Free The Forgotten Seamstress by Liz Trenow Page A

meaning.
    Don’t think badly of me, Miss. Each time he went just a little further and I knew it was wrong but I was that hungry for him I never tried to stop it when he unbuttoned my top and put his cheek to the rise of my breasts, or when he stroked my backside through the cotton of my uniform, or pulled my skirt up to feel the bare leg above me garter. Naïve as I was, I couldn’t help but notice the effect I was having on him and it made me want even more.
    I did my best not to tell Nora, I honestly did. But we had been friends for years, and she knew me too well.
    ‘Don’t say a word, I don’t want to know,’ is what she whispered to me when, for the second night in a row, I crept into our room in my stockinged feet, trying to avoid the creaky boards, well after midnight. In the morning, as we started into our sewing, she said, ‘It’s
him
, isn’t it?’ When I said nothing she went on, ‘You’re
not
to go again. You know how gossip gets around, and if anyone finds out what you’ve been doing you’ll be on the streets before you can even try denying it.’
    ‘I can’t refuse him, can I, the future King of England?’ I said, all snippy. Consorting with the prince was giving me airs above my station, I see that now.
    ‘If he calls again for a seamstress, I’ll go instead. That’ll put a stop to it,’ she said firmly.
    I was about to say he wouldn’t want to kiss a great tall thing like Nora, she’d tower over him, but all I said was, ‘If he asks for me, I’ll have to go.’
    ‘Be it on your own head, then,’ she said, throwing down her sewing and stomping out. We didn’t talk for the rest of the afternoon, and the atmosphere in the sewing room was frosty for days afterwards.
    A week or so later I was summoned again but this time, when I entered the bedchamber, his smile failed to light up and I immediately knew that something was wrong.
    ‘Dearest girl,’ he said, holding me in his arms for a brief moment, and then pulling away.
    ‘What is it, sir?’ I asked, with my heart in my boots. ‘You look unwell.’
    ‘Sit with me a moment,’ he said, patting the chaise beside him. He took my hands in his. ‘You know, do you not, that my fate is not my own to decide?’ he said, with a sorrowful face. ‘The king has decreed that I should go back to the Navy. I leave for Southampton tomorrow.’
    ‘But that’s not too far away, is it?’
    ‘I shall not be in Southampton, dearest, but on a ship, travelling who knows where. Then, when I get back, I must go to Norfolk to study in preparation for Oxford. Father seems to want me out of his way. Or perhaps he thinks I will get up to mischief if I stay in London.’ His eyes twinkled again, briefly.
    It seemed as though my world – as I had come to know it – was unravelling like a loose seam. But he pulled me into his arms again and whispered, ‘But I will write, as often as I can, and I will surely be back in London from time to time. So let’s have a little tipple, and make this a night to remember, shall we?’
    And so we did, dearie, so we did. After what seemed like hours of kissing and cuddling, long past the time when the clocks chimed midnight, he pulled away, took a deep breath and looked me straight in the eyes. ‘Can we?’ he asked, and I nodded, knowing exactly what he meant and wanting it so much but at the same time fearing I might faint with the terror of it all. He asked me to unbutton him and my fingers were that shaky I couldn’t get a single one undone, so he took over himself. What happened next was clumsy and hurried but the look of pure joy on his face afterwards will stay with me forever. He held me in his arms and kissed me so tenderly it felt as though I was melting pure away.
    It was his first time, too. He was eighteen and I’d just turned sixteen.
    I knew it was wrong, of course I did. I should have kept myself pure for my future husband. I can see you’re smiling. You must be thinking what a little trollop I