Courtship

Part 49

Rafe reprocessed her statement. "There but for the grace of God, go I." Marina told him, as she walked past him, and along the corridor. So far he seemed to be shocked but handling the bombshells she kept dropping on him! Good thing she had found herself a man with substance!

"What?" He followed her, wondering whether he had suddenly stepped into the twilight zone. So much for finding a nice quiet café someplace to talk about what had happened last night! He was sure this night would rate as life changing, for him at any rate.

"We, Issy, Giana and I, not to mention grandmother or Cara, well we could have ended up here." Rafe blinked at that possibility. Marina carried on blithely, "All we had left were our bodies, and a few heirlooms. If it wasn't for that, we might well have ended up homeless. What it is that they say? You are only two pay cheques away from being homeless? We would have been on the streets." Marina turned and looked at him. She kept her eyes on his. She needed to be sure he understood that what they did here was important to her and to the women who came here. But she also wanted him to understand their reasons for setting up this centre and what she hoped to achieve.

"But you were doing medicine." Rafe frowned at her.

"Yes, and holding down two other jobs." She smiled at him, as she reminded him about his views at the time. "Though if I recall you thought that was just playing." She could afford to tease. It looked like things might be resolving themselves. He hadn't walked.

"You were holding down two jobs?" His conscience ran riot as those words sunk in.

"We didn't have the money for fees." She stated calmly.

"What about the dresses?" He'd seen her at numerous parties over the years. She did not attend in rags. Her dresses were designer labels, he was pretty sure about that. They were definitely expensive. Not off the peg.

"Dresses?"

"Parties? What you wore to the parties."

"Issy's and Georgiana's dresses. We recycled, tweaked a bit. That's why I got to go. Cara tweaked them for me!" She pushed open a door, and saw the group of people waiting to see her. "Evening." She smiled at the crowd. "Give me a minute to set up ok?" They all nodded. "Come through." Marina calmly told Rafe. She was here early. Normally she wouldn't hold a clinic until much later, mainly because she tended to come here in disguise, late at night. But having decided to show him this side of her life, she had called the centre to say she'd do an earlier shift. She just hadn't told them she was bringing company.

"You run a clinic." Rafe stated. It was obvious she ran some sort of drop in clinic. But why here? In this part of town? Not exactly the safest environment.

"Twice a week." Marina nodded, discarded her coat by hanging it up on a peg on the back of a door, and gestured toward a chair. "We need to increase that. As you can see, we get quite a crowd when they hear there is a clinic on."

"How come no one has heard about this? Or your family's situation?"

"We keep it below the radar. Like our financial situation. We want to keep the D'Sa name intact and we want a chance to help others less fortunate than us. So Issy bails and I cover. For near on ten years. Amazingly we have managed, I think rather well!"

Better than managed, he thought given they had kept it from becoming public knowledge. Three young women had kept their family's financial situation a secret. He understood why they did that.

"We try to help these women. We were lucky. They weren't as lucky as us. They didn't have collateral to bargain with."

"So why keep it quiet? You should be proud of all this. Proud of what you've done here for these women."

"Lots of reasons really. If we broadcast what we did here, people might start asking questions, they might pry, dig deeper and discover we'd kept them from knowing that we were practically broke for ten years. Not sure everyone would take the news quite so well as you have!" She threw him a cheeky smile. She could afford to relax. He was, as she said handling her news well. "Anyway, doubt people would be happy to learn we had pulled the wool over their eyes. And, to be honest, some of these women would be scared off. They come here, no questions asked. No nosy people looking into their business. And they do not see themselves as charity cases!"

"I see."