Arabella was too angry to listen to his apology. “My mother took in washing, Mr. St. Just. She sewed. She cleaned and dressed the dead. She did everything, anything, to earn money. Whoring was never her choice; it was always a last resort. She hated it! Absolutely hated it.” Her anger died, as abruptly as it had kindled. She looked away from him. “She could only do it if she was drunk, and she always cried afterwards.”
“I apologize,” St. Just said again, quietly. “What I meant was that it’s terrible that you, or your mother—or indeed any female!—should be forced to live in such circumstances. I deeply regret—as your mother must have—that you were witness to such things.”
Arabella fiddled with a mother-of-pearl button on her glove. “You think she should have given me to my grandparents?”
