by Laura London
It took Katie several glorious minutes to wake from her dream world to a very unwelcomed reality. She had heard before how quickly and easily a girl could be seduced, and now she knew how true that was. Now was a fine time to tell Lord Linden she didn’t want to become his mistress, after her innocently eager response to his kisses. Lord Linden, Katie realized unhappily, was not going to take well to being interrupted now. She searched her mind for inspiration, and remembered something Winnie had said that first night at The Merry Maidenhead.
“Lor—Lord Linden… I have the French pox.”
He didn’t stop kissing her. “That’s all right, sweetheart. So have I.”
Katie fairly shot up with alarm. “What! Lord Linden, I was lying. I don’t really have the French pox.”
Linden pulled her down beside him again, imprisoning her head between his arms, and smiled sardonically.
“I appreciate your honesty, sweetness. In honor of it, I’ll confess that I don’t have the French pox either. What’s your real name?”
“K-Katie.”
“How charming. Come; kiss me, Kate.”
Katie, who knew even less about Shakespeare than she did about ancient history, found it was several minutes before she could speak and this time her voice sounded frighteningly weak and far away.
“My lord?”
“I know. You’ve contracted bubonic plague,” he said huskily.
“N-no. But it’s my time of the month.”
Lord Linden’s hand was engaged in a sensual caress of Katie’s thigh and she could feel his breath warm on her cheek.
“Kate. Sweet Kate. Bonny Kate. I don’t care.”
It was daunting. Since Lord Linden was too intoxicated with passion or alcohol to respond to hints, she would have to be more direct. Katie tried to arm herself by remembering the more depressing stories of ruined virtue she had heard; they had gained a frightening new realism after Katie had seen the drunken bawds at The Merry Maidenhead. She might be transported to a dream world with Lord Linden’s embraces, but when he tired of her (which would be soon if his past career was any indication) she would have begun a path that seemed to reach its inevitable conclusion at The Merry Maidenhead where she would be forced to accept any man who wanted her. Like Nasty Ned. The thought filled Katie with such horror that she found the strength to push hard against Lord Linden’s chest in a scared attempt to gain his attention.
“Please, my lord. Please, please stop,” she said desperately.
Drunk Lord Linden might be, but his senses were not so dulled that he failed to hear the fright in Katie’s voice. He had been kissing the curve of her neck, but at her words, he looked up.
“Why, sweetheart, you aren’t afraid of me, are you?” he asked thickly.
“Yes!” said Katie, rendered quite breathless and stupid with anxiety. “I mean no! But I don’t want… that is, I hope you won’t… I daresay that you will be terribly angry, but I must tell you that…”
Linden stopped her mouth roughly with one hand laid over her lips and rested his chin on his other hand.
“I don’t see anything,” he said. “I’m devilish drunk, girl, so if you’ve got something to say, you had better make it coherent. Now I’m going to take my hand away from your mouth and you’ve got one sentence to say whatever you want and then I’m going to stop listening. Understand?”
Katie nodded quickly under his hand. His long fingers slipped away from her mouth until they were cupping her face. Katie swallowed and looked up into the heated eyes so close to hers.
“My lord, I don’t want to do… that.” She could hardly recognize the hoarse panic-stricken whisper as her own voice.
Linden caressed her delicate jawline with his thumb. “Then you shouldn’t go to men’s houses, sweeting. God, especially not the houses of men like me.” There was no soft mercy in the sable eyes. But then, surprisingly, his eyes lightened, and Linden rolled onto his back and laughed. “Lord, child, it’s been a long time since I’ve heard anyone refer to it as… ‘that’!”
Free of the steely arms, Katie quickly threw her legs over the side of the bed and stood trembling on the rug. Lord Linden stretched out his hand to stroke Katie’s forearm lightly.
“Katie, my poor child. Don’t make me angry now, you won’t like it, I promise you. Come back to bed.” His voice was soft, friendly, and utterly pitiless.
