How to Tame Your Duke(4)

Emilie picked up her knife and fork with numbed fingers and sawed off a leg from her chicken.

Gradually her ears began to pick up sound again, her nose to acquire  smells. To her right, a rumble of discontent ricocheted among the card  players.

"Unless my eyesight is capable of penetrating the backs of your cards,"  the boy was saying, his voice skidding perilously between one octave and  the next, "your accusation is impossible, sir. I must beg that you  retract it."

One of the men shot upward, overturning his chair. "Nor bloody likely, ye fuggling wee bugger!"

"You are wrong on both counts. I am neither dishonest nor a practicing sodomite," said the boy, with unnatural calm.

The man flung out his arm and overturned the pile of coins next to the boy's right arm. "And I say ye are!" he yelled.

Or so Emilie presumed. The words themselves were lost in the crash of  humanity that followed the overturning of the coins onto the floor.

Emilie, who had just lifted the chicken leg to her mouth with a certain  amount of relish-she had never, ever been allowed to touch a morsel of  food without the intercession of one utensil or another-nearly toppled  in the whoosh of air as a long-shanked figure dove from his seat near  the fireplace and into the tangle of flailing limbs.

"Oh, fuck me arse!" yelled the barmaid, three feet away. "Ned! Fetch t'bucket!"

"Wh-what?" said Emilie. She rose from her chair and stared in horror. A  coin went flying from the writhing mass before her and smacked against  her forehead in a dull thud.

"I'll take that." The barmaid swooped down and snatched the coin from among the shavings.

"Madam, I . . . Oh good God!" Emilie ducked just in time to avoid a  flying bottle. It crashed into the fire behind her in a shattering  explosion of glass and steam, laced with turpentine.

Emilie looked at her wine and chicken. She looked down at her battered  leather valise, filled with its alien cargo of masculine clothing and  false whiskers. Her heart rattled nervously in her chest.                       
       
           



       

"Excuse me, madam," she said to the barmaid, ducking again as a pewter tankard soared through the air, "do you think . . ."

"Ned! Bring t'bleeding bucket!" bellowed the barmaid. The words had  hardly left her lips when a thick-shouldered man ran up from behind,  bucket in each hand, skin greasy with sweat. "About time," the barmaid  said, and she snatched a bucket and launched its contents into the  scrum.

For an instant, the scene hung suspended, a still-life drawing of  dripping fists halted in mid-swing and lips curled over menacing teeth.  Then a single explicit curse burst fluently from some masculine throat,  and the fists connected with solid flesh. Someone roared like a wounded  lion, a feral sound cut off short by a smash of breaking glass.

"Ye'd best fly, young sir," said the barmaid, over her shoulder, as she tossed the second bucket into the fray.

"Right," said Emilie. She picked up her valise and stumbled backward.  She had already engaged a room upstairs, though she wasn't quite sure  where to find it; but at least she knew there was an upstairs, a refuge  from the brawl, which seemed to be growing rather than ebbing. Two men  ran in from the other room, eyes wild, spittle flying from their lips,  and leapt with enthusiasm onto the pile.

Emilie took another step backward, a final longing gaze at her chicken.  She'd only had a single rubbery bite, her first meal since a hurried  lunch of cheese sandwich and weak tea at the station cafe in Derby, as  she waited for the next train in her deliberately haphazard route. She  hadn't thought to bring along something to eat. What princess did? Food  simply arrived at the appropriate intervals, even during the flight from  the Continent, procured by one loyal retainer or another. (Hans did  have a knack for procuring food.) This chicken, tough and wretched, pale  and dull with congealed grease, was her only chance of nourishment  until morning. The dismembered leg lay propped on the edge of the plate,  unbearably tantalizing.

At the back of Emilie's mind, Miss Dingleby was saying something strict,  something about dignity and decorum, but the words were drowned out by  the incessant beat of hunger further forward in the gray matter. Emilie  ducked under a flying fork, reached out with one slender white hand,  snatched the chicken leg, and put it in her pocket.

She spun around and hesitated, for just the smallest fraction of an instant.

