The Red Velvet Horse (Siren Publishing Allure) Read Free Page A

until the following July.
    We are suffering through the most blistering of heat waves. Temperatures soar well into the nineties, and the seaside is crammed so thick with bathers that one can scarcely see a grain of sand.
    April handled the fragile pages gingerly, careful not to disturb Spice who was purring happily on her lap.
    Life for Hannah appeared to be running smoothly. She still lived at the same lodgings run by Mrs. Muirhead. And she mentioned her employment in the tailor’s shop briefly, alluding to it as being long and tedious but not too over taxing.
    No wonder she looked forward to the ride home from work on a tramcar with a handsome conductor, April decided.
    But what had happened to her budding attraction with the charming Tom, she wondered? And then after several pages of script that detailed Hannah’s dreary existence in a weary, yet accepting way, she found the answer. It seemed that Tom had been moved to another route, leaving her “Quite bereft with sadness and a profound disappointment.”
    So perhaps that was why she had stopped writing for so long? Too depressed to continue with the telling of her sorry saga that consisted of only work and sleep. Except that is, for a church service on Sunday mornings.
     
    And it was there, in the small Methodist Chapel on Bidwell Street, that she had met Ned Beasley, a dapper little widower with bright eyes and a ready smile.
    Mr. Beasley is most friendly and chats with me every Sunday on the sidewalk in front of the church, Hannah reported with some enthusiasm. He has invited me for dinner next Friday. A few months later, Ned proposed.
    I am torn two ways. On the one hand, I don’t know how much longer I can work in the tailor’s shop. My eyes grow painful and my back and fingers near to breaking. And all for a mere pittance that hardly holds me together. Yet marriage to Mr. Beasley I do not relish. For while he is a pleasant enough gentleman, and certainly secure financially being a wine merchant and successful at that trade, I feel no attraction towards him, either physically or mentally.
     
    So Hannah would have to choose, April brooded, between working twelve hours a day, six days a week in a tailor’s shop, or a loveless marriage of convenience to the uninspiring Ned.
    She wavered from one polarity to the other. First deciding that marriage was the sensible course of action for herself, then just as quickly veering away from this carnal sanctuary and determining to remain in the tailor’s shop, or perhaps seeking more suitable employment elsewhere.
    But then fate stepped in and gave her a shove.
     
    Mr. William Rudge, my employer, has recently taken his nephew into the business, a spindly unpleasant youth with stringy hair and a leering expression. First of all his attentions were restricted to bold stares and some fumblings at his trousers, but now have progressed to crude remarks and rubbing against me whenever the opportunity arises.
    “Let me see your cunt, darlin,” he whispered lewdly. Trapping me in the storeroom where he grabbed at my skirt and tore a petticoat.
    I managed to extricate myself before the encounter could go any farther. But, this foul person is doubtless intent on having his way with me by force, if I do not yield to his most unwelcome advances willingly…which I would never do.
    I cannot complain to Mr. Rudge, for he is unlikely to take my word over his nephew’s. And would most likely dismiss me for mischief making, without a reference, into the bargain.
    There is nothing for it but to accept the proposal of marriage from Ned Beasley, and I will give him my answer after Sunday morning service.
    “You won’t regret it, Hannah, I can promise you that,” he told me with great delight and swung me high in the air in celebration.
    Yet, as the arrangements for our upcoming wedding progress, I cannot help but feel a certain uneasiness in his presence. He is such a restless man with his sudden quick jerky movements and overly