“But Lord Linden, you see it was Zack…” She felt his fingers encircle her wrist painfully.
“Katie,” said Linden calmly, “I don’t want to hear about your problems with your pimp. If you raise that subject again, I’ll do something to make you wish you hadn’t. Do you want me to be more specific?”
Katie shook her head and played her last card.
“Lord Linden, I’m a virgin.”
Apparently Lord Linden was not among that admirable fraternity who consider the preservation of virginity a laudable aim.
“That, at least, I can do something about,” he snapped. Lord Linden’s temperament, never noted for its sweetness in sobriety, had about as much forbearance as a striking adder’s when he was drunk. He twisted her wrist harshly, and she cried out. He ignored her. “Look. You came here by your own choice. It’s too late for second thoughts. Because you don’t seem to have much experience, then I had better explain that I want you. Now. And if you don’t come back to bed, then I’ll bring you and you’ll be hurt. You don’t want that, do you? No. Neither do I. And if you’re thinking of crying, I had better warn you that nothing makes me lose patience faster.”
Katie stared at him, her face amazingly free of anger, condemnation, or rancor. She merely looked tired, perhaps a little forlorn and frightened, but also oddly trusting. She looked sadly at the ruthless fingers guarding her wrist. Then, trembling very slightly, she lowered herself to the bed.
“No, I won’t cry,” she said, “I never cry.” In a gesture very like her reaction to Nasty Ned when he had raised the blackjack to strike her at the cock pit, Katie closed her eyes and lay her arms at her sides.
Linden studied her curiously, wondering what struggles in her life had schooled her to this final, unresentful fatalism. It was as though a long and overpowering experience with defeat had taught her the futility of resistance after she had recognized failure. Laurel, in a similar situation, would have fought to the end. Lord Linden’s conscience rarely interfered with his pleasures and he was unaccustomed to denying himself, but neither was he cruel enough to bring this shivering child to her knees one more time. He stood up, walked to the door, and removed the key, throwing it onto the bed beside Katie.
“Lock it,” he said, going out and pulling the door firmly shut behind him.
Chapter Four
Katie awoke the next morning by degrees that blended together in an idle, leisurely progression. After Lord Linden’s abrupt departure last night, she had risen obediently to lock the door, loosened the string about her waist that served as a belt, and crawled between the crisp sheets of Linden’s bed. I shall never sleep tonight, Katie thought, and that was the last thing she remembered until the clapping rattle of a wagon’s metal wheels on the street below called her back to consciousness. At first she was aware only of the compact spongy mass of the mattress beneath her; it was the first time Katie had slept on a feather bed. Trance-like, Katie observed the angular, uncompromising lines of an old-fashioned mahogany cabinet, now muted by the bluish rays of the early morning sun. It was peaceful to lay so, without thinking, without moving, but the pointed shaft of one chicken feather had worked its way through the mattress ticking and prodded Katie’s back with dogged persistence. When she could ignore it no longer, Katie sat up and turned to find the tiny spike, pulled the feather through the sheet’s coarse weave, and blew it off her palm to watch it float languidly to the floor. There was no denying it now. She was awake.
Katie stood up, tightened the string-belt, and tried to finger-comb her heavy curls into order. There was a tripod basin stand near the bed, its low shelf containi
ng a porcelain urn of cool fresh water, so Katie washed as well as she could. She looked around under the bed and behind an armchair for her hat and then remembered that it had come off in the drawing room. She also remembered how it had come off. There was nothing for it. Reality must be faced. Katie unlocked the door and tiptoed into the next room.
Reality lay sleeping heavily on an inlaid satin-wood couch, unconsciously picturesque with one hand dropped to the floor and the other curled disarmingly against his forehead. A faint sleep blush ran across Lord Linden’s nose onto either cheek and Katie would have liked to touch it softly with her finger but didn’t dare. She had a fair amount of experience with men on a morning after an evening of too much convivial drinking; she guessed that a hangover would not greatly improve Lord Linden’s temper, so she was in no haste to wake him.
