Page 42 of The Laudanum Ladies' Society

He had called her ‘Lewis’, suggesting that he didn’t know she was married. She should correct him, but her instinct was not to put him straight. Something in her had woken the moment their eyes met, even though five minutes before she would have vowed that such things were not possible.

She did her best to send the beast back to sleep.

‘Thank you, but no. I still have my errands to run, then I can take the horse tram back to Islington.’

‘Islington? Where you live?’

‘Close,’ she said, not seeing the need to explain that to get to Finsbury Park was added expense.

‘Well, perhaps we can meet again?’ Danny said, lowering his hand. He stared around. ‘This area is of interest to me– and I am staying in London for a fortnight longer, at least.’

‘Perhaps,’ Gwen agreed.

No, her conscience shrieked. Yes, her heart demanded.

He smiled and lifted his hat (revealing that the hair at his temple did not extend to covering his whole scalp).

‘Well, goodbye, then, for now. Take good care as you walk.’

‘I will and thank you again,’ Gwen said.

Neither of them moved or took their eyes from the other. It was completely improper, but Gwen didn’t care. Her heart filled with long-dismissed memories that she wanted to share, to see if Danny remembered any of them.

A delivery boy approached them, dragging a cart.

‘Mind yerselves!’ he shouted cheerfully, as he hauled his empty cart towards the greengrocers they were standing in front of. From his speed, it was obvious that he wasn’t going to stop advancing, and Danny moved backwards before the boy and cart trampled his feet. The interruption broke the spell, and Gwen turned and walked away. She forced herself not to look back,though it was hard. Would he be watching her, or would he have turned away immediately?

At the corner of the road, she looked back along the street, which was perfectly in order since she was crossing and needed to check that nothing was coming. Danny wasn’t where he had been standing when she left him, but had walked further in the opposite direction. However, he was still looking back at her, and for a brief moment, their eyes met once more and lingered.

Another hot tickle ran around Gwen’s neck and she was aware that her body was responding to him in a way it shouldn’t. It was what she had felt in the first days of courtship with Archibald, and it was deeply unsettling to think that at her age, and as a married woman, she might be falling prey to such ridiculous emotions.

She told herself it was only the novelty of speaking to a good-looking man who had given her the time of day. Danny had always been an attractive man, and time had done nothing to lessen that. She wished fervently she could say the same about herself, but was under no illusion that a beau from the time before she was a wife and mother would not see her as changed. Any pleasure he had got out of the encounter was from the diversion of seeing an old friend in unexpected circumstances.

She briskly crossed the road and made her way into the chop house, using the front door. Wolf was sitting at a table beside the bar, playing cards with another man who was almost as large and forbidding as he was. He nodded her through without a second glance.

‘What’s happened with you today?’ Augusta asked as soon as Gwen entered the upstairs room.

‘Nothing,’ Gwen answered innocently. ‘Why?’

Augusta walked around the table and put a finger on Gwen’s cheek. ‘You look like a woman today, if you don’t mind me sayingso. Has your husband found renewed vigour as his eyesight has failed?’

‘Augusta!’ Gwen’s cheeks burned.

Augusta laughed. ‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of if he has. In fact you should be thankful. At our age we don’t often get the opportunity for a bit of gratification.’

‘I haven’t been having any gratification,’ Gwen retorted, bristling slightly at ‘our age’ when Augusta was at least a decade older by her estimate.

Augusta rolled her eyes so dramatically that she would have suited the stage. ‘My dear Mrs Walters, you say that proudly. My heart bleeds for you.’

‘Well, it shouldn’t,’ Gwen snapped. Ordinarily she would never speak to anyone in that tone, much less Augusta, who was intimidating like no other woman Gwen had met, but her recent meeting with Daniel had made her feel hot in ways she wasn’t comfortable– or familiar– with.

Augusta gave another smile, this one with a hint of supercilious pity. ‘I’m sure your husband’s hands work, even if he can’t see you.’

‘That’s none of your business!’ Gwen said hotly.

‘Now what have you brought for me?’ Augusta clapped her hands together then rubbed them vigorously.

‘Four bottles,’ Gwen said, unearthing them from her basket and placing them on the desk.