The Pirate and the Pagan Read Online Free PDF

whip and threatened anatomical indignities with it if they
didn’t
“make way.”
    Cat was caught up in the violent energy of the place and she instantly recognized that she would have to be constantly on her toes here if she expected to be one step ahead of anyone else.
    Next to the coach station in Lud Lane was an inn called the Swan with Two Necks and she asked a young barmaid scrubbing the steps how to get to Cockspur Street.
    “Oooo, ’oity-toity,” replied the wench upon hearing the fashionable address.
    “Silly bitch, speak English,” said Cat, annoyed.
    “Well, I never!” said the maid, picking up her bucket and throwing the dirty water over Cat’s dusty boots.
    Cat grabbed a handful of her hair and said, “Tell me how to get to Cockspur Street or I’ll mop the bloody road with you.”
    “Lawks! Leggo! Murder!”
    “It will be murder if you don’t tell me,” Cat threatened.
    “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