Instead Katie went quickly to the hall, walked downstairs, and opened the large paneled front door to gaze into the street. London’s ambitious corps of street vendors were already out, pushing their rickety carts laden with a fascinating array of merchandise. Flower girls, piemen, fruit sellers, and knife sharpeners advertised their wares with boisterous energy. Katie saw a barefoot lad pulling a clumsy ice wagon coming around the corner. She thought for a second, then ran down the steps and bought a penny’s worth of chunky ice, and carried it back inside wrapped in her jacket. Downstairs she found a room that could only belong to Roger, the absent valet, and a neat kitchen with an adjacent pantry. Roger, Katie found, was a well organized gentleman’s gentleman. She quickly found the items she required: an icebag, a threaded needle, and milk. The icebag was for Lord Linden, the needle for a jagged tear in her jacket that must have been made sometime during yesterday’s adventures, and the milk was for herself. She had eaten only half an apple and one stale bun in the last twenty-four hours.
Katie loaded her plunder on a worked silver tray and carried it upstairs. Thus, the first view Lord Linden had that morning was of Katie sitting crosslegged on his Persian carpet with her elbows on her knees and her oval chin resting on the heels of her out-turned fists.
“Good God!” said Linden and shut his eyes with unflattering alacrity. It was some moments before he opened them again. Katie silently handed him the icebag. He laid it against his neck, wincing with an oath as the cold damp sailcloth made contact with his skin.
“Bad, is it?” inquired Katie sympathetically.
“Yes.” Lord Linden shifted the icebag and looked at Katie. “God! I don’t remember anything after that third bottle. Well, chit, did I bed you last night?”
“No, my lord. You—you said I should lock the door.”
“The devil I did! I must have been as drunk as David’s sow.” Linden buried his face in the ice-bag. “Merde. I remember now.” From the look on his face, Katie correctly divined that the recollection afforded him very little pleasure.
“I am sorry,” said Katie meekly. “I’m afraid what happened was very much my fault. I should have explained that I didn’t want to become your mistress at the outset, but Zack never told me…”
“Zack,” said Lord Linden succinctly, “should be shot.” Leaning one hand against the couch’s scrolled back for support, Linden rose stiffly. “I’m going to bathe. I’m going to change. And then I’m going to come back. All right?”
Without waiting for Katie’s assent, Linden strode into his room and closed the door behind him with a pronounced whap. He was gone at least an hour. Returning admirably point-device in a beige morning coat, tight breeches, and shining top boots, he found Katie seated tailor fashion on the floor before the wide bay window, scrupulously intent on mending a gaping hole in her faded jacket. She had just finished taking a small distasteful sip of a yellowish liquid in a clay cup set by her knee, and it had left a small blurry mustache on her upper lip which curved upward uncertainly as Lord Linden came in. Again, she reminded him of a friendly, shaggy puppy waiting for the kick.
“Good morning, my lord,” she said, with her sweet, self-deprecating smile. “I hope you won’t mind, but I borrowed a needle and thread from the pantry downstairs.”
Lord Linden’s interest in his valet’s inventory was minuscule at best, so he waved a hand dismissively and leaned his broad shoulders against the ornate marble mantel where he stood regarding Katie without affection.
“I shall be done in a moment; then I’ll leave. Unless you’d like me to go right now?” asked Katie.
“Finish.”
Linden watched her as she again bent her curly head over the jacket, her brow furrowed in painstaking concentration. For all her effort, it was the sloppiest sewing he had ever seen; the stitches were large and uneven and the poor child pricked herself each time the needle cleared cloth. It had been Lord Linden’s intention to remove this lovely but most unrewarding waif from his life with all possible haste, but as he watched her poke her finger for the fifth time and then, with weary patience, draw the needle again, Linden felt an unfamiliar sensation in his chest that he was quite unable to identify. It was an odd combination in a bar girl: gentle manners, cultured speech, and this disconcerting gallantry. Lord Linden did not want to get involved with Katie. But somehow he found himself asking, “Who are you?”
