Free A Woman of Passion by Virginia Henley Page A

and some days the food she brings home is the only thing the children have to eat. Mother sends her love. We miss
you and thank heaven that you found such a fortunate position in London. Your life sounds like a fairy tale.
    Love—Jane
    Bess put the letter down and felt a terrible wave of guilt wash over her. Her parents were in debt, and Jane was sacrificing herself on a farmer named Boswell, while she herself was in love with a man from the Royal Court. She had just returned from Chelsea, where she had actually spoken with Princess Elizabeth Tudor. Jane was right —her life was like a fairy tale!

S IX
    T he weather stayed cold all month, and the wind whipped down the streets of London, making whirlwinds of leaves, dust, and debris. Bess gave Robert Barlow the warm muffler that her aunt Marcy had knitted, but it didn't prevent his cough from turning into bronchitis.
    Bess took over the page's duties and did her best to nurse him with hot soup and chest rubs, but eventually she had no option but to speak with Lady Zouche. “Ma'am, I don't wish to alarm you, but Robert is quite ill. It's more than just a cough, I'm afraid.”
    “Oh, dear, it's such a heavy responsibility to take these young people into service to give them a start in life. Sometimes it works out well, as in your case, Bess, but often the youngsters are more trouble than they are worth. You are very good with herbs and such, can't you dose him with something?”
    “I've made him possets and rubbed him with camphor, but it hasn't helped. Lady Margaret, I think he needs a doctor.”
    “Heaven forbid, you don't think it could be plague?” she cried in alarm.
    “The weather is too cold for the plague, but he could have some other contagion.”
    “I'll send for the doctor, and in the meantime keep him isolated upstairs, well away from the girls.”
    When Dr. Belgrave arrived, Bess escorted him up to Robert Barlow's attic room while Lady Zouche hovered at the door to the tiny chamber. The boy's fair cheeks showed two bright red spots of fever, and Belgrave tapped his chest and examined his sputum. The doctor produced some packets of fever powder and instructed Bess to administer them with water. Then he turned to the woman at the door. “A word with you in private, if I may, Lady Zouche.”
    Margaret escorted the doctor down the stairs to her own private sitting room and closed the door. Bess went down immediately and put her ear to the keyhole.
    “The boy is from Derbyshire, Doctor; I employ him as a page. He's always had a delicate look about him.”
    “Hmmph.” Belgrave cleared his throat. “He's fevered at the moment, but the powders I left should take care of that. However”—he cleared his throat once again—“in my learned opinion, the boy suffers from a chronic distemper of the lungs. He won't make old bones, and I strongly suggest you get rid of him.”
    “Oh, dear, oh, dear.” Lady Margaret wrung her hands. “You don't think he could pass it on to me or my daughters, do you, Doctor?”
    “We have made great strides in medical science in this century, Lady Zouche, but the truth is we still don't know enough about these illnesses. He could recover, of course, but he'll always be a weakling. Better to be safe than sorry.”
    Bess ran back upstairs; she had heard more than she wanted to know. Poor Robert, whatever would become of him? She was so thankful she hadn't told him that his father was too ill to work his own fields. What was the point in adding worry to his woes?
    Within a couple of days Robert Barlow's fever abated, but the youth looked far from well when Lady Zouche summoned him and Bess to her sitting room. Though he was only fifteen, he had shot up like a gangly weed this past year and he towered above Bess's five feet, three inches.
    Since Bess had heard the doctor advise Lady Zouche to get rid of Robert, she knew he was going to be sent home, and she braced herself to help her young friend through his dismissal.
    Margaret