Nicholas stared down at her. "Hurt you! Why should you imagine I would do such a thing?"
Two large tears rolled hotly down her cheeks. "It hurts to breach the maidenhead, does it not?" Her voice was small, her face set.
Nicholas took a deep breath, struggling with the sense of unreality that seemed to have transcended the physical confusion brought about by whatever had been slipped into his drink. Since when was a tavern whore in possession of her maidenhead? "You would have me believe you are a maid?" he demanded incredulously, releasing his hold. He got off the bed and stood looking down at her as she lay sprawled on the coverlet. She seemed to be quite unconcerned at her nakedness, almost as if she had forgotten it, he thought, trying to shake his head clear of bewilderment.
Polly nodded, sitting up. "I am only supposed to bring the gentlemen up here," she explained. "They always fall asleep before they can-"
"And then you rob them?" he interrupted harshly, seeing nothing to contradict in her statement. It was extraordinary to think that she had preserved her innocence throughout this fraud, but not an impossible feat in the circumstances she had described and he had experienced.
"Not I," she corrected, as if it could possibly make any difference to her degree of guilt. "Josh and his friends."
"And then what happens?" He began to pace the small chamber in an effort to keep the fog at bay. The girl did not reply. He swung 'round on her. "And then what happens?"
She shook her head, eyes wide with appeal. "I do not know."
"Liar!" He caught her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes. "You are a liar, a thief, an accomplice to murder." And all that malefice was contained in a form so beautiful that it almost defied belief. He turned from her in disgust.
"No, you cannot go downstairs." The urgent whisper arrested him as he put his hand on the latch. "They will not let you out of here alive." Polly jumped from the bed, catching his arm. "There is a cupboard on the landing. If you hide there until they come up, then you can slip down the stairs when they come in here."
"You expect me to hide from a pack of river rats?" he exclaimed, drawing his sword in one easy movement.
"There are six of them," she said. "You may be brave as a lion, but against such odds-" She shrugged and turned from him, bending to pick up her smock from the floor.
Her buttocks and thighs were bruise-tinged, the deep purple of fresh contusions overlaying the yellow of old hurts. Nicholas saw again the vicious Josh, his great red hands raised against her, the obscene glint in his little eyes. The anger ran from him. What right had he to judge this girl for whom violence was an inextricable part of daily living? She did only what she was compelled to do, and life was cheap in these back slums.
"And what will happen to you?" he asked quietly. "I doubt you could take another beating so soon after the last."
Polly flushed. She had forgotten about the welts. Hastily, she pulled on her smock. "He only does it 'cause he wants to do the other." Amazingly, an imp of mischief danced suddenly in her eyes. "But Prue won't let him. Says she's not about to share her husband with a chit of a girl she's brought up from babyhood, and she'll cut it off if he tries anything
with me." A tiny chuckle escaped her, despite the desperation of the moment. "She would, too. She's bigger than he is."
Nicholas could feel his own mouth curving in response. She did have the most infectious smile, even when, as now, it was one of pure mischief, with none of the come-hither quality of before. But then, that particular smile had been intended to deceive; this variety appeared to be without artifice.
Heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs, and all desire to laugh fled. Polly went as white as milk as Nicholas, sword drawn, whirled to face the door. The door was flung back on its hinges to reveal Josh and five burly men ranged behind him, all armed with cudgels.
Why would they need cudgels if their intended victim was supposed to be unconscious? Nicholas wondered with dis-passion, moving backward to give himself maneuvering space. They'd probably enjoy bludgeoning him to death before dropping him in the river, he reflected, still dispassionate.
"Get out of here, girl," rasped Josh. "I'll deal with you later." He advanced on Kincaid, the others fanning out behind him in the small chamber. Nicholas wouldn't have a chance. His sword flashed, catching Josh's arm as he raised the cudgel. Blood dripped from the cut; the tavern keeper roared like an enraged bull, bringing the cudgel down with full force. Nicholas jumped aside, and the club just missed shattering his arm; but he was almost against the wall now. There would be nowhere to jump the next time.
A sudden blast of freezing air filled the room, setting the sullen coals in the hearth to hiss and smoke. Someone had opened the casement at his back. "Quickly!" Polly's anguished cry from behind told him who to thank for that piece of quick thinking. He relinquished all vainglorious thoughts of fighting to the death to preserve the honor of the Kincaids. There'd be no honor in the demise that awaited him here, beaten to a pulp like a rabbit in a harvested field. He leapt backward onto the broad stone sill,
keeping his assailants momentarily at bay with rapid thrust and parry of his sword, desperation lending him both speed and strength. Then he consigned himself to the air, jumping backward into the unknown.
He landed with a jarring thump. But he had landed on earth, not stone, and for that he could be grateful. The cold air, combined with the tension and excitement of the last few minutes, cleared his head miraculously. He blinked, trying to accustom himself to the darkness. The men would know how to find him, and since he didn't know where he was, he could not know how to remove himself from this insalubrious neighborhood.
"Catch me!" a now familiar voice called in a desperate plea. He looked up to see Polly in her white smock poised on the sill. A hand reached to seize her waist; with a wild shriek she kicked herself free before tumbling, unbalanced, from the window. Nicholas managed to break her fall, although she knocked him to the ground again, and he wasted desperate seconds trying to disentangle himself from her flailing limbs, swirling hair, and the folds of her smock.
The sounds of confused bellowing from above ceased abruptly. "Quick," Polly said. "They are coming downstairs." She grabbed his hand, tugging him into the shadowy darkness, away from the lamplight of the window. "This way."
Nicholas opened his mouth to protest, then closed it again. So he was going to run through the streets of London on a foggy, freezing December night in the company of a barefoot tavern wench wearing nothing but her smock! It seemed a fitting enough conclusion to such an evening.
Chapter 2
Nicholas had no idea where Polly was guiding him, but she was fleet of foot, showing no hesitation about their direction, so he followed where she led and saved his breath for running. The sounds of pursuit, at first alarmingly loud behind them, finally faded; the racing figure beside him turned yet another corner onto another narrow alley and came to a fast-breathing halt under an archway.
"They'll not find us now." Her breath came on a sob; she shivered as the heat engendered by movement abated and the freezing air whipped her smock against her body.
"God's good grace!" her companion exploded softly. "Are you crazed, girl? To come out like that!"
"Had I stayed for my clothes, I would not have come out at all," was the tart rejoinder. "And had I not done so, they would have caught you easily. There is only one way out of that garden, and ye'd never have found it in the dark." She hopped from one foot to the other. The mud in the alley was frozen in hard ridges, and her feet were rapidly becoming numb.