“I fail to see how any singer is going to make herself heard in here,” Imogen said in a faint shriek.
Her escort glanced down at her. “Oh, they’ll shut their mouths for Cristobel.”
It seemed that Cristobel was a woman of many talents, Imogen thought, feeling a sudden possessive pang. Just how frequently did a divinity professor travel to London to indulge in such unsavory entertainments?
The innkeeper was a short man with a pockmarked face who scuttled sideways toward them through his crowded room. “What may I help you with?” he hollered, over the noise of the crowded room. Then he added, after looking sharply at Imogen’s yellow curls, “No chambers available for the night. Women are allowed but”—he jerked his head toward the room—“as you can see, there aren’t many females with a taste for Cristobel.”
Rafe restrained an urge to knock the man to the ground. “A bottle of wine,” he said. And then lowered his face to the level of the rotund little innkeeper. “I would greatly dislike it if my companion and I found ourselves in any sort of scuffle, innkeeper.”
“My name’s Joseph Hynde,” the innkeeper said, falling back a step. “There’s no call for a fine gentleman like yourself to worry about scuffles, not in Hynde’s Black Swan.”
“In that case,” Rafe said agreeably enough, “I’d like a table in the back next to the wall, with a view of the stage.”
“You want everything, you do,” Hynde replied. “I’ll have you know that the inn’s been crowded for the whole day with people waiting for this very performance. They was outside my door while I washed my face this morning. And you wants a good view of the stage, do you? Well, so does everyone else!”
Rafe didn’t bother to answer, just dropped two sovereigns in Hynde’s waiting hand.
Hynde turned around. “This way,” he said over his shoulder. “You’re lucky to be here, sir. Cristobel has been the biggest attraction in Whitefriars for the last months, and this is the first time she’s been outside London in over a year.” Hynde cleared a way through the crowd by the simple process of cuffing anyone who happened to have a chair in his way.
A moment later Imogen was tucked behind a round table, with her back to the wall. Her companion pulled forward a chair in such a way as to shield her from the crowds. She saw now that it was an interesting room, lined with maps, mirrors, and old portraits, with the air of a chamber designed for a more elegant fate than had befallen it. There was even a dusty old harp in one corner. Everything showed its age: cracks in the mirror glinted brightly in the light from two candles recklessly screwed to its frame; one of the lanterns to their right had fallen from its hook on the wall and lay in a cluster of glass, unheeded by the innkeeper.
At first Imogen thought the crowd was entirely male. But once her eyes were accustomed to the gloom, she saw there was a sprinkling of women throughout the room. The men were not so different than those she’d known in her father’s stable, if rather less sober. But the women…she’d never seen their like.
She pulled Gabriel close. “What is that woman on the stage doing?” she whispered, just as Hynde slapped a bottle of wine and two glasses onto the table.
Rafe looked over his shoulder. A chair had been placed on the stage, and an extremely well endowed woman had frozen into a pose as if she were in the act of pulling up her stockings. Her chemise was falling from her breast, and she had a gown tossed next to her, as if she were in the very act of dressing. Or—perhaps—undressing. Most of the men in the room were far more interested in their conversations or cards to pay her any mind.
“She’s posturing,” Rafe explained. “She’s the prologue to Cristobel.” He had just made an uncomfortable discovery. There was wine—and only wine—to drink. And while he could probably drink a small quantity of wine, or so he told himself, he had no inclination to try his fortitude with Hynde’s rotgut. Yet surely Imogen would notice if he didn’t drink. And if she did, she would instantly guess that the man behind the mustache was Rafe and not Gabe.
Rafe shuddered at that thought. It was Gabe she had been kissing so passionately, not himself. Without thinking twice, he accidentally knocked his glass off the table.
Imogen didn’t even notice; she was watching the posturing woman, who was pushing her petticoats higher and higher on her thighs. “Are those beauty marks on her breast?” she asked.
