Nightbred(26)

“That I will.” Dutch dropped the man, who staggered a little. “You will not harm the girl. Follow her, see how much she knows, and report back to me. Now get out of my sight.”

Werren slipped back, and waited there until she saw the two strangers disappear. She didn’t know whom they served or what they had promised Dutch, and she had never heard of Alenfar, but their conversation troubled her.

“You think I would not know you were watching?”

Werren braced herself before she turned around, and thus was able to accept without a sound the clout of her master’s hand. The ferocity of the blow nearly knocked her off her feet, but she caught the railing at the last moment and stayed upright. Her cheek swelled for several moments, and then smoothed out to its usual flawless perfection.

He’s still angry.

Werren immediately lifted her satin skirts and lowered herself to her knees. “Forgive me, Master.” She stared at the tips of Dutch’s boots. Boots she had spent an hour polishing, now caked with damp sand.

He used one to prod her. “Get up.”

Werren stood, making sure to hunch over slightly to eliminate a crucial difference in their height. Once, when she had forgotten, Dutch had noticed she stood two inches taller than him, and after beating her bloody had ordered her stripped and whipped in front of the other women.

Dutch lit one of his Cuban cigars and puffed on it. “How much has the house taken in?”

“The count at ten this evening was over two hundred thousand.” She tried not to look at the glowing tip of his cigar. “I’m sure we’ve brought in at least another hundred since.”

“What about the whores?” His eyes searched her face, waiting for any flicker of emotion in response. “What have they done for me?”

“The crew kept my ladies occupied for the first several hours.” Oh, if she could only cut out her tongue and throw it in his face. “They are now servicing the patrons at a steady pace.”

He grunted. “And who have you serviced tonight, you idle slut?”

“No one, Master.” He had given her strict instructions to touch no man but to wait for him. Had he forgotten? Sometimes he did, and then she would be punished for laziness. “I await your every desire.”

“Fucking right you do.” His mouth curled around the cigar as he puffed. “You came out here to think about your mother.”

She started to reach for her throat before she controlled the impulse. “No, Master. I was waiting for you to return.”

“I can smell your tears, you lying bitch.”

Werren’s gaze went to the cigar; he’d used one just like it to torture her after one of the men had gone missing. “Yes, Master, I lied. I was thinking of her.”

“Then we should pay a visit to her hovel.”

No argument would sway him, so Werren closed her eyes. When she opened them, the present had become the past, and she and Dutch stood in the tiny, one-room cottage of her childhood. Every detail was absolutely correct, from the crude cross fashioned of twigs and twine hanging over the door to the squat shape of the blackened three-legged pot standing over the cold, dark hearth.

“It baffles me, to see this dung heap from which you sprang.” Dutch strode around the room. “Did the duke tup her here, on the rushes, or did he call her up to the main house?”

“I can’t say, Master.” Werren picked up one of her few playthings, a torn linen napkin that had been mended and knotted into the shape of a hare. The material had been so fine she would sleep with it tucked against her cheek. “I imagine after I was born he stopped using her.”

“No, he used her here, in the dirt and the filth.” Dutch caught her arm, jerking her over to the rough-hewn table where she and her mother had taken their meals of bread and kitchen scraps. “It’s where all you greedy trollops belong.” He shoved her down face-first onto the pitted, scarred wood and held her there by the nape of her neck. “Isn’t it, Duchess?”

“Yes, Master.”

He crouched down to whisper beside her ear, “Admit it. You watched them going at it. That’s why you crave it so much.”

“Yes.” Werren had no memory of seeing Magda with anyone except the undertaker, who had only touched her to search her nightclothes for valuables before removing her corpse from the cottage. “I did watch them.”

“What are you waiting for? Hoist your skirts.”

Werren reached down and slowly pulled up the voluminous material, baring her buttocks, thighs, and stockings.

Dutch kicked her feet apart with his foot and reached down to release the front of his trousers. “Been thinking about it, haven’t you?”