Free Kate Moore by To Kiss a Thief

uninterested in the odd manner of their arrival or their lack of baggage. Above them the city faded into gray-blue indistinctness as they clattered through the twilight. Their way led continuously uphill, until Margaret felt the strain on the horse and knew they must stop. The last bit, the large shaggy man explained, they must travel on foot. They dismounted, and the two men closed around them, like guards leading prisoners, Margaret thought. They passed worn buildings stained with soot and rust, but covered with blue tiles like nothing Margaret had ever seen, so that she could not help but gaze in wonder. Hundreds of tiles composed pictures of heroes and saints.
    The inn which they soon entered had but a few sailorish patrons in the taproom. The atmosphere was one of indifference, of letting one’s fellow man go to the devil in his own way. A man lay sprawled across a table, apparently unconscious, while two others shouted violently at each other without arousing anyone’s notice. Where was Margaret to find someone to confide in, someone to help her? The proprietess, a thin, shrill woman, smiled warmly at her companion, but dropped Margaret the briefest of curtsies and led them without delay to an upper room. It was an unexpectedly large apartment with a massive bed at one end, a bright fire in the hearth at the other and windows looking down the street and across the city. Drew gave the woman a few peremptory commands and the inevitable gold coin, and she hurried off. They were alone.
    It was a circumstance Margaret felt she ought to welcome both as a respite from the looks to which her companion’s lies had subjected her and as a chance to recover the earl’s papers, but she was wary now of being alone with her thief. The very nearness of him seemed to weaken her best weapons—reason and conscience.
    “Come to the window, Meg,” he invited. Reluctantly she joined him, keeping her distance, and they stood looking out together.
    “She’s hardly a lady, this city, but she’s not without her airs, her bits of lace or ribbon.”
    Margaret followed his gaze and saw the violet sky-line like a lace border, the street a giddy distance below.
    “You played your part well,” he complimented.
    Before Margaret could answer, the proprietess returned with a gleaming copper tub and a pile of towels. The shaggy man followed, bearing two great steaming cauldrons. At Drew’s direction, they placed the tub before the fire and poured the bath.
    “Your bath, Meg,” he said to her as soon as the others had left.
    Margaret stared at him, horrified, but he only laughed.
    “I am going out and mean to be gone some time. Make use of my absence as you like.” He gave her cheek a careless brush with the backs of his fingers. Then he was gone.
    When his quick footfalls could no longer be heard upon the stairs, Margaret opened the door and stepped into the hall. The shaggy man was sitting in the dark at the head of the stairs, eating. He held a large bowl under his chin and shoveled heaping spoonfuls of its contents into his mouth. His beard glistened here and there where drops had spilled on it. At Margaret’s appearance he put aside the bowl and patted his great thighs, gesturing that she should come to him. His gaze, rude and particular, took in her whole person and came to rest on her breasts. She retreated immediately, grateful that the door to this room at least could be locked. The shaggy man’s laugh echoed after her. Of course she could not escape; her thief would never be so careless as to allow it. Resignedly she turned to the bath.
    ***
    She had to acknowledge that the bath was most welcome and indeed it revived her spirits so that she waited with some impatience for Drew’s return. He must have the papers on his person, and she must study him closely for some sign of the pocket in which they were kept. She could not fail in another awkward search of him. At his knock she unlocked the door and let him in. At once, however,