Rafe glanced over his shoulder again. The woman had an admirable white breast, marked by a delicately placed beauty spot just on the inside curve. It almost made up for the fact that she was clutching a bottle of gin behind her skirts and occasionally took a swig when she wasn’t frozen in place. Imogen was leaning her chin in her hand and gazing at the prostitute with rapt attention.
“They wear beauty spots to cover the effects of disease,” he said. “You see that she has four on her cheek?”
“Fascinating,” Imogen said, not taking her eyes from the actress.
Rafe signaled the innkeeper. “What have you for supper?”
“Calf’s heart stuffed,” the innkeeper said, “fried liver, pigeon pie—here, you!” He turned around and cuffed a young man behind him. “Sheathe that sword or you’ll be taking your ale in the alleyway, or my name’s not John Hynde. If you aren’t here, you lose your chance with Cristobel, may I remind you?”
The young man sullenly returned his sword to his sheath, and Hynde didn’t even pause for breath before continuing, “leg of mutton, green peas.”
“We’ll have pigeon pie,” Rafe said, “and lemonade for my companion.”
“Here!” Hyde roared, not bothering to reply, “do you think this is a flash house?” And a second later he had cracked two heads together and thrown one of the men clear across the room.
“My goodness,” Imogen said, sipping her wine. “He’s very strong for someone so small.”
“Throwing people across the room is excellent exercise.”
“Do you think that our actress may have made a friend?”
Rafe pushed his chair back so that he was shoulder to shoulder to Imogen. “Why, so she has,” he said, watching as the actress hopped off the stage straight into the waiting arms of a young man who lifted her high in the air and then triumphantly out of the front door.
“Where are they—” Imogen asked, and then stopped.
“They are retiring for the night.” He couldn’t tell if she were blushing because of all the theatrical color on her face. “Of course,” he added, “I wouldn’t say such a thing to a proper lady such as Griselda.”
Imogen giggled. She glanced sideways at him and then she laughed outright.
“What?” Rafe said, bending close, so that his mouth was just beside all those unnatural yellow curls of hers.
“I said nothing.”
Her voice was impudent, but Rafe’s attention was caught by the curve of her ear. He could just see it in the midst of a froth of yellow curls. “You’re a different sort of woman than Griselda,” he said into that ear, hearing the throbbing tone in his own voice with some wonder. And then he touched his tongue to that delicate pink.
She jumped.
“You taste good,” he said. “Sweet and womanly, for all you have apparent ambitions to the experience of a lightskirt.”
“You do sound like Rafe!” Imogen said, pulling back and frowning at him. “I have no wish to become any man’s kept mistress. Do you know what that poor woman likely has to do to support herself?”
“Yes,” Rafe murmured, bending toward her again.
But her eyes were flashing as only Imogen’s eyes could flash. “Women all over this country are forced into unsavory practices due to a wish for their daily bread,” she informed him.
There was only one way to shut her up.
Even that didn’t work for a moment. She tried to say something, and thumped him on the shoulder with a slender fist. But Rafe didn’t give a damn.
He hadn’t kissed a woman—really kissed a woman—since before his brother died, and he started drinking, and all the pleasure in
life just dried up and blew away with the whiskey. Now he could feel every tremble of her soft, sulky lower lip. It was too full to be in beautiful symmetry, and too soft to be anything other than perfect.
She wasn’t fighting anymore. Slim white arms circled his neck, and now he couldn’t smell the spilled gin and pipe smoke of the inn: merely the innocent woman smell of Imogen who hadn’t—though she had her ambitions—taken a lover. Not yet.
A plate slapped on the table next to them. “I pay for me posturings,” Hynde said. “You two are looking too impatient to behave in the way that I requires amongst my patrons.”
Rafe put Imogen away and slowly rose, his eyes burning down into Hynde’s. “Did you make an impolite remark that included this young lady?” he asked. His voice wasn’t loud, but silence fell over their part of the room like a pool of water. “Mr. Hynde, did I hear you make an impertinent remark?”
