“You came all this way for a whore?” Albert asked, and Royce shot him a harsh look.
“Don’t call her that if you want to live a long and happy life,” Hadrian said as they dismounted.
“But this is a whorehouse-a brothel, right? And you’re here to see a woman, so-”
“So keep talking, Albert.” Hadrian tied his horse to the post. “Just let me get farther away.”
“Gwen saved our lives,” Royce said, looking up at the porch. “I beat on doors. I even yelled for help.” He looked at Albert, letting that image sink in. Yes, I yelled for help. “No one cared.” Royce gestured toward Hadrian. “He was dying in a pool of blood, and I was about to pass out. Broken leg, my side sliced open, the world spinning. Then she was there saying, ‘I’ve got you. You’ll be all right now.’ We would have died in the mud and the rain, but she took us in, nursed us back to health. People were after us-lots of people … lots of powerful people-but she kept us hidden for weeks, and she never asked for payment or explanation. She never asked for anything.” Royce turned back to Albert. “So if you call her a whore again, I’ll cut your tongue out and nail it to your chest.”
Albert nodded. “Point taken.”
Royce climbed the steps to the House and rapped once.
Albert leaned over to Hadrian and whispered, “He knocks at a-”
“Royce can still hear you.” Hadrian stopped him.
“Really?”
“Pretty sure. You have no idea how much trouble I got into before I learned that. Now I never say anything I don’t want him to know.”
The door opened and a young woman greeted them with a smile. Royce didn’t recognize her. Maybe she was new. “Welcome, please come in, gentlemen.”
“Wow, this is really nice and so genteel,” the viscount marveled as he entered the parlor. “It’s like I’m in the Duchess of Rochelle’s salon again. I’ve never seen a”-he paused and smiled at Royce-“a house of comfort that was so clean and … pretty.”
“Gwen’s wonderful,” Hadrian stated as he stood awkwardly, looking at the dirt on his boots.
A moment later, another girl joined them in the parlor. “Hello, gentlemen, I’m called Jasmine. How may I help you?”
“I’m here to see Gwen,” Royce told the girl, who he was certain had been called Jollin the last time they were there.
“Gwen?” she replied cautiously. “Ah … Gwen isn’t taking visitors.”
“I didn’t mean that. Ah … I’m Royce Melborn. You might remember us. She-well, all of you-helped my friend and I last year. I just wanted to thank her again, maybe buy her dinner.”
“Oh … ah … wait here just a minute.”
Jasmine scurried up the stairs.
“Jasmine?” Hadrian said, watching her leave. “Didn’t she used to call herself Julie?”
“I thought it was Jollin,” Royce corrected.
“It smells like apples and cinnamon in here.” Albert sat down on one of the elaborately embroidered couches. Hadrian had loaned Albert his thick woolen winter trousers and his cloak, which he had wrapped about him. Underneath he still wore his filthy nightshirt.
“The girls smell even better,” Hadrian said.
“I can only imagine. And it’s quiet. Usually you can hear the creaking of the bed frames overhead. This place is great. Must be expensive, and popular, and yet I never heard of it. Is it new?”
Hadrian shrugged. “We were only here the one time.”
“We need to get you cleaned up,” Royce told the viscount, realizing just how unpleasant the noble looked. He didn’t want to meet her with him like that, but he didn’t have a choice now. “Hadrian, while I take Gwen to dinner, do you think you could maybe-”
Hadrian laughed.
“What?”
“Do you really think you’re fooling me?”
“I just thought that-”
“You just want time alone with Gwen.”
Royce made to protest, but Hadrian held up his hand. “Relax. I’ll deal with Count Nightshirt.”
“Viscount.”
“What’s the difference?”
“A whole lot of money.”
Jasmine came back down the stairs, moving much slower than she had gone up. “Um … Gwen asked me to tell you that … she doesn’t want to see you.”
Royce wasn’t certain he’d heard her correctly. “I don’t understand. She doesn’t want … but why? Did you tell her I just wanted to take her to dinner? Did you tell her Hadrian is with me? We’ll all go together if she prefers. It won’t be just the two of us, if that’s the problem.”
“So much for my shave and new clothes,” Albert said.
“I’m sorry, she really made herself quite clear,” the girl replied. “She won’t see you under any circumstances. I really am sorry.”
Hadrian placed his elbows on the table and frowned when it rocked. “I hate when they wobble like this.”
They were in The Hideous Head Tavern and Alehouse across Wayward Street. The place had looked destitute from the outside, similar to the barn in which they’d found Albert, and Hadrian had thought it couldn’t be any worse inside. He was wrong.
Thin planks of uneven widths formed the walls, leaving gaps between warped boards that granted ample passage to both sunlight and cold air. The shoddy carpentry turned out to be a benefit, as the place had few windows-none that opened-and the fireplace was poorly ventilated. The gaps helped provide an escape for the smoke and an exit for the rats that appeared to frequent the storeroom.
“We passed, what, four carpenters on the way here?” Hadrian was looking under the table and rocking it. “I mean, how hard can it be to level a table?” He pulled his short sword and, drawing it along his chair’s leg, planed off a small wedge-shaped sliver, which he tucked under the table. He tested it and smiled.
“I don’t understand,” Royce said for the third time. “Why wouldn’t she even come out?”
“Perhaps she didn’t recall your name,” Albert suggested. “Also she might have been busy.”
Royce shook his head. “The girl said she wasn’t accepting guests. I’m not even sure she does that-not anymore at least. She never entertained when we were there. I think she just manages the place. And if she was busy, we would’ve been told to wait, not, ‘She won’t see you under any circumstances.’ ”
Hadrian knew that it was those three words at the end that irked Royce the most. He almost never saw his partner caught off guard. Royce expected the worst of people and, unfortunately, they rarely proved him wrong. But this was different. He had seen Royce’s face when Jasmine, Julie-or was it Jollin? — had said those words. Royce had been visibly stunned. To be honest, Hadrian had also been surprised.
After catching an arrow in the back and passing out in Tom the Feather’s barnyard, Hadrian had woken up on a comfortable bed surrounded by lovely women. He thought he’d died and regretted every time he’d ever cursed Maribor’s name. Gwen had spent most of her time with Royce but had ordered the girls around like a seasoned marshal and she saw to it his every need was met. Not knowing how they had arrived there, Hadrian assumed Medford House was a refuge Royce had used in the past and that he and Gwen were old friends. But as the days passed, he learned that they had never met before the night they showed up on her doorstep.
Hadrian wasn’t sure how many days he had lost, drifting in and out of consciousness while the Nyphron Church had continued to search for them. Patrols entered the Lower Quarter. Questions were asked. Gwen had made preparations to hide them at a moment’s notice, but no one ever attempted to search the house. After the first week, things had calmed down. By the end of the first month it appeared they had been forgotten. Still, he and Royce rarely set foot outside.