“This is my sister, Frances,” Jane said, with the elegance of a Philadelphia matron, and gestured to the younger girl. “Curtsy to his lordship, now, Fanny.”
Fanny, a very lovely young girl with dark curls peeping out under her cap—what was she, eleven, twelve?—bobbed him a sweet curtsy, blue-and- red-calico petticoats outspread, and dropped long lashes modestly over the big, soft eyes of a young doe.
“Your most humble servant, mademoiselle,” he said, bowing with as much grace as possible, which, judging from the expressions on the girls’ faces, was probably a mistake. Fanny clapped a hand over her mouth and went much redder from the effort not to laugh.
“I am charmed to meet your sister,” he said to Jane, rather coldly. “But I fear you take me at something of a disadvantage, madam.”
“Yes, that’s a piece of luck,” Jane agreed. “I couldn’t think how we were to find you in that moil, and when we saw you ride past like the fiend was after you—we’d got a ride on a baggage wagon—I didn’t think we’d ever catch you. But we took the chance, and . . . voilà! Fortuna favet audax, you know.” She wasn’t even trying to pretend she wasn’t laughing at him!
He scrabbled for some cutting rejoinder in Greek, but the only thing that came to his inflamed mind was a humiliating echo from his past, something his father had said to him on the occasion when he’d accidentally fallen into a privy: “What news from the underworld, Persephone?”
“Turn your backs,” he said curtly. “I’m getting out.”
They didn’t. Gritting his teeth, he turned his own back on them and deliberately climbed the bank, feeling the itch of four interested eyes focused on his dripping backside. He grabbed his shirt and wrestled his way into it, feeling that even that much shelter would enable him to carry on the conversation in a more dignified manner. Or maybe he’d just tuck his breeches and boots under his arm and leave without further chat.
The sound of heavy splashing whilst he was still enveloped in the folds of his shirt made him whirl round, head popping free just in time to see Madras lunge up out of the creek on the girls’ side, lips already reaching for the apple Jane was holding out to him.
“Come back here, sir!” he shouted. But the girls had more apples, and the horse paid no attention whatever—nor did he object when Arabella–Jane took his reins and looped them casually round the trunk of a young willow.
“I noticed that you didn’t ask how we came to be here,” she said. “Doubtless surprise has deprived you of your usual exquisite manners.” She dimpled at him and he eyed her severely.
“I did,” he said. “I distinctly recall saying, ‘What. The. Devil. Are. You. Doing. Here.’”
“Oh, so you did,” she said, without a blush. “Well, not to put too fine a point on the matter, Captain Harkness came back.”
“Oh,” he said, in a slightly different tone. “I see. You, um, ran away, then?”
Frances nodded solemnly.
William cleared his throat. “Why? Captain Harkness is doubtless with the army. Why would you come here, of all places, instead of staying safe in Philadelphia?”
“No, he isn’t,” Jane said. “He was detained on business in Philadelphia. So we came away. Besides,” she added carelessly, “there are thousands of women with the army. He’d never find us, even if he was looking—and why should he be?”
That was reasonable. Still . . . he knew what the life of an army whore was like. He also had a strong suspicion that the girls had run out on their contract with the brothel; very few saved enough from their wages to buy their way out, and both of these girls were much too young to have made much money. To abandon the reasonable comfort of clean beds and regular meals in Philadelphia in order to accommodate filthy, sweating soldiers amidst mud and flies, paid in blows as often as in coin . . . Yet he was obliged to admit that he’d never been buggered by a vicious sod like Harkness and thus had no true basis for comparison.
“I expect you want money, to assist in your escape?” he said, an edge in his voice.
“Well, perhaps,” said Jane. Reaching into her pocket, she held up something shiny. “Mostly, I wanted to give this back to you.”
His gorget! He took an involuntary step toward her, toes squelching in the mud.
“I—thank you,” he said abruptly. He’d felt its lack every time he dressed, and felt even more the weight of his fellow officers’ eyes on the empty spot where it should rest. He’d been obliged to explain to Colonel Desplains what had happened—more or less—saying that he’d been robbed in a bawdy house. Desplains had chewed him bloody, but then had given him reluctant leave to appear without a gorget until he might get another in New York.
“What I—we, I mean—really want is your protection,” Jane said, doing her best to look winsomely earnest, and doing it damned well.
“You what?”
“I don’t think I should have any difficulty in making a living with the army,” she said frankly, “but ’tisn’t really what I want for my dear sister, that sort of life.”
“Er . . . no. I imagine not,” William said warily. “What else did you have in mind?” “Lady’s maid?” he wanted to suggest sarcastically, but in light of the return of his gorget, he refrained.
“I haven’t quite made up my mind,” she said, fastening her gaze on the ripples where the creek ran over rocks. “But if you could help us to get safely to New York—and maybe find us a place there . . .”