“No,” Hynde stammered, looking quite unlike the burly wrestler who had tossed one of his patrons straight out the door. “I said nothing. Nothing!”
“Good,” Rafe said, sitting down again. Hynde scuttled away.
“Oh my,” Imogen whispered. “Gabriel, everyone is staring at us!”
“Drink your wine,” Rafe said. “They’ll turn back to their sport soon enough.” He looked at Imogen. “I expect they’re just fascinated by your hair. That wig looks like a cross between a corkscrew and a lightning stroke.”
Her curls had abandoned all their moorings and bounded in every direction. “A flaxen Medusa,” Rafe said, amused.
Imogen’s eyes were shining and not from excitement. That was desire. The look in her eyes made Rafe shudder like an adolescent in the hands of his first lass. He could feel his heart thumping in his chest. She’s craving Gabe, not me, he told himself. She was pulling off her gloves.
“What are you doing?” he asked hoarsely.
“Taking off my gloves so that I can eat some of this excellent pigeon pie you ordered.” The men around them had gone back to hoisting tankards of ale to their mouth, quarreling, pinching, and generally carrying on like the near lunatics they were. She had her gloves off now and was looking around for tableware. Rafe handed her a fork.
“Where did you find that?”
“In a place like this, you bring your own.”
Luckily, at that moment there was a squeal of a solitary trumpet, because Rafe wasn’t quite sure he could watch her eat without pulling her into his lap and feeding her himself. “That should be Cristobel,” he said, unnecessarily.
“Actually, according to the sign on the door, it should be Love’s Mistress,” Imogen said, a smile playing around her mouth.
Rafe took her ungloved hand in his and brought it to his lips. “Surely you can give her a run for her money?” he said, slow and deep.
She was blushing. He could see it through the face powder.
The audience was howling. They had surged to their feet, and each man was straining forward, trying frantically to push enough people out of the way so that he had a clear view of the stage.
An escalation in the general howl seemed to indicate that Cristobel had arrived.
“If they all stand throughout, we shan’t be able to see,” Imogen said.
“I doubt they’ll sit down.” But he bellowed, “Down in front!” The ocean of men in front of him hadn’t the slightest intention of sitting. They were surging at the stage, held back only by five or six burly men guarding the edge.
Imogen was on her tiptoes. “What does she look like? Didn’t you say that you’d seen her before?”
“Cristobel? Her hair is even higher than yours, if you’ll credit it.” Never mind that Imogen was fifty times more beautiful than Cristobel. Imogen didn’t need him to praise her features.
“Does she wear a beauty spot?”
But Rafe didn’t answer because Cristobel had begun to sing. “Come all wanton wenches,” she sang, “who long to be in trading.” She had the kind of rich, dark voice that rolled over the room like barley beer. It was husky and erotic, a promise made in song, a mermaid’s call. Instantly the men before them stopped shouting and shoving, and simply gazed at her.
“She has a lovely voice,” Imogen said breathlessly. “Oh, Gabriel, I have to see her. This is so frustrating!”
“Come learn from me, Love’s Mistress, to keep yourself from jading,” Cristobel sang.
“What’s jading?” Imogen asked. “Do you think anyone would notice if I climbed on my chair?”
In Rafe’s opinion, they wouldn’t notice unless Imogen threw off her clothing. Cristobel had them in her throaty spell. “Be not at first too nice or coy, when Gamesters you are courting.”
With a swift grab, Rafe pushed a wine cask against the wall. “Here,” he said. “No one will notice you.”
“What?” Imogen said, looking around.
He had his hands on her waist to lift her onto the cask, but she looked up at him with an adorably confused expression and before he knew what was happening he lowered his mouth to hers again. Cristobel’s voice rolled over them like rough honey. “Let not your outward gesture, betray your inward passion.”
Rafe had just enough conscious thought left to think that he was certainly betraying inward passion. But there was no time to consider the fact because Imogen was trembling, and now she was holding his face in her hands. He had her pressed against the rough wood of the wall, protecting her from the gaze of strangers. But of course he hadn’t allowed their bodies to touch.
