Page 8 of The Pirate and the Pagan
“Down Fleet to the Strand … straight down the Strand nearly to the palace.”
Cat murmured under her breath, “Look out, London, here I come, ready or not.” At that moment her stomach rolled so loudly, a mangy mongrel jumped aside and she let out a peel of laughter. She bought a veal pasty from a pieman to stave off her hunger and strode off toward Fleet Street.
Every detail fascinated her. She glanced in every shop, here an apothecary offering cures for impotence, there a secondhand clothing shop offering dead men’s boots, and on each and every corner stood a tavern named after Charles II, either the King’s Head, the King’s Arms, or the Royal Oak. She saw boy chimney sweeps, soot black from head to foot, and a rat catcher with dead rats and mice hanging from his hat.
By the time she had followed the Strand around the bend in the river and located Cockspur Street she was dusty, dirty, and footsore. She noticed that in this part of town the streets were clean and the houses immaculate. She ran up the steps of number five and knocked loudly. A footman opened the door, looked down his long nose at her, and said, “Get away from this house, you varlet.”
In a flash her boot prevented him shutting the door in her face. She reached inside the jacket and pulled out a pistol. His eyes rolled up into his head and he cried, “Help! Robbers!”
A woman’s voice drawled, “James, whatever is the racket, don’t you know the house is in mourning?”
Cat looked over the sophisticated woman from head to toe, taking in the platinum curls, the painted face, the silk gown, the ivory fan, and the white Persian cat on a silver leash, and said uncertainly, “Auntie Lil?”
The small woman looked at her blankly.
“I’m Summer, but I prefer to be called Cat.” She tucked the pistol away and pulled out the letter. Lady Richwood’s mouth fell open. Recovering only slightly, her hand at her throat, she said, “How extraordinary! How did you get here?”
“I walked.”
“How extraordinary! Come in before anyone sees you.” As Lil stood staring at the young girl who was her niece, her heart melted like snow in summer. “Oh, child, whatever has he done to you?” she cried. She had been prepared to thoroughly dislike Lady Summer St. Catherine, thinking her the spoiled and pampered heiress of Roseland, but the girl she saw before her had obviously had no advantages whatsoever. In fact, by the looks of her, she had been neglected shamefully. “Come and sit down, darling, I’m afraid I have some upsetting news for you.” She took a deep breath. “Your father died last night.”
Cat pulled off her woolen cap and her hair fell about her shoulders untidily. She felt nothing. No sorrow. No joy. “I feel numb,” she said, sitting down hard on the elegant brocade settee.
“Summer, my poor darling, you don’t need to explain things to me. He was my brother. I know what a swine he was. He isn’t in the house—the undertaker took him for burial to St. John’s-in-the-Wood. … I didn’t know if you would come.”
“There’s no money to pay for it, what will I do?” asked Cat helplessly.
“Well, I think we’ve both had experience in coping when there’s no money.” She removed the silver leash from the white Persian cat and it jumped up on the brocade settee. “First things first. You look like you haven’t eaten in a week.”
“I’ve eaten twice.”
“Today?”
“No … this week.”
“Oh, darling, you are droll. We need something to cheer us up. For dessert we’ll have strawberries. I’m particularly partial to strawberries,” she drawled. “I’ll feed you and bathe you, and then we’ll do what women do best. We’ll talk, darling.”
Lil found her a snow-white nightgown beribboned and decorated with lace. It was easily the prettiest garment she had ever worn. Her freshly washed hair curled damply about her face as she sat beside the bedchamber fire to dry it.
“Now then, darling,” said Lil in her beautiful, husky drawl, “your father asked me to give you this book and these papers. Said something about a black man which made no sense.”
Cat unsealed the large parchment and slowly began to decipher the legal words. Suddenly she jumped up and sent her stool flying. “The man should burn in hell!” she cried. “He’s mortgaged Roseland to the hilt and the note is due! My God, if he wasn’t dead, I’d kill him!” She paced the room and tore open a second paper. “Oh, no! It’s a bill of sale for my horse, Ebony. Rancid old bastard! I’ve got to get home … I’ve got to get some money … but how?”
“It has always been my experience, Summer darling, that since men control all the wealth, it is only logical that a woman who needs money must get it from some man.”
“You mean marry for money?” asked Cat with loathing. “I don’t think I could ever marry, not even for money. All men are vile and selfish. If I married someone wealthy, my money problems might be solved, but my other problems would just be starting and I’d be saddled with him for the rest of my life. The last thing I want is marriage!”
“Oh, darling, it isn’t as simple as that. In London marriage, I’m afraid, is completely out of fashion. Liaisons are all the rage now, you see, but in your case even that would be almost impossible.”
“Why?” asked Cat bluntly.
Lady Richwood hesitated then decided to speak plainly. “You are out of fashion. They are mad for blondes at the moment. Black hair on a woman is considered ugly, foreign, Portuguese like the poor unfortunate Queen. Darling, let me be blunt with you. You stride about in boots like a man, swearing and saying exactly what you think. Men don’t want that. They want a painted doll who smiles sweetly, eats like a bird, dresses like an angel, has the manners of a lady, someone who is dainty, amusing, and acquiescent.”
“Acquiescent?” repeated Cat suspiciously.
“Willing to do whatever they ask in bed,” supplied Lil.
“So that’s what liaison means,” said Cat, shuddering. “Men are so disgustingly evil. In this world men do all the taking and women do all the giving. It’s not fair! You are suggesting I sell my body for money to some lecherous old man. I’d much rather steal the money. It wouldn’t bother my conscience to steal from a man.”
