Sixteen

An Unquenchable Thirst

Philip paid tuppence to a linkboy to light his way through the streets encased in blackness. With his right hand ready on his sword, he set his direction for the George and Vulture, absently reaching into his left pocket and fingering the necklace, wondering what price it might bring. He deliberated offering it first to Lady Yarmouth. Surely she would rather buy it back than suffer the king’s wrath once the news was made known to him of her loss.

Although George II doted on his Hanoverian mistress, he was reputed as the most parsimonious of monarchs and the countess would wish to avoid an embarrassing explanation. Philip decided that after appraising his prize, he would send George Selwyn as his emissary to negotiate a price with the countess, not daring to meet with her himself after the way she had devoured him over the card table.

Still seething from the way this evening had ended, he detoured from his original destination in favor of Tom King’s establishment, bent now on quenching his fever as well as his thirst at the only available venue for such late-night debauchery. Although the watering hole was notoriously dark and dank, it was, strangely, one of the few places in London where one might as easily encounter a duke as a fishmonger among the late-night frequenters. While its proprietor, Tom, tended the tap, his common-law wife, Moll, acted as procuress. The pair only managed to evade the law against running a disorderly house by the establishment’s conspicuous lack of beds.

“Ye be looking fer Nell, I s’pose?” Moll King asked rhetorically when Philip entered the one-room tap.

“Is she previously… engaged?” He surveyed the room, squinting at the shadowy forms of groping couples. Although he had come for much the same purpose, tonight he was struck with a sudden distaste for the writhing and groaning in the back of the tavern. One did tend to avoid the darker corners at Tom’s unless engaged in company, but the arrangement had never before seemed more than mildly incongruous.

Moll eyed Philip with something near contempt. “Nay, though she passed over several o’ yer betters hopin’ ye’d appear. Don’t understand why the chit dangles after the likes of you when she could turn a pretty coin.”

Unlike most of the women working the tavern, Nell was employed as a barmaid, having left the George and Vulture for lusher and more lucrative pastures. Philip knew in time she would succumb to the life, but as yet she had refrained from doling out her favors. He had little doubt she’d yield easily enough to him without even turning on the full brunt of his charm.

“Tell her she need not wait any longer.” Philip grinned and located a table in one of the better-lit sections of the taproom.

“So, ye finally showed yer pretty face,” Nell said saucily, setting his tankard down with a slosh.

He placated her with a caress to her rump. “Surely it’s not been so very long, Nell.”

She answered with a pout. “Nigh on a sennight I been waitin’ on ye, though Lord knows why I does. There be gents aplenty every night what offers me pretty trinkets.”

“So dear Nell truly languishes for my company?” He pulled her unceremoniously onto his lap, her plump bosom close enough to his mouth to render his next words nearly unintelligible. Nell pulled away with a giggle and yanked up her bodice, mollified by his enthusiastic display.

“Enough o’ that, or all the gents will be thinkin’ me one o’ them lightskirts. Hearken now,” she whispered, “I gets off in an hour. If ye bribe Betsy, what shares me pallet, we can have it all to ourselves.”

“But one would hate to deprive poor Betsy of her bed.” Philip’s lips curled into a raffish grin. “I’ve a better notion. Why not invite her to join us?”

“A randy one you surely be this night!” She snatched herself away with another peal that strangely grated his nerves. Curiously, the same artlessness he once found charming had lost all of its appeal. In his mind, a low, throaty chuckle beckoned him as a siren’s song.

Annoyed with himself, he shook off the fancy and turned back to Nell. “An hour then, my dove?”

But after a number of tankards and before the clock chimed the hour, rather than throwing the giggling Nell’s skirts over her head and filling his hands and mouth with Betsy’s bounty, Philip left the tavern just as he had arrived… restless and empty.