Free All Through the Night by Connie Brockway Page A

that since his own coat probably had been pilfered from a rag pile, or stolen from another boy.
    Survival was all that counted here. That’s all one asked of the next day, the next month, the next year. In a place like this anything could be forfeited in the endless barter for life.
    Wordlessly Jack flipped a crown toward the boy. He snatched it out of the air, looking around to see what interested eyes had witnessed his sudden windfall.
    “She be back here,” the lad said, motioning Jack to follow. “In the kitchen here waiting fer the toffs to arrive.”
    “Toffs?” Jack kept his eyes averted from his surroundings. He kept his mind focused on the boy’s words. He did not need anything freshening his memory of that place, the acrid stench of stale urine and ancient sweat. He did not want to be here.
    “Aye,” the boy said, pushing open a door tucked into the far wall. Jack followed him in, squinting as his eyes adjusted to the sting of smoke belching from an ancient stove. “She gots a bunch of gentlemen and ladies comin‘ down ’ere any minute now to see if we deserves their aid.”
    Jack wasn’t listening. He spotted Anne just as a crippled man seized her around the shoulders. Jack surged forward but abruptly checked himself. The man wasn’t attacking her. He was falling.
    And Anne was catching him.
    She clasped the filthy man tightly, easing him gently onto the filth-strewn floor and kneeling beside him.
    Eyes riveted on her, Jack moved closer. Around him people parted before his advance. He heard her speaking. Something about making a good impression and then her hair fell about her shoulders and she looked down at it and began to cry.
    She shouldn’t cry.
    He reached down and brushed her shoulder and she turned. Recognition and confusion filled her eyes.
    “Let me help,” he heard himself say. He held out his hand and she stared at it as if he offered her some devilish pact rather than his aid. Slowly, a bemused and helpless expression on her face, she placed her hand in his. He pulled her to her feet and led her toward the corner of the room.
    There would be no privacy. Every act of procreation and survival was open for viewing in these places. But she wouldn’t know that. She would never know that, if he could help it.
    He moved nearer, using the breadth of his shoulders to block her from the others’ view, creating a little space of refuge for her.
    “Your hair has come down.” He sounded breathless.
    He could smell her, the warm, clean fragrance of her skin. It was as foreign and intoxicating as roses in January, and it was far too much to deal with in this place after all these years. He closed his eyes. The discrepancy between her and this place was too great. It disoriented him, past and present swirling together, desire and loathing running tandem in his veins.
    He felt light-headed. He cupped her shoulders in his palms and bent his head, his lips inches from her ear. Touching her set off a molten wave of longing in him. He lifted his hand, brushed a knuckle against her small, squared jaw. A butterfly caress.
    “Let me.” He swallowed. “Let me help you.”
    Dear God, he had to turn her around. He couldn’t stand looking into her clear indigo eyes a minute longer. He didn’t know what he’d do.
    He pivoted her gently about. “Bend your head.”
    She paused. Her head dropped forward.
    He lifted his hand and touched her. Exquisite. Her fineness, her delicacy. He combed his hand through the thick dark mass of hair. It slid between his fingers like cool, resilient silk. He swept it up, exposing the nape of her neck.
    Too vulnerable. Too tempting. Even in the shadows, the soft downy hairs gleamed. Her skin would be like plush, warm velvet. It would taste like soap or lavender water. His hand trembled.
    “Are you done?” she asked in a whisper. She knew. She knew he trembled like a stableboy ogling the wet nurse’s breasts.
    “Almost.” He twisted the glossy locks into a thick coil and