Free Wicked Company by Ciji Ware Page A

took one of her hands in his.
    “You better just tell me what this is all about, wee one.”
    “I’m not wee!” she cried, tears once again spilling over her eyelids despite her fierce efforts to hold them back. Just because Hunter had fallen into the arms of some jade at the playhouse didn’t give him license to treat her like a doltish child!
    Hunter looked abashed.
    “ Wee is just a word that seems to fit you,” he apologized. He smiled encouragingly. “Winna you tell me now?”
    Sophie took a deep breath and then, blushing furiously, told Hunter about the erotic engravings Daniel McGann had procured for Lord Lemore. When she described her encounter with the nobleman the day she delivered the last packet to his lodgings, Hunter looked aghast.
    “God’s bones!” he cursed. “Preying on such a bairn as you!”
    “Perhaps I seem a bairn to you, Hunter Robertson, but the filthy cad considered me woman enough to lay siege to my drawers!”
    “But you’re only sixteen!” he exploded. “And you look to be about twelve!”
    “Sixteen and six months!” Sophie snapped. “Lord Lemore assured me Highland lasses were frequently wed at my age and, therefore, I should know perfectly well what happens between men and women in bed—marriage or no!”
    It was Hunter’s turn to flush scarlet, and for once he was unable to summon a suitable retort.
    “When I didn’t accept his order,” Sophie continued anxiously, “Lemore hinted that he would call down those ranting clerics on us again! If that happens, Hunter, we’re finished. Da will be evicted from the Luckenbooths and we’ll have nowhere to go!”
    “’Twas probably an idle threat, to keep you from spreading tales that would call the elders down on him.”
    “And they’d be believing a bookseller’s lass against a nobleman?” she retorted sarcastically. “No, Hunter… I’m really frightened. Lord Lemore—”
    “Lord Lemore’s a twisted scoundrel, to be sure,” agreed Hunter. “But, have faith, pet. He’ll find another source of filth in this fair city, dinna you fret. And then he’ll forget about your impetuous words.” He smiled down at her reassuringly and gave her hand another squeeze. “And dinna be too hard on your da,” he added as if reading her thoughts. “He’s only trying to look after you as best he can. One man’s filthy pictures is another man’s art.”
    “I know,” Sophie replied softly. Yet it disturbed her that a man with reverence for truth and beauty could bend to the base demands of a villain like Lemore. Despite what Hunter might think, she was no longer a child, and she suspected she was in the process of discovering just how difficult adulthood could be.
    “How about a reading lesson to take your mind off your worries?” Hunter inquired, interrupting her reverie. “Since I saw you last, I have signed articles with David Beatt officially joining the playhouse, and I must be able to learn my parts, small as I suspect they’ll be. So, these days, W is one of my favorite letters,” he grinned. “W is for ‘With a Hundred Pipers’.”
    “Or ‘Winna Ye Give Me a Smile, Laddie Mine?’” Sophie replied, her spirits sinking even lower as she recalled seeing the pretty actress clinging to Hunter’s arm as he and Boswell repaired to the Pen and Feather. Her mood improved somewhat at the thought that permanent employment for Hunter meant that he could give up being a strolling player and remain in Edinburgh at least throughout the theatrical season. “Your mother and grandfather must be pleased about this stroke of good fortune,” she commented.
    “’Tis sure that Rory’s at the end of his traveling days,’’ he noted somberly, “and Jean… well, Jean’s a survivor. She’s happy to have a clean bed and a roof over her head.”
    “Who isn’t?” Sophie replied, wondering if Hunter would share a confidence because she had meted out so many this afternoon.
    “Is Jean really your mother?” Sophie asked