Free The Devlin Diary by Christi Phillips Page A

into her chosen spot and fends off the cold with a few cherished fantasies. Jenny Dorset is still young enough to believe that it’s only a matter of time before a gentleman comes along and takes her away from her life of never enough—never enough food, never enough warmth, never enough amusement—and away from her despised and servile drudgery as a seamstress’s assistant. It’s not such an outlandish idea: she’s always been pretty, everyone says so, even since the baby was born, and she is not yet eighteen. She knows that gentlemen are sometimes seen slumming ’round here, swords clattering at their hips as they make their merry way from tavern to tavern. And why shouldn’t she dream? The king himself has taken an actress as one of his mistresses and put her up in a grand house in Pall Mall with servants and coaches and every manner of luxury. Everyone knows that the only difference between an actress and a common strumpet is that actresses have the advantage of strutting their wares upon a stage.
    Jenny is thinking about how this fine gentleman will be so overcome by her beauty that he will forgive her for her youthful indiscretion, the result of which was little Jackie, when three men exit the tavern. It must be packed to the rafters inside: when the door opens, Jenny hears a riot of booming voices, clattering dishes, raucous laughter. The door shuts heavily behind them. The sounds of the tavern fade, and tobacco smoke laced with the sour smell of beer wafts through the alley. As the men stand together under a dim lantern light, Jenny takes their stock. Disappointingly, they’re not grandees: no lace, no swords, no bigwigs. Roundheads, she decides, Parliamentarians who wish to take power away from the king. Not that Jenny cares much: men are men. Even the most pious Protestant can’t resist a bit of twang now and then.
    “You’re playing a dangerous game, Osborne,” one of them says to another. The man he addresses has a wicked birthmark upon his brow, larger than a crown and so dark it’s nearly the color of blood.
    “I have an unrestricted charter to travel between England and France signed by Arlington himself,” says he. “Not to mention my patroness in France.” The two other men—one portly and one thin, both older than the one called Osborne—share a cautious glance.
    “But they’re Catholics,” the thin one says with distaste.
    “All the better to cover our activities. I tell you, gentlemen”—Osborne lowers his voice—“ever since the princess made me a party to this Devil’s pact I have had more freedom than ever before. Why should we not use it to further our own ends?”
    They talk some more, their voices so low Jenny can’t make out the words, then the men split up without so much as a by-your-leave. Osborne walks toward her. He’s better dressed than most men hereabouts, but somber-like, and not, by the looks of him, much of a tippler. He is old, at least thirty. Not exactly what she had hoped for in the way of custom, but just as she makes up her mind to tap his cheek with her fan and give him a sly wink, another whore steps out of the shadows.
    She stands between Jenny and her mark, and she is tall enough that the hood of her cloak obscures the lower half of his face. Even so, Jenny can see him—light falls on the pair from the tavern’s upstairs windows—and in Osborne’s eyes she sees a surprise that equals her own. He’s so befuddled by the harlot’s sudden appearance that Jenny nearly laughs out loud, stifling herself when she remembers what will happen to her if the old bawd discovers her. “I’ve got something for you, Mr. Osborne,” the whore says in a sultry, dulcet-toned voice.
    Osborne tries to shake her off, but she turns with him so that they remain face-to-face, his back angling toward the alley wall. His voice rises enough for Jenny to hear his anger: “I’m not going to—,” he cries, but then the whore makes a sudden lunging movement and he