‘That’s to keep the brats off, love. A girl can’t be too careful.’
Nor a man, he thought; he had been lucky in his amorous pursuits, never having contracted the pox, but he had witnessed enough of its effects never to enter the lists of love unarmoured. To say nothing of his determination to bring no more bastards into the world.
Clara straddled him and guided him inside her. ‘I had a knife from the kitchen ,’ she went on breathlessly, ‘but they had swords. Young noblemen, by the looks of them. Out for a bit of fun.’
‘You’re’ – he gasped as she rocked above him – ‘saying I stopped them somehow?’
‘And Tom, yes. Came to my rescue like knights in shining armour.’ She grunted and ground. ‘He took one through the back before they even knew you were there.’
‘What? Killed him, you mean?’
‘All I know is that the villain went down and didn’t get up again.’
‘The damned fool!’ He squirmed to get out from under Clara, but she redoubled her efforts, perhaps mistaking his panic for passion, or just not caring. Nor did his erection wilt along with his spirits, deciding, not for the first time, to go its own way regardless of his wishes. Quare’s groan had more than just frustration in it. But his mind, walled away from his body, worked with the precision of a timepiece. A commoner drawing a blade against a nobleman was serious business. To wound one, or God forbid kill one, even in self-defence, was a death sentence. The Worshipful Company couldn’t protect them from that. What had Aylesford done?
‘After that, it come fast and furious,’ Clara continued meanwhile, suiting her actions to her words. ‘I wanted to run, but I was terrified. I couldn’t hardly bring myself to look. I thought you and Tom was finished, outnumbered two to one. Then it would be my turn.’ Clara gave a little scream, her breasts smacking against her chest as she climaxed, and he felt his own climax rise up in answer. Clara clung to him. But even then, her stream of words did not slow. ‘Turned out to be the other way round. Your friend mightn’t look like much, but he’s a demon with a sword. Two clockmen plucking those feathered popinjays: it did my heart good to see!’ She laughed, then at last took notice of his struggles. ‘Why, what’s the matter, love? Crushing you, am I?’
‘Nothing personal.’ Quare pushed her away and sat up. He pulled the sheath from his drooping member and let it fall to the dirty floor. He must have been drunk indeed to have drawn his sword against nobility, regardless of the provocation. No doubt the hot-headed Aylesford had acted first, and he’d followed suit, swept up in the excitement. But that wouldn’t save him from punishment. That he remembered none of it only added to his anxiety. He wondered what had happened to Mansfield, Farthingale and Pickens. ‘It was just the two of us, you say? No others?’
‘That’s right.’
He rubbed his throbbing temples and groaned. ‘Then what happened?’
‘Why, you cut down one man, and Tom took care of two.’ Clara, sitting cross-legged beside him, pantomimed two quick sword thrusts to his chest. ‘The last man tried to run, but the two of you got him before he’d taken half a step.’ A third thrust illustrated the man’s fate.
Clammy horror settled over Quare. ‘We killed them all?’
‘Nobody stopped to check the bodies,’ she said with a shrug. ‘The three of us beat it out the back door before the Charleys or the redbreasts could show up.’
Quare groaned again. If any of the men had survived, no doubt they’d already provided descriptions of their attackers. If, on the other hand, he and Aylesford had killed them all, it was possible that the Charleys – the city watch – didn’t have any leads. But that wouldn’t be the case for long. The watch – or, more likely, Sir John Fielding’s red-waistcoated Bow Street Runners – would want to interview all those present at the Pig and Rooster last night, and the table of journeymen hadn’t exactly been inconspicuous. With the exception of Aylesford, a stranger (who would have attracted notice for that reason alone), they were all regulars at the tavern, known by name. Sooner or later, the Charleys would hear of them and come looking. And when, inevitably, someone – perhaps Mansfield or one of the others – spilled the beans about Aylesford’s penchant for duelling, the prickly redhead would find himself a wanted man. And if, as seemed likely, the two of them had been seen together during the fracas, so would Quare. He felt the remorseless logic of the situation closing around him like the bars of a Newgate prison cell.
‘It’s funny,’ Clara mused meanwhile. ‘The fight sobered Tom right up, but it made you even drunker. You could barely walk. The two of us practically had to carry you through the streets. I was afraid you’d been wounded, stabbed; there was blood on your coat and hands. But you swore you was fine. I didn’t like to send you off in such a state, so I brought you here instead, both of you. My heroes.’
Quare still remembered none of it. She might have been talking about someone else entirely. It gave him an eerie feeling, as if his body had a life of its own, separate from his mind, and though he’d just had a vivid illustration of that very fact here in bed with Clara, what she was relating to him now went well beyond that momentary estrangement.
‘I offered to take you on free of charge, however you wanted, one at a time or both together,’ Clara went on, blushing like the innocent girl she must have been once upon a time. ‘Tom was shy, said he was saving himself, but you were willing enough. He went out onto the landing to give us a bit of privacy, but we’d barely started before you jumped up, ran to the window and … Well, you can guess the rest, I’m sure, love, even if you don’t remember. A blessing there. Afterwards, you came back to bed and passed out, like. That left Tom and me. I wanted to do something for him – to show my appreciation – but he brushed me off again, told me he couldn’t even if he’d wanted to, that he was too tired to think of anything but sleep. I said he was welcome to share the bed with us, and so he did.’
‘I wish he had woken me before he left,’ Quare said. ‘We could be in big trouble. We need to get our stories straight.’
At which Clara blushed more deeply than ever.
‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘It’s just’ – she shifted, averting her eyes, then looking at him again – ‘I did wake up once last night and saw the two of you …’
‘Yes?’ he prompted.
‘Mind you, I’ve nothing against it. Live and let live, I always say.’
‘I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t breathe a word to anyone.’
Comprehension dawned. ‘You think …?’ He burst into laughter.
‘I know what I saw.’
‘And just what was that?’
‘Tom was cleaving to you from behind, one hand clapped over your mouth. He saw me looking and winked at me over your shoulder, hissed at me to go back to sleep.’
‘You were already asleep,’ Quare said, disconcerted by the image. ‘You dreamed the whole thing.’
She shook her head and repeated, ‘I know what I saw.’
‘And I suppose I slept right through everything?’
‘Slept through it?’ She gave a disbelieving laugh. ‘Why, bless me, you were grunting like a pig the whole time!’
Quare’s amusement had soured altogether. He got out of bed and began to dress. ‘I think I’d remember if anything like that had happened.’
‘Like you remember killing them men in the Pig and Rooster?’