“D’ye have any girls who’ve worked in the house for … oh, say, five years at least?”
“Five years?” the short one blurted. She scrambled to her feet, and at first he thought she meant to flee, but she just wanted a closer look at him. She looked him over with as much frankness as he’d displayed with her friend, but with an air of fascination as well.
“What on earth can a whore do that takes five years to learn?” She sounded as though she truly wanted to find out, and he looked at her with more interest. She might think he was a pervert, but she was game, and he was that wee bit shocked to find it aroused him more than Meg’s nipples. He cleared his throat.
“I’d like to ken the answer to that one, too, lass,” he said, smiling at her. “But what I want just now is a girl who kent Jane Pocock.”
80
A Word for That
THE STREETS OF PHILADELPHIA were filled with food—at least they were when the British army wasn’t occupying the city. It wasn’t, at the moment, and there were pies for sale, both meat and fruit, big salt-dusted German Bretzeln carried on sticks like a ring-toss, fried fish, sugar-dusted crullers, stuffed cabbage leaves, and buckets of beer, all available within footsteps of the building where the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends conducted most of its business.
Unfortunately, most of the available food wasn’t of a style or shape that would make throwing it against a wall very satisfying. Fuming, Rachel glanced to and fro, and settled on an apple seller.
“Here,” she said, handing one of the yellow-and-pink fruits to Silvia Hardman. Silvia looked at it in surprise, then lifted it uncertainly toward her mouth.
“No,” Rachel said. “Like this!” And turning on her heel, she drew back her arm and flung the apple as hard as she could against the trunk of a massive oak tree that stood in the park where they’d gone to gather themselves. The apple exploded into bits and juice, and Rachel drew a satisfied breath.
“Imagine it is the head of Friend Sharpless,” she advised Silvia. “Or perhaps that oaf Phineas Cadwallader.”
“Oh, him, to be sure.” Silvia’s face was as flushed as the apple, and with a little umph! she hurled her fruit at the tree, but missed.
Rachel ran to fetch it back, then guided Silvia closer to the tree.
“Put thy fingers so,” she said, “then draw thy arm back and fix thy eye firmly upon the spot thee has chosen. Then throw, but do not let thine eye stray.”
Silvia nodded and, taking a fresh grip upon the apple, faced the tree with the fire she should have shown to Friend Cadwallader, and let fly.
“Oh.” She made a small sound of pleased surprise. “I didn’t think I could.” She laughed, but self-consciously, looking over her shoulder. “I suppose this is sinfully wasteful, but …”
“Ask the squirrels if they think so,” Rachel advised, nodding toward one of these creatures, who had rushed down the trunk of the tree within seconds of the first impact and was now on the ground, stuffing itself with the fragments of their bombardment. Silvia looked, then glanced around. At least a dozen more were bounding across the grass, tails bushy with purpose.
“Well, then,” she said, and drew a deep breath. “Thee is right. I feel much calmer.”
“Good. Can thee eat?” Rachel asked. “I’m starved. Perhaps we might have a pie and discuss what to do next.”
The calmness at once disappeared from Silvia’s face, replaced with pale apprehension, but she nodded and obediently followed Rachel back onto the street.
“I should not have gone,” Silvia said, pausing after a bite or two of her beef-and-onion pie. “I knew what they would say.”
“Yes, thee told me, but I didn’t want to believe it.” Rachel bit into her own pie, frowning. “That people who profess charity and the love of Christ could speak in such a way! No wonder thy husband turned his back upon them.”
“Gabriel wasn’t one to stand what he thought of as interference,” Silvia agreed ruefully. “But thee can see their point, surely? I am in fact exactly what they said—a whore.”
Rachel wanted to contradict her on the spot, but having opened her mouth to do so, paused, then took another bite of flaky pastry and gravy.
“Thee had no choice,” she said, after chewing and swallowing.
“Mr. Cadwallader appeared to think I had,” Silvia said, a little tartly. “I should have married again—”
“But thee didn’t know whether thy husband was dead! How could thee marry?”