The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins - [49]

‘Oh, fie – plenty of women look at me like that. That is-’

Kitty snorted and rolled down another stocking, flinging it at my face. ‘No, no – true enough. Half the town wants to fuck you and the other half wants to hang you.’

I kicked off my shoes. ‘And you would like to do both, I suppose.’

She clambered on to the bed, unfastening the buttons on my breeches. And then she kissed me, a kiss of possession. She slipped her hand lower, pulled my cock free. ‘Say you are mine,’ she murmured. ‘Mine alone.’

‘I’m yours.’

She smiled. Oh, I wanted her. I wanted her now. No more waiting. I rolled her beneath me, pushing her gown high above her hips. Yes, yes, yes. I lay over her, placed all my weight upon my shoulders.

Fuck! The pain ripped through my muscles and I fell back against the bed, panting hard.

‘Tom?’ Kitty sat over me. ‘You’re hurt?’

‘Gonson chained me to a wall.’ I flung an arm across my eyes. Damn it.

She lifted my arm away. ‘Lie back.’ She undid my shirt and touched my bruised and aching shoulders. Ran her hands down to my wrists, chafed by the iron cuffs. ‘My love,’ she sighed, and unhooked her petticoat.

I sat up beneath her, kissed her neck. ‘I can’t lie on top of you. My shoulders…’

She pushed me gently back to the pillow and slid off my breeches. Wriggled free of her skirts. And then she sat astride me, leaning down to kiss my lips as she tilted her hips.

I reached down, skimming my hand up her long, smooth thigh. Silk. Perfect silk. ‘This is not-’ I began, then gasped as she pressed against me. ‘…how I imagined…’

‘Indeed?’ Kitty’s green eyes shone bright as she pushed back her hair. ‘It’s precisely how I imagined…’

Afterwards we lay quietly, Kitty resting her head upon my chest. For all the time we had spent in bed together this was different. We talked for a while, drifting. Some good had come from the day after all. If I had become a parson, this would be my sermon. Take pleasure in these quiet, sweet moments of contentment. They are few – and they are everything. I smiled, and closed my eyes…

‘Oh! You’ve fallen asleep, damn you.’

I woke with a jolt. ‘I wasn’t sleeping!’

Kitty pecked my cheek. ‘You snore when you’re awake? Fix yourself a pipe, Tom – we have a great deal to discuss. At least, I will talk and you must listen for a while – and you listen far better with a pipe between your teeth.’ She crossed her legs beneath her, still naked, still beautiful.

‘I do not snore,’ I grumbled, groping for my watch. A quarter past eight. Fuck the stars. I must effect a meeting with Charles Howard tonight, and that meant crossing the river to Southwark. I slipped from the bed. ‘Forgive me, sweetheart. I have an appointment. We’ll speak tomorrow.’ I searched through my closet, shivering as the air nipped my skin. Howard was a nobleman – I would need to dress well to join his company. But the Southwark streets were filthy and the benches at the cockfight would be rough and splintered. Hmm. I rejected a pair of velvet breeches in favour of a brown silk knit, and had just selected a satin-fronted waistcoat when I realised that the room was deathly still.

Had she fallen asleep? Or was she glaring at my back, seething with annoyance? I glanced around. Ah, yes.

‘We will speak tonight,’ Kitty said, from the bed. She threw my shirt over her head and padded across the room, half coquette, half tiger. ‘The last time you had an appointment you were attacked by a madman. Tell me what’s happened. Tell me everything.’

And so I did. Almost everything. We sat by the fire and shared a pipe while I told her about the deal I’d made with James Fleet to meet Henrietta Howard, and the terrible fight that had ensued in St James’s Park.

‘Was it thrilling?’

‘No.’ Good God, no.

‘But you hoped it would be,’ she murmured, sadly. ‘You were bored.’

It was true. And now she spoke that truth aloud, how petty and foolish it sounded. ‘Not with you.’

She climbed on to my lap and took the pipe from my lips. ‘So what now? What tangle of trouble have you fallen into?’

I told her about my visit to the palace.

‘The queen.’ She laughed in amazement. ‘Tom I could kick you – why did you not tell me of this before? So. We are to meet with Howard tonight?’

I stared at her in alarm. The thought of Howard meeting Kitty, those mad, blazing eyes raking over her… ‘No, no. He’s a monster, Kitty – truly. You cannot come with me.’

‘Why – do you forbid it? Do you think you can command my obedience now that you’ve stolen my maidenhood?’ She pressed a hand to her forehead and mock-swooned.

‘Stolen? You flung it at me with both hands.’

She giggled, burying her nose in my neck. ‘Let me help you, Tom. I’ve saved your life before.’

Yes – and killed a man to do it. What would she say, I wondered, if I told her that the Queen of England knew what she had done? That she was holding that secret over me like a blade pressed to my heart? ‘It will be a bloody, dreadful night,’ I said, trying a different tack. ‘I’m to meet him at a cockfight in Southwark.’

‘A cockfight? Perfect!’ She jumped to her feet. ‘I haven’t been to one in