"I've got ye, ye scraumy-legged bu-" The shout rang out from the melee, cut short by an oomph and a splatter.

Emilie turned back, set down her valise, and wrenched the other leg from  the chicken. The bone and skin slipped against her fingers; she grabbed  the knife and sawed through until the drumstick came loose.

A half-crown coin landed with a thud on the platter, at the bisection of  leg from trunk, in a pool of thickened grease. "Oy!" someone yelled.

Emilie looked up. A man rushed toward her, his nose flinging blood, his  arms outstretched. Emilie took the chicken leg, left the coin, and  scrambled past the chair.

"What has ye got there? Oy!"

A heavy hand landed on her shoulder, turning her around with a jerk.  Emilie held back a gasp at the stench of rotting breath, the wild glare  of the bulbous eyes. The chicken leg still lay clenched in her left  hand, the knife in her right.

"Stand back!" she barked.

The man threw back his head and laughed. "A live one! Ye manky wee gimmer. I'll . . ."

Emilie shoved the chicken leg in her pocket and brought up the knife. "I said stand back!"

"Oh, it's got a knife, has it?" He laughed again. "What's that there in yer pocket, lad?"

"Nothing."

He raised one hamlike fist and knocked the knife from her fingers. "I did say, what's that there in yer pocket, lad?"

Emilie's fingers went numb. She looked over the man's shoulder. "Watch out!"

The man spun. Emilie leaned down, retrieved the knife, and pushed him  full force in his wide and sagging buttocks. He lurched forward with a  hard grunt and grabbed wildly for the chair, which shattered into sticks  under his hand. Like an uprooted windmill he fell, arms rotating in  drunken circles, to crash atop the dirty shavings on the floor. He  flopped once and lay still.

"Oh, well done!"

The boy popped out of nowhere, brushing his sleeves, grinning. He pushed  his spectacles up the bridge of his nose and examined the platter of  limbless chicken. "I do believe that's mine," he said, taking the half  crown and flipping it in the air.

"Wh-what?" asked Emilie helplessly.

"Freddie, ye feckless gawby!" It was the barmaid. Her hands were fisted  on her hips, and her hair flew in wet strands from her cap.                       
       
           



       

"I'm sorry, Rose," said the boy. He turned to her with a smile.

Rose? thought Emilie, blinking at the broad-shouldered barmaid.

"Ye has to watch yer mouth, Freddie," Rose was saying, shaking her head.  Another shout came from the mass of men, piled like writhing snakes  atop one another on the floor nearby. Someone leapt toward them, shirt  flapping. Rose picked up Emilie's half-empty wine bottle and swung it  casually into the man's head. He groaned once and fell where he stood.  "I've told ye and told ye."

"I know, Rose, and I'm sorry." Young Freddie looked contritely at his shoes.

"Ye'd best fly, Freddie, afore yer father come a-looking. And take t'poor young sod with ye. He never is fit for wrastling."

Freddie turned to Emilie and smiled. "I think you've misjudged him, Rose. He's got a proper spirit."

"I have nothing of the sort," Emilie squeaked. She took a deep breath  and schooled her voice lower. "That is, I should be happy to retire. The  sooner"-she ducked just in time to avoid a spinning plate, which  smashed violently into the wall an instant later-"the better, really."

"All right, then. Don't forget your valise." Freddie picked it up and  handed it to her, still smiling. He was a handsome lad, really, beneath  his spots. He had a loose-limbed lankiness to him, like a puppy still  growing into his bones. And his eyes were pure blue, wide and friendly  behind the clear glass of his spectacles.

"Thank you," Emilie whispered. She took the valise in her greasy fingers.

"Have you a room?" Freddie asked, dodging a flying fist.

"Yes, upstairs. I . . . Oh, look out!"

Freddie spun, but not in time to avoid a heavy shoulder slamming into his.

"Jack, ye drunken taistril!" screeched Rose.

Freddie staggered backward, right into Emilie's chest. She flailed  wildly and crashed to the ground. Freddie landed atop her an instant  later, forcing the breath from her lungs. The knife flew from her  fingers and skidded across the floor.