Free Trapped by Scandal by Jane Feather

somewhere to go.” He pulled his red cap over his head as he spoke.
    â€œWhat am I supposed to do here?” Hero demanded as the two men went to the kitchen door. “Twiddle my thumbs?”
    â€œWell, if you have a turn for kitchen duty, there’s plenty to do.” William gestured to the pile of dirty crockery on the dresser. His eyes held a gleam of teasing amusement. He could well guess how Lady Hero would greet such a suggestion.
    â€œI thought there was a bonne femme for such work.” Hero eyed him with a degree of malevolence.
    â€œSometimes she comes, and sometimes she doesn’t,” he responded blithely. “Stay off the streets.” He went out, followed by Marcus.
    Hero fumed for a moment or two and then got up to deal with the dirty dishes. After that, she would wash the clothes she’d been wearing earlier and hang them in the kitchen yard to dry. Whatever opinion William held about her disguise, she would still prefer to have it at hand. Such domesticity was an anodyne activity and left her mind free to wander along whatever paths it chose. Despite the grim purpose that had brought her to this house on Rue St. André des Arts, the physical excitement she felt in William’s presence was too powerful to be ignored. Just the thought of him now, as she plunged dirty mugs into a bowl of scummy, tepid water, sent shivers of anticipation along her spine and a liquid weakness to the base of her belly. She had felt like this with Tom and had desperately missed this glorious sensation of arousal. The now familiar recklessness infused her, a feeling that she had nothing to lose by indulging this lust, and that was what it was, pure and simple. Here in this dreadful place of death and horror, what could societal convention matter?
    She set the clean mugs on a shelf on the dresser andwiped her hands on her britches. It wasn’t as if she had a reputation to lose. No one apart from Alec knew where she was anyway. As she had said last night, Great-aunt Emily, her companion and ostensible chaperone, thought she was visiting friends in the wilds of the Scottish Highlands. The old lady wouldn’t worry for a moment about not hearing from her; indeed, knowing her great-aunt, Hero thought she would be too occupied with some new and as yet undiagnosed ailment to add to the compendium of her physical infirmities.
    Hero smiled affectionately. Aunt Emily was a valetudinarian but a lovable one, and Hero was fond of her. She wouldn’t cause her a moment’s anxiety if she could help it, and her present journey had been meticulously planned to ensure that her aunt slept peacefully in her bed at night.
    A half hour later, she was hanging her freshly washed britches and shirt on a makeshift washing line in the kitchen yard when the gate from the alley creaked open. Her heart raced for a moment, her hands stilling on the wet garments pinned to the line as she looked to the gate. Alec came into the yard, a bundle in his arms. He looked curiously at his sister. “Washerwoman, Hero? That’s a strange occupation for you. Are you all alone?”
    â€œIt appears I’m considered a liability on the streets,” she said tartly, turning away from the washing line. “Or so William seems to think.”
    â€œHe’s probably right,” her brother said with a careless shrug. “He usually is. See what I’ve found.” He went into the kitchen and set his bundle on the table.
    Hero approached cautiously, wondering what herbrother had obtained in the way of suitable female wear. He himself was dressed, as they all were, in the uniform of the sansculottes, his red cap tilted at an angle. She fingered the pile of coarse homespun. “Where did you find this?”
    â€œBought it all off a woman in the market in the Marais. I think it will all fit you well enough, but you don’t want to look too smart.” He laughed as he shook out a striped kirtle and