Katie looked up doubtfully. “I hate to say, my lord. I daresay you’ll be shocked.”
Linden folded his arms across his chest. “I will strive,” he said drily, “to bear up. Who is Papa?”
“Baron Kendricks,” said Katie regretfully.
“Kendricks!” said Lord Linden in a voice that made Katie jump and stick herself again. “I don’t suppose it would have occurred to you to have included that somewhere in your gibberish last night? What in the fiend’s name is a chit of your birth doing serving rag water at a place like the Maidenhead?”
“But I explained that,” said Katie, puzzled. “You see, I persuaded Zack to give me a job there.”
“What you haven’t explained, my little idiot, is how you came to know a man like Zack to begin with.”
“Oh. We lived together. When we were children. Zack’s mama and my papa were like this.” Katie held up two crossed fingers. “But they never married because Zack’s mama said Papa was too unsteady to make a good husband. One night Papa lost a great deal of money at play so she and Papa had a fight and she said that she was going to move on to greener pastures. She did, too. She lives in Vienna, in a villa.”
“God! Zack should be shot, but what your father needs,” said Lord Linden with feeling, “is to be drawn and quartered. Didn’t you have any relatives to object to his lodging you under the same roof with his mistress?”
Katie made a jumbled knot and broke off the thread with her teeth. “Only Grandfather, my mother’s father. But he was a merchant, and Papa told him that he’d be damned if he’d listen to the moralistic nonsense of a cit. That made Grandpa mad and he said that I’d be better off dead than raised like that and he never wanted to hear of my existence again. I did write to Grandpa before I left Essex and told him that Papa had disappeared and I would be at The Merry Maidenhead. Grandfather hasn’t contacted me, so there you are.”
“How often,” asked Linden, “does Papa disappear?”
Katie sucked thoughtfully on her needle-stabbed finger. “Oh, all the time. But never before for so long and without leaving me any money.”
Linden frowned. “Haven’t you any idea where your father is?”
“No. The man Papa owes ten thousand pounds to thinks he’s gone to the Continent to escape his debts, but the more I think about it, I recall that Papa often talked about going to America—he said that there is a lot of opportunity for gamblers there.”
“Mmm,” said Linden, looking sardonic. “Isn’t there anyone besides Zack to take you in until your father can be located? Friends?”
“I’m afraid not,” said Katie sadly. “People tend to disassociate themselves from the families of card-sharpers, and we moved a lot to avoid Papa’s creditors. I don’t have any friends. Besides Zack.”
“
Did you come here last night because you decided I might be a better bargain than Zack?” asked Linden, regarding Katie steadily.
Katie flushed. “Was that how it looked? Zack only told me that he was taking me to the house of a friend where I’d be safer than at The Merry Maidenhead. You see,” said Katie, the pain fresh in her voice, “I trusted Zack.”
Lord Linden could not have looked less sympathetic. “Katie, a newborn infant would have known better than to trust Zack.”
Katie regarded Linden with her astonishingly blue eyes. “Even if my father said I could trust him?”
“Particularly if your father said you could trust him, nitwit. I know I wasn’t in much of a humor to listen to you last night, but don’t you think you could have tried a little harder to tell me all this, considering what you had at stake?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t easy for me to think clearly because Zack had drugged me with laudanum.”
“Oh, you were drugged, were you?” said Linden caustically. “That certainly adds an irresistibly sordid piquancy to everything. Do you feel all right now?”
“Oh, yes, thank you,” said Katie. She set down her needlework and took another sip from the clay cup.
Linden scowled. “What are you drinking?”
“Milk. It was downstairs. I hope…”
“Yes, yes, you hope I don’t mind.” Lord Linden took the cup from Katie’s hand and gazed at the curdled contents. “Jesus. This is sour. How long has it been since you’ve eaten anything? No, never mind, I don’t want to know. Finish your jacket and we’ll go out for breakfast. Sour milk. Are you trying to make yourself sick?”
