On tiptoe she went out to the landing and along to Tom’s room. The door was ajar. Gingerly, she pushed it open.

Tom was lying on the bed, stark naked. There was a woman beside him, long and beautiful. She was fondling his private parts. ‘It feels strange,’ she whispered, ‘me being here with you, and your wife asleep in the next room.’

Tom spoke with a louder voice, slurred with drink. ‘Forget about her,’ he said. ‘She goes her way and I go mine.’ Purring like a cat, he slid his hand between her naked thighs, growing increasingly agitated when she wiggled towards him.

‘Don’t you love her?’ The young woman tickled his lips with the tip of her tongue.

‘I used to, but not any more.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because she’s a slut.’

‘I’m a slut.’

He laughed. ‘Ah yes, but you’re paid to be a slut.’

‘What would you do if she saw us?’

‘I don’t want to talk about her.’

‘What would you do though?’ Taking his hardened member in her small hand, she stroked and caressed it, until he could hardly bear it. ‘What if she threw me out?’

‘She’s not woman enough to throw you out, even if she had the right, and she forfeited that right long ago.’ Nibbling at her breast, he opened her legs and mounted her. ‘Besides, this is my house. I’ll bring who I like into it, and I don’t give a bugger what she thinks.’ Roughly, he pushed into her. ‘Now shut your mouth and earn your money!’

Sickened to her stomach, Bridget turned to flee.

The woman saw her. ‘You bastard!’ she cried, throwing Tom off. ‘You didn’t tell me she was with child.’

Running to her room, Bridget locked the door and stood with her back to it, panting as though she’d run a mile. ‘How could he? How could he bring a woman of the streets into this house?’ The woman herself seemed to have a conscience, judging by what she had said, while Tom was merely out to gratify himself.

‘Come back here, you silly baggage!’ came Tom’s voice as he chased the woman down the stairs. ‘She means nowt to me. It were finished long since.’

Bridget heard a scuffle and then laughter, and then a door slamming shut. ‘They’ve gone into the parlour,’ she whispered. ‘Shame on the pair of them.’ But then she recalled her own shame. ‘Think how he must have felt when you told him about you and Harry, and the bairn.’ It was a terrible thing to see Tom as he had seen her, albeit only in his mind. She and Harry had behaved the same as Tom and that woman, and no matter how she might try to excuse it, she could see no difference between them. ‘You’re no more than the woman downstairs,’ she told herself. ‘A slut. Only you’re worse because, like Tom said, she gets paid for it while you shamed yourself for pleasure.’

With her world falling apart about her, she buried her head in the sheets and pretended not to hear the cries of passion emanating from downstairs.