamps, and was fascinated by the detail she could now make out-the patterns on women’s dresses, the wrinkles on a man’s brow, the names and initials carved into the wood panels. She watched people passing to and fro much as a cat might spy on a tree full of birds-hungrily following one, then being distracted by another, her head whipping back and forth. The other customers seemed to be in high spirits. When a group across the room guffawed, Maisie smiled. When two men began to shout at each other, she raised her eyebrows, then sighed in relief as they suddenly laughed and thumped each other’s back.
She had no idea what the punch cup John Astley set in front of her contained-she’d only ever drunk weak beer-but took it up gamely and sipped. “Oh, it do have something in it-makes it spicy.” She licked her lips. “I didn’t think drinks would be different in London. But so many things are. This pub, for instance-it be so much livelier than the Five Bells!” She sipped once more-though she didn’t actually think much of the drink, she knew it was expected of her.
John Astley wasn’t really listening, but calculating how much rum he would need to buy her before she was pliable enough to agree to anything. He glanced at her red cheeks and silly smile. Two should do it, he thought.