Angelmonster by Veronica Bennett Read Free Book Online Page A

at him, my eyes stinging. He neither moved nor spoke. I could not read his feelings.
    Then Mama, stepping into the carriage first, released Jane’s arm and Shelley saw his opportunity. He seized my sister, sweeping her feet from under her.
    Surprise made her scream, but within an instant she put one arm tightly around his neck. “Oh, Shelley!” she cried. “How brave you are!”
    “Quick, Mary, coins!” panted Shelley.
    I understood, and pressed some sous into Jane’s outstretched hand. As Shelley bore her away, she threw the coins at the carriage man’s feet, giving him rapid instructions in French.
    He nodded, kicked the carriage steps up and closed the door.
    “Au revoir, Maman!”
called Jane.
“Bon voyage!”
    The driver whipped up the horses. Mama’s face, consumed by fury, appeared briefly at the window. Then she was gone.
    Shelley deposited Jane on the cobblestones. “Can you not picture her,” he grinned, “pounding the roof of the carriage with her parasol, shouting to the driver to stop?”
    “He will not stop,” Jane assured him, her tears drying on her cheeks and her eyes ablaze with admiration for Shelley. “I told him she has the cholera, and must be put on the first sailing, whatever her protests, to rid France of the infection she may spread.”
    I had surveyed this scene from the door of the inn. Now I descended the steps and took Shelley’s arm. “You should invest in a parasol yourself, Shelley,” I suggested. “
That
would surely give the gossips something to talk about!”

THE TWO-HEADED GODDESS
    F rom Calais we went to Paris. Then we travelled farther and farther south.
    Shelley had left a forwarding address, and at the hotel in Grenoble, near the Swiss border, we picked up letters. The three of us took them up to the bedchamber Shelley and I shared.
    “This is from Fanny,” I said as I broke the seal on the only letter addressed to me.
    Shelley heard my dismay and looked up from his own letters. But before I could speak, nausea rose. I felt hot. My ears buzzed. Unable to support myself, I leant against the back of his chair. I still had not told anyone about the child, but the child was telling me constantly of its presence. Pretending the French food did not agree with me was making Jane very suspicious.
    They both looked at me. “What is it, my love?” asked Shelley. “Come, sit down.”
    He pulled me onto his lap. Fanny’s letter fell unread from my fingers.
    “Shelley, are you blind?” Jane demanded. “Can you not see that your ‘love’ is in the same condition as your wife?”
    He looked at me with his abandoned-child look. “Are you, Mary?”
    I nodded, ashamed, ready to cry.
    “Why have you not disclosed this sooner?” he asked. “My dear, I have not been caring for you and the child properly! You must not walk so much! You must have a horse, or a carriage!”
    “We have not the money for a carriage,” observed Jane.
    Ignoring her, he caressed my face and hair. I accepted the caresses gratefully, wetting his collar with my tears. Then I blew my nose on Jane’s handkerchief, and felt better.
    Shelley was smiling broadly. “Our own child!” He squeezed me. “How delightful it will be to have our own child! Are you not happy?”
    “Of course I am happy. And so relieved!”
    While I had been crying, Jane, who had never had any scruples about invading my privacy, had picked up Fanny’s letter. She took it closer to the window.
“I hope this letter does not
find you as it leaves me,”
she read.
“I am greatly distressed by a rumour which is circulating in London, and of which I feel I must warn you.”
    “Only
one
rumour!” said Shelley good-naturedly.
    “Shelley’s wife, Harriet, has been gossiping,”
read Jane.
“She is telling everyone that Papa allowed you and Jane to go off with Shelley for the price of fifteen hundred pounds. In other words, that he sold you.”
    There was an astounded silence. My instinct was to laugh, but Shelley’s