Of course.
But he couldn’t help it: there in the swelter and the smell of gin and the coiled sensual tone of Cristobel’s voice, he brought their bodies together, shuddering at the softness of her.
“Gabe,” she said, her voice half-caught in a rough sound.
It was enough to chill him. He picked her up without a word and put her on the wine cask.
She gasped and clutched his shoulder. Rafe turned around so that he was in front of her and she could hold his shoulders if she lost her balance. No one had noticed them at all. Even though Imogen was on a wine cask and visible to the whole room, who could look otherwhere than at Cristobel?
Now that he was standing up he could see straight to the stage. He had only seen Cristobel once before, a year or so ago, but she wasn’t a woman one forgot. The intervening year had done nothing but give her a slightly exotic patina. She was sitting on the same old chair used by the posturer, holding nothing more than a small stringed instrument, and yet she had every man in the room mesmerized. Last time he saw her she had dark red curls piled on the top of her head. Now her hair was free, curling wildly down her back as if she had just stepped out of bed.
Which was undoubtedly what every man was thinking about. She was the kind of woman who made you think about sweet butter and sweeter cream: there were no angular bones poking through a gauzy dress, the look beloved by the ton, but curves so sweet that they seemed to beg to be stroked. She was on to another song now, about a man and a young maid that were “taken in a frenzy in the midsummer prime.” And she wasn’t singing it, she was purring it. She didn’t even seem to have bothered much with face paint, contenting herself with one beauty patch high on a cheekbone and lip rouge in a crimson shade.
She stood up now, putting her instrument to the side, and swaying, dancing a little dance. Her gaze drifted around the room as she sang, licking at the bodies of the men. Rafe watched her with some amusement as she effortlessly bewitched them.
Still her eyes drifted from man to man, making certain every man felt that he and he alone was the one whom she’d singled from the crowd. She reached the heart of the song. “He landed in a hole ere he was aware. The lane it was straight, he had not gone far…” when she finally looked to the back of the room.
She recognized him. There was a lush little smile in the back of her eyes, a warm greeting that made most of the heads in the room turn in their direction. But she was a consummate performer, and her eyes drifted on instantly, flicking over Imogen and h
er yellow corkscrew curls, the knot of laboring men standing to their right, breathing heavily as they watched Cristobel’s hips sway.
“Gabriel,” Imogen said, bending down so that she could speak in his ear, “I do believe that Cristobel knows you.”
“Absolutely not,” he said.
“Why not? You have met her, haven’t you?”
Rafe looked up, and her amused eyes went through his system like lightning. Would he ever understand Imogen? She was amused by the fact he had been recognized by a prostitute—nay, by Cristobel. There wasn’t a woman in a thousand who would think it humorous if Cristobel hailed their escort. “She couldn’t possibly recognize me,” he said, remembering to school his voice to his brother’s scholarly tones. “I’m wearing a mustache, remember?”
“How could I not,” Imogen whispered back. “I think my cheek is rubbed raw by that same mustache.”
He smiled up at her, a little crooked smile, and then caught her chin, surveying her face. “I don’t see anything.” His lips were almost touching hers.
“Everyone can see us,” she whispered.
“No one’s interested,” he said, rubbing his lips across that deep lower lip of hers.
Imogen pulled back and shoved at him. “Turn around,” she ordered.
So he did. He turned around, waiting with arms crossed until Imogen had seen enough so that he could lift her from the wine cask. In fact, he was planning that very move. He’d lift her down, and let her drop against his body, slowly—very slowly…
Suddenly he noticed that Cristobel was dancing toward the steps leading to the stage. All around them the men were shifting, pushing toward her. She came down the stairs like the promise of a succubus, like a man’s wickedest, wildest fantasy come true. Each man in the room strained toward her. And all that protected her were the bodies of five burly men who cleared a little path before her. Down that path danced Cristobel, coming face-to-face with this man, quickly touching that one on the neck, blowing a kiss to a third.