Free Kit by Marina Fiorato Page A

most men I’ve no interest in seducing women who do not want to be seduced.’
    Kit relaxed back against the curve of the silver bath.
    Maria stood. ‘I will leave you. Come and see me in the morning – your disguise should be cool enough to try.’
    Kit was asleep as soon as her head touched the feather pillow of her bed, and slept the blank dreamless sleep of the truly exhausted.
    In the morning she rose before the sun, at the gentle knock of a servant, but felt more refreshed than she’d done since Richard left. The silver prick lay on top of the folded clothes, and she tied it on first before donning her breeches. She would never have dreamed that something wrought of metal could be so comfortable – the thing was light and discreet, and its moulded seams sat smoothly against her tender parts with no chafing. But she almost cried when she had to don her uniform, stiff with sweat and seawater and greasy with stains. Now she must remove her treasure pouch from between her legs; instead she tied the heavy pad of coins around her waist, thickening it and giving her a cleaner male line from shoulder to hip.
    She went downstairs to find Maria at breakfast, at a table set with silver platters and spoons, and lit with candles anticipating daylight.
    ‘How is your prick?’ asked Maria with no preamble.
    ‘It feels like a part of me.’
    Maria inclined her head, taking this strange statement as the compliment it was. ‘Gennaro will guide you to the Piazza Reale.’ She called for her giant, and he appeared with a noiselessness that belied his size. ‘We don’t open till sunup, so I don’t need him till then.’
    Kit felt for her purse. ‘First I must pay the reckoning.’
    Maria shook her head, and her pale hair flew about her face. ‘I told you there would be no price. Your problem challenged me. If you are satisfied, then I am too.’
    ‘I will always be in your debt.’
    And slowly, deliberately, Kit placed her hands on the table among all the silver plate and the candles, bent down and kissed Maria van Lommen chastely, but firmly, on the lips.

Chapter 6
    And we met Sergeant Knacker and Captain Vamp …
    ‘Arthur McBride’ (trad.)
    The shady square before the pied cathedral was coloured with redcoats, ranked in approximate positions, under the haughty eye of the Marquis de Pisare. Kit hurried along the lines, noting the shadowed eyes, yawning mouths and rank breaths smoking in the foredawn, and knew Maria had been right – they had all of them spent the night at some tavern or molly house. At last she recognised some faces from The Truth and Daylight and pushed into the lines alongside them.
    Of all people, the recruit she’d rebuked at the shrine joshed her as she fell in. ‘Didn’t see you at the tavern, you sly fox. Been a-burrowing in some trugging place?’
    Kit smiled and winked broadly. ‘I spent the night with a woman, yes.’ She leant close to his greasy ear. ‘As I do every night.’
    He shouted with laughter and clapped Kit on the back between the shoulder blades. It was working.
    Lieutenant Gardiner paced before them, as correct and chilly as ever. ‘If I call your name, step forth.’ Kit half-listened to the names, mostly good Irish names from Mayo, from Cork, from Waterford. Then she saw the marquis murmur in Gardiner’s ear and point at her. ‘Christian Walsh.’
    She stepped forward, the blood thrumming in her ears. Had she been discovered? She looked about her; she was in company with a row of ten or more strong men, all of whom she recognised as the ones who had been practising manoeuvres on the ship.
    ‘You dozen will report to Captain Ross at the lighthouse. You’re to be enrolled in the dragoons.’
    The lighthouse stood on a pretty rocky cape on a peninsula reaching out into the blue sea. The tower was constructed in two square portions, each one capped by a crenellated terrace crowned by a lantern. The lower prism was painted with a red cross on a white ground, and Kit