Page 34 of Walk on the Wildsyde

Chapter 10

Dear Miss Halliday,

I am unwell. My head pounds and I am hot one moment, cold the next. I feel utterly wretched but most of all I am bored beyond bearing. Please do come and visit me. I look a positive fright, but I beg you will not judge me too harshly, for I suffer dreadfully. We ought to have gone to London for the season, for Papa promised me I might, and now this. I am so wretched I want to die.

My maid, Abigail, is a horrible nurse and is trying to kill me by opening the windows and letting cold air into my room and feeding me noxious tinctures. I shall scream if she brings me another posset, I do declare.

―Excerpt of a letter from Miss Jessie Fleming to Miss Clara Halliday.

10th June 1850, Wick, Caithness, Scotland.

It was several days before Hamilton had to face Miss Halliday again, for which he was grateful. Though he’d been quite honest in telling her he was not bevied, he had drunk a good deal, and it had certainly made him reckless, a fact that was coming home to him with some force.

Though Miss Halliday would be well within her rights to cut him dead and never speak to him again, he suspected she wouldn’t. Oh, she’d be cross as crabs, and she’d likely ring a peal over him the first opportunity she got, but she wouldn’t ignore him. She couldn’t, and that was the devil of it. She’d liked his kisses very well. He knew it and so did she, and what’s more, she knew he knew it and that’s why she was furious with him. Hamilton didn’t blame her. He was furious with himself too, because now he knew what she tasted like, what she felt like in his arms, and damn him but he wanted more. Much more.

Try as he might to put the woman out of his mind, she crept back in. He told himself he had no intention of trifling with an innocent girl, he certainly had no intention of marrying her, and even if he were to consider such a daft thing, her father would shoot him before he let him anywhere near his daughter. All of which amounted to one conclusion, the same conclusion he’d come to from the start and was having the devil’s own job remembering. Clara Halliday was off limits, and he needed to stay away from her.

Afterhe’d apologised.

He knew he owed her that much, but the idea of it still rankled. He did not wish to apologise. Kissing her had been a rare treat, and not just for him. Though he knew he was a conceited arse, he could not help but suspect she had daydreamed about those moments in his arms regularly ever since it had happened. Not that she’d ever admit as much to a living soul. Certainly not to him, devil take her. Nonetheless, he had to apologise for taking liberties and, damn his eyes, promise it would never happen again. It couldn’t. Not unless he wanted to walk headfirst into a world of trouble, and he was not that stupid.

So, he left the Fisherman’s Retreat after checking in on progress and walked the short distance to call in at the back door of the vicarage.

“She’s not here,” Mrs Macready said sourly, regarding him with a baleful expression. “And if ye had the sense ye were born with, ye would leave her be, unless ye mean to walk out with her.”

Hamilton opened his mouth to protest but found he couldn’t. He was in the wrong and he damn well knew it. He rubbed the back of his neck, wishing Mrs Macready didn’t make him feel like a grubby boy. “Aye, I mean to do so… leave her be, that is. I just… I need to speak with her before—”

“Before ye leave her be,” Mrs Macready said with a snort.

“Aye,” Hamilton replied irritably. “If I have yer permission?” he retorted, glowering.

“I’m nae yer mam, nor yer conscience. Ye will do as ye please, ye always do, but she’s still nae here. She went to visit that silly chit, Miss Fleming, who’s acting as though she’s dying, though she’s only got a nasty cold. I told the lass to stay away. It’s the fourth time this week with that wretched child running her ragged like she’s some kind of nursemaid. She’ll make herself ill, she will, and that’s a fact.”

“Well, why did ye nae stop her, then!” Hamilton demanded, though he knew it was unfair.

Mrs Macready shot him an unloving look. “I tried, did I nae? I just told ye. If ye are so worrit for her, fetch her back yerself, aye?”

“Aye, I will,” Hamilton shot back, riled. “See if I don’t,” he snapped, turning on his heel and striding back through the town. He’d gone three streets before he recollected that he could do no such thing. Hammering at Miss Fleming’s door and demanding she send Miss Halliday home would do none of them any good. Still, he was too restless and annoyed with both himself, Mrs Macready and Miss Halliday to turn around, so he carried on in the direction of Miss Fleming’s house and found himself unaccountably relieved when he spied Miss Halliday walking towards him.

Her steps were slow, her head bent, which struck him as unusual. Clara Halliday usually walked briskly and with purpose, her head up, a quick and friendly smile ready for anyone who greeted her politely and the poise of an ice queen towards anyone with the temerity to be impertinent. The thought made him smile, and he realised he admired her a good deal. His smile fell as he crossed the street towards her and saw her stiffen.

“Miss Halliday,” he said, before she could tell him to go to the devil. “I beg yer pardon, but I must speak with ye.”

“Oh, do go away,” she said wearily, but there was no heat behind the words, only exhaustion.

“Lassie? What’s wrong?” Hamilton asked, laying a hand on her arm.

“Nothing. Only I do not have the energy to scold you as you deserve, my head is aching dreadfully, and I cannot deal with you right now.”

“Ye dinnae need to do a thing. I’ll nae vex ye, my word on it. Only let me see ye home, aye? Ye have caught Miss Fleming’s cold, just as Mrs Macready feared, I reckon.”

“Oh, don’t you say ‘I told you so,’ too,” she said, sounding utterly wretched. “I couldn’t leave the poor girl by herself. Miss Fleming is my friend, and she hasn’t the least bit of patience or idea of how to entertain herself, and she was utterly wretched.”

“Ye ken very well, that I never say I told ye so,” Hamilton replied with a smile.

She gave a soft huff of laughter at that before adding, “I must say, if she felt like this, I… I quite understand how…” She paused, swaying and put a hand upon the wall beside her.

“Miss Halliday?” Hamilton said in alarm, worried now, for her cheeks were blazing, her eyes too bright.