A Ring For The Pregnant Debutante. Laura Martin

is never going to happen so there is no point in mourning what never could be.’

      ‘Why—’ Rosa started, but a small hand tugging at her sleeve cut her off.

      ‘Please, miss, spare some money. I haven’t eaten for three days.’ A small girl stood looking up at her with large brown eyes in a skinny face.

      Rosa hesitated and then reached for her coin purse. She might not have much money, and what she did have she needed for the passage home and her new life, but it was hard to ignore the real pleading in the young girl’s eyes.

      ‘Rosa, no,’ Hunter shouted, trying to grab her hand, but it was too late. As soon as the coin purse was out in the open an older boy swooped in and grabbed it from her palm. At high speed both he and the girl ran in different directions, weaving through the crowd.

      ‘No,’ Rosa whispered, her heart plummeting as she realised her whole future had just been ripped away from her.

      Hunter was on his feet immediately, darting after the boy, but Rosa could see straight away he would never be able to catch him. Hunter might be fast, but the boy knew the streets and was small enough to slip between the crowds.

      Gripping the edge of the table, Rosa felt her breathing become shallower and could hear a harsh rasping coming from her throat. Without any money she was doomed. She had the choice of life on the streets in a foreign country or crawling back to the Di Mercurios.

      ‘I can’t go back,’ she whispered. ‘I won’t go back.’

      She looked down at the dress she was wearing, that would fetch her a small sum, but her modest jewellery had been taken from her by her grandmother when she had arrived at the villa. She owned nothing else in the world except the clothes she was wearing.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ Hunter said, returning to the table, his face flushed from exertion. ‘I lost him in the crowd.’

      Rosa shook her head, unable to get any words out. She’d been so pleased when they had escaped the bandits with her purse intact, she’d never thought it might be at risk here in this idyllic village.

      ‘Was that all the money you had?’ he asked. Gone was his normal jovial tone, replaced by concern and compassion.

      ‘Everything.’

      Hunter raked a hand through his short hair, causing tufts to stick up at the front.

      ‘I can’t go back to them,’ Rosa whispered again to herself.

      Anything would be better than that. Maybe she could find work somewhere, save up the money for a passage home. As soon as the idea entered her mind she dismissed it. If there was no work for able-bodied young men then no one was going to employ a pregnant woman.

      ‘Rosa, look at me,’ Hunter said, taking her hand in his own.

      As his fingers gripped hers Rosa felt some of her panic begin to subside. It was as if Hunter was tethering her to reality, stopping her from plummeting into a deep despair.

      ‘We will figure something out. All is not lost.’

      ‘That was all my money. Everything I own.’

      Gently he stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. Rosa looked up and met his eyes and realised that whatever he said she trusted him. It was ridiculous, she’d only known the man a day, but if he said all was not lost then maybe it would work out.

      ‘Come,’ he said, pulling her to her feet. ‘I need to think.’

      She allowed him to tuck her hand into the crook of his elbow, lay down a few coins for their drinks and lead her away from the riverside tavern. She leaned heavily on his arm, tapping the cane against the cobblestones for a little extra support, but out here in the heat of the day her ankle ached.

      ‘I’m ruined,’ Rosa murmured as they weaved their way through the crowds. Not ruined in the sense of a loss of virtue, that had happened many months ago, but all the way through her ordeal she’d had some hope, a plan to make things better.

      Hunter didn’t say anything, just continued down towards the water’s edge.

      ‘Look out there,’ he said as they reached the promenade that ran along the edge of the lake.

      Rosa looked, following the direction his extended finger was pointing in. The sun glinted off the water and in the distance the hills surrounding the lake were shielded in a thin heat haze.

      ‘What am I looking at?’

      Hunter didn’t answer, he was looking down at his hand in horror. Rosa followed his gaze, but as soon as he noticed she was looking, too, it was as if a mask came down over his face and his hand promptly dropped to his side.

      ‘What’s wrong?’ Rosa asked.

      ‘Stay there,’ he ordered her, not giving her a chance to answer before striding off along the promenade.

      * * *

      He had to get away. Away from the crowds, away from Rosa’s concerned enquiries and away from the stifling heat that threatened to consume him. Forcing himself to walk and not run, Thomas headed away from the village.

      ‘Lord Hunter,’ he heard Rosa call in the distance, but her voice barely registered in his mind.

      I will not look.

      Resolutely he kept his eyes fixed on a tree in the distance, willing himself not to look down.

      His resolve cracked within thirty seconds. The first glance was fleeting and brief, but when he saw his hands weren’t moving rhythmically and of their own accord he managed to gain control of himself a little and take a second look.

      Sinking down on to the stone wall that ran along the lakefront, Thomas held his hands out in front of him. As he had pointed out over the lake there had been a definite tremor, an uncontrolled shaking of his hand. It had been small, probably unnoticeable to anyone but him, but he could not pretend it hadn’t been there.

      Now his hands were steady and unmoving as he studied them. Thomas exhaled, trying to calm his racing heart and dampen the nausea that rose from his stomach. For a few moments he had thought it was the beginning of the end, that the disease that had claimed his father and his brother was starting to develop in him.

      It always began this way—a minor tremor, an uncontrolled movement. Followed by memory loss, personality change and the ever-worsening rhythmic jerky movements and a loss of co-ordination. His older brother Michael had developed his first symptoms when he was just twenty and died at twenty-eight. Thomas’s age now. Their father had been a little more fortunate, surviving into his forties. It was a well-kept secret, the Hunter family curse, but generation after generation showed signs of affliction.

      Maybe I’ll be one of the lucky ones.

      It was what Thomas prayed for every day, that he would be one of the few the disease skipped. Not every member of the Hunter family was affected, but there was no way to know if you would succumb until the day you died.

      Thomas rested his head in his hands and closed his eyes. Every morning he inspected his body for any unnatural movements, any clue that he might be developing the thing he feared the most. For a moment there he had been convinced that was it for him, that his time on earth was up. One thing Thomas was sure of was that he wouldn’t let this disease rob him of his dignity and his hope. If he was ever sure his turn had come, then he would find a more dignified way to depart this world, even if it was considered a mortal sin to commit suicide.

      ‘Lord Hunter,’ Rosa said as she approached him slowly, warily.

      She’d followed him. Of course she had.

      ‘What’s wrong?’

      He took a second, flashed a charming smile and stood. ‘Nothing, nothing at all.’

      ‘Then why did you run off?’

      ‘I have a proposition for you,’ he said, knowing it was the only way to get