“Come along, young Ellesmere,” Sandy said, collaring him firmly and shoving him down the street. “Let’s make a few memories to see us through the long winter nights up north, eh?”
Some hours later, viewing the world through the bottom of a beer glass, William wondered rather blearily whether memories counted if you didn’t remember them. He’d lost count some time ago of what—and how many of what—he’d drunk. He thought he’d lost one or two or three of the companions with whom he’d started the evening, too, but couldn’t swear to it.
Sandy was still there, swaying in front of him, saying something, urging him to his feet. William smiled vaguely at the barmaid, fumbled in his pocket, and laid his last coin on the table. That was all right, he had more in his trunk, rolled up in his spare pair of stockings.
He followed Sandy outside into a night that seized and clung, the hot air so thick that it was hard to breathe, clogged with the smell of horse droppings, human ordure, fish scales, wilted vegetables, and fresh-slaughtered meat. It was late, and dark; the moon had not yet risen, and he stumbled over the cobbles, lurching into Sandy, a blacker smudge on the night before him.
Then there was a door, a blur of light, and an enveloping hot scent of liquor and women—their flesh, their perfume, the smell more befuddling than the sudden light. A woman in a ribboned cap was smiling at him, greeting him, too old to be a whore. He nodded amiably at her and opened his mouth, only to be mildly surprised by the fact that he’d forgotten how to talk. He closed his mouth and went on nodding; the woman laughed in a practiced way and guided him to a shabby wing chair, where she deposited him as she might leave a parcel to be called for later.
He sat slumped in a daze for some time, the sweat running down his neck under his stock and dampening his shirt. There was a fire burning in a hearth near his legs, a small cauldron of rum punch steaming on the hob, and the scent of it made him queasy. He had the feeling that he was melting like a candle but couldn’t move without being sick. He shut his eyes.
Some time later, he slowly became aware of voices near him. He listened for a little, unable to make sense of any words but feeling the flow vaguely soothing, like ocean waves. His stomach had settled now, and with his eyelids at half-mast, he gazed placidly at a shifting sand of light and shadow, pricked with bright colors, like darting tropical birds.
He blinked a few times, and the colors shimmered into coherence: the hair and ribbons and white shifts of women, the red coats of infantry, the blue of an artilleryman moving among them. Their voices had given him the impression of birds, high and trilling, squawking now and then, or scolding like the mockingbirds who lived in the big oak near the plantation house at Mount Josiah. But it wasn’t the women’s voices that caught his attention.
A pair of dragoons were lounging on the settee nearby, drinking rum punch and eyeing up the women. He thought they’d been talking for some time, but now he could make out the words.
“Ever buggered a girl?” one of the dragoons was saying to his friend. The friend giggled and flushed, shook his head, murmured something that sounded like, “Too dear for my purse.”
“What you want’s a girl that hates it.” The dragoon hadn’t moved his gaze from the women across the room. He raised his voice, just a little. “They clamp down, trying to get rid of you. But they can’t.”
William turned his head and looked at the man, repulsed, and making his disgust evident. The man ignored him. He seemed vaguely familiar, dark and heavy-featured, but no one William knew by name.
“Then you take her hand and make her reach back and feel you. God, the squirming—milk you like a dairymaid, she will!” The man laughed loudly, still staring across the room, and for the first time William looked to see the target of this brutish farrago. There were three women standing in a group, two in their shifts, the thin fabric molded damply to their bodies, one in an embroidered petticoat, but it was plain to see who the dragoon’s insinuations were meant for: the tallish one in the petticoat, who stood there with her fists clenched, glaring back at the dragoon fit to burn a hole through his forehead.
The madam was standing a little apart, frowning at the dragoon. Sandy had disappeared. The other men present were drinking and talking with four girls at the far end of the room; they hadn’t heard this vulgar impertinence. The dragoon’s friend was scarlet as his coat, between liquor, amusement, and embarrassment.
The dark dragoon was flushed, too, a livid line across his heavy stubbled jowls where they pressed against the leather of his stock. One hand plucked absently at the sweat-stained crotch of his moleskin breeches. He was having too much fun with his prey to cut the chase short, though.
“Mind, you don’t want one who’s used to it. You want her tight.” He leaned forward a little, elbows on his knees, eyes intent on the tall girl. “But you don’t want one who’s never had it before, either. Better if she knows what’s coming, eh?”
His friend mumbled something indistinct, glanced at the girl and hastily away. William looked back at the girl, too, and as she made a small involuntary movement—not quite a flinch—the candlelight glowed for an instant on the smooth crown of her head: soft chestnut, with the gloss of a fresh conker. Jesus Christ.
Before he knew it, he was on his feet. He took two swaying paces to the madam’s side, touched her shoulder politely, and when she turned a surprised face up to him—all her attention had been on the dragoon, a worried line between her brows—he said slowly, so as not to slur his words, “I’ll take that one, please. The—the tall girl. In the petticoat. For the night.”