“Oh.” That hadn’t occurred to him. “Well . . .” He dug in his pocket, found it empty, and tried the other, which held a guinea, tuppence, and a florin. He handed her the guinea. “Buy what you need, then.”
She looked at the golden coin in her palm, her face utterly blank. She opened her mouth, then closed it again.
“What’s the matter?” he asked impatiently. She didn’t answer, but a soft voice behind him did.
“The duffent know how.”
He whirled to find Fanny looking up at him from under her cap, her delicate cheeks flushed red by the sunset.
“What did you say?”
Fanny’s soft mouth pressed tight and her cheeks grew redder, but she repeated it, dogged. “The . . . duffent . . . know how.”
Jane reached Fanny in two steps, putting an arm around her sister’s shoulders and glaring at William.
“My sister’s tongue-tied,” she said, daring him to say anything. “That’s why she’s afraid of the surgeons. She thinks they will amputate her tongue if they find out.”
He drew a deep, slow breath.
“I see. And what she said to me . . . ‘She doesn’t know how’? She means you, I collect? What is it, pray, that you don’t know how?”
“Muddy,” whispered Fanny, now staring at the ground.
“Mud—money?” He stared at Jane. “You don’t know how to—”
“I’ve never had any money!” she snapped, and threw the guinea on the ground at his feet. “I know the names of the coins, but I don’t know what you can buy with them, except—except—what you can buy in a brothel! My cunt is worth six shillings, all right? My mouth is three. And my arse is a pound. But if someone gave me three shillings, I wouldn’t know if I could buy a loaf of bread or a horse with them! I’ve never bought anything!”
“You—you mean—” He was so flabbergasted, he couldn’t string words into a sentence. “But you have wages. You said—”
“I’ve been a brothel whore since I was ten years old!” Her fists clenched, knuckles sharp under the skin. “I never see my wages! Mrs. Abbott spends them—she says—for my—our—food and clothes. I’ve never had a penny to my name, let alone spent one. And now you hand me . . . that”—she stamped her foot on the guinea, driving it into the ground—“and tell me to buy a kettle?!? Where? How? From whom?!”
Her voice shook and her face was a deal redder than the setting sun could make it. She was furious, but also very near to tears. He wanted to take her in his arms and soothe her, but thought that might be a good way to lose a finger.
“How old is Fanny?” he asked instead. She jerked her head up, panting.
“Fanny?” she said blankly.
“I’m e-lev-en,” Fanny’s voice said behind him. “You weve her awone!”
He turned to see the girl glaring up at him, a stick clutched in her hand. He might have laughed, if not for the expression on her face—and if not for what he’d just realized. He took a step back, so as to see both girls at once, and like magnet and iron, they came together and clung, both staring distrustfully at him.
“How much is her maidenhead worth?” he asked Jane baldly, with a nod at Fanny.
“Ten pounth,” Fanny answered automatically, just as Jane shouted, “She’s not for sale! To you or any other bugger!” She pressed Fanny fiercely closer, daring him to make a move toward the girl.
“I don’t want her,” he said through his teeth. “I don’t fornicate with children, for God’s sake!”
Jane’s hard expression didn’t alter, and she didn’t loosen her grip on her sister.
“Then why did you ask?”
“To verify my suppositions regarding your presence here.”
Jane snorted. “Those being?”
“That you ran away. Presumably because your sister has now reached an age where . . . ?” He raised an eyebrow, nodding at Fanny. Jane’s lips compressed, but she gave him a tiny, grudging nod.
“Captain Harkness?” he asked. It was a shot in the dark, but well aimed. Harkness hadn’t been pleased at being deprived of his prey and, unable to come at William, might well have decided to take his revenge elsewhere.
The light bathed everything in tones of gold and lavender, but he could see Jane’s face go pale, nonetheless, and felt a tightening in his loins. If he found Harkness . . . He resolved to go looking tomorrow. The man might be in Philadelphia, as she’d said—but he might not. It would be a welcome focus for his rage.
“Right, then,” he said, as matter-of-factly as he could. He stooped and pried the guinea out of the soft earth, realizing as he did so that he’d been a fool to offer it to her. Not because of what she’d told him but because someone like her—or Colenso—would never have such a sum. They’d be suspected of stealing it and very likely would be relieved of it by the first person to see it.
“Just look after the boys, will you?” he said to Jane. “And the both of you keep clear of the soldiers until I can find you simple clothes. Dressed like that”—he gestured at their dust-smudged, sweat-stained finery—“you’ll be taken for whores, and soldiers don’t take no for an answer.”
“I am a whore,” Jane said, in a strange, dry voice.
“No,” he said, and felt his own voice as oddly separate from himself but very firm. “You’re not. You travel under my protection. I’m not a pimp—so you’re not a whore. Not until we reach New York.”