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This chain wouldn’t break, she thought, touching her hand to the ring as it swung against her breasts. She vowed never to remove it again.
When she returned to the rooming house, she knocked at her landlady’s door. It was time to pay the rent. The gold chain swung forward, the ruby catching the light, as she rummaged in her purse.
‘That’s a handsome bauble,’ her landlady said. ‘I could get you a nice bit of money for that, luv.’
Paige’s reply was swift and heated. ‘Never,’ she said, touching her hand to the stone. ‘I’ll never part with this.’
Was it her imagination, or did the ruby suddenly seem to pulse with heat again?
As January slipped into February and February edged into March, something new was added to her despair, a lethargy that seemed to grow with each day that passed, until finally it was so intense that she found it difficult to get out of bed in the mornings. She told herself it was time to stop behaving so foolishly. People didn’t die of broken hearts, after all. Life didn’t stop for lack of love.
But all her silent, middle-of-the-night talks with herself did no good. Her sense of exhaustion grew as did her depression. And there were other things: the sight of food nauseated her, which was all right, really, when she thought of how desperate she was to save her dwindling funds. But she felt a flash of concern when she noticed a faint tremor in her hands. What prospective employer would want to hire a typist whose hands shook? Her feet began to swell, especially after she’d spent hours marching the streets of London, trying to find work. Still, Paige would have ignored all of it—until that afternoon at the temporary employment agency.
The smartly dressed young woman at the front desk smiled at her as she pushed open the door.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I’m glad to see you, Miss Gardiner.’
Paige looked at her in surprise. ‘You remember me?’
The woman nodded. ‘I thought of you just this morning. I have a new client—an American lady. She’s going to be here for a month or so, and she wants a secretary. She says she’d like someone who’d been to the States, and I thought of you.’ The woman’s eyes narrowed. ‘See here, Miss Gardiner, are you ill?’
Paige shook her head, although the motion sent a wave of nausea through her. ‘No, no, I’m fine. Really. I…’
‘Well, you don’t look it,’ the woman said briskly. ‘Are you sure it’s not the flu? Everyone’s down with it.’
Paige managed a smile. ‘I’d better not be ill. I can’t afford it.’
The woman looked at her. ‘If you’re ill, the job’s out, Miss Gardiner. I think you’d better stop at the clinic and have the doctors take a look at you.’
‘It’s not necessary, I assure you.’
‘I can’t send you on an interview with the flu.’
The clerk’s voice was firm. Paige stared at her and then she sighed. When you balanced a job against half an hour spent being poked at by a doctor, the job was the clear winner.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll get a clean bill of health and be back.’
What if it was the flu? she thought as she stepped into the street. The doctor would prescribe aspirin and fluids and bed rest. It was bed rest she couldn’t afford, she thought wryly. The job wouldn’t wait that long.
But flu only took a week. And, at the end of it, she’d feel well again. Spring was coming; surely there would be other jobs. Her steps quickened. It would be a relief to find she had some simple thing that could be treated and cured. The flu would be an improvement over a broken heart.
Later, Paige would wonder at her incredible stupidity.
CHAPTER TWELVE
ST JAMES’S PARK was all but deserted in the chill of late afternoon. An occasional walker hurried by, shoulders hunched against the wind, and once Paige heard the distant bark of a dog. Other than that, she was alone.
How long had she been standing on the little bridge that crossed the dark water of the lake? One hour, two—perhaps an eternity. She didn’t even remember coming here, but she had, unconsciously retracing part of the route she
and Quinn had followed her first day in London, walking past the Houses of Parliament, past the Horse Guards, and into the park. But she’d seen none of what she’d passed. Her mind was in torment, posing questions that had no answers and offering answers that had no meaning.
A gust of wind blew across the lake, and Paige shivered beneath its cold caress. It was cold here, and damp. But there was nowhere else to go. She couldn’t face her garret room and its aura of not-so-genteel poverty. And there was no sense in going back to the employment office. What could she say to the sympathetic clerk who’d found her a job?
I went to see a doctor and you can stop worrying; I haven’t the flu.
Perhaps she could make a joke of it. She could say, what I have isn’t catching at all. I’m just a little bit pregnant.
A little bit pregnant. It was like the punchline to a bad joke, except there wasn’t anything funny about it. The doctor had examined her from head to toe, and then he’d called her into his office.
