“Someone taught you some mathematics, did they?”
The boy scowled. “Them numbers is easy. I ain’t no flat. I knows how to count and reckon up.”
“Well, then, Captain Sharp. I know when I’m beat. Fifteen pence it is.”
“I ain’t had my three yet.”
“As I’ve told you before, casting doubt on a gentleman’s honour is terribly bad manners. You’d get called out for less. You’ll have your three, and your fifteen—”
“Makes eighteen, that does.”
“Indeed. And you’ll have all eighteen of those pennies, once you’re clean, dried, clothed, and have eaten an entire slice of that cake. Deal?”
The boy eyed him, probing for doubt. “You really a viscount?”
“I am.”
“They say your sort always keeps their word.”
“I wish that were true. We’re certainlymeantto. But I can only speak for myself in this instance.Iwill keep my word, Tonks. I’ve kept every wager I’ve ever made. I would ask you not to doubt me again.”
“All right.” The boy propped the soapy cloth on the knobbly knee that poked out of the now-grimy water. He spat on his hand and held it out to the viscount, who eyed it with such distaste Madelaine had to laugh.
“You’ll clean that paw before you offer it to me.”
The boy scowled but flapped his hand in the water before holding it out again. Lord Cotereigh solemnly pressedthe dripping, bony fingers. “That’s the formalities concluded, Master Tonks. Now for the scrubbing.”
The boy did a good job, and much more thoroughly than Madelaine would have dared with all his bruises. She kept up her work with the cup, washing the soap from his skin. But the boy’s ribs were too sore for him to reach round and do his back, so Lord Cotereigh silently took the cloth and did that part, including a very thorough scrub of the boy’s neck and behind the ears, which made him utter a curse even Madelaine hadn’t heard before.
“Ladies are present,” Lord Cotereigh firmly reminded him. “You watch your tongue.”
“You watch yourself! You nearly had me ear off!”
“Oh, was that an ear? I thought it was some sort of mushroom, growing from this filth.”
“And how clean would you be if you ain’t never had no bath!”
Madelaine couldn’t help but smile at that, meeting Lord Cotereigh’s frown with a silent breath of laughter. “He’s quite right, my lord, sorry as I am to say it. We’re all of us flesh and blood the same.”
He dropped the wet cloth into the bath with a disgusted look, but there was an answering gleam of humour in his eye as he briskly dried his hands. “Your three minutes are up. And now it’s surely high time we washed the rats from your thatch. Where is the lice treatment, Mrs Ardingly, and how do we apply it? Which, I admit, are not words I ever expected to find myself saying.”
She smiled at him as she got to her feet to retrieve the bottle. How strange to be almost glad it was Lord Cotereigh here and not her aunt. But his firmness and briskness were exactly what the task needed, and his humour lightened what would otherwise have been a sore trial to her nerves. Her aunt wouldhave lamented and wept until the whole room was thick with sorrow and the boy nothing but a victim to be pitied.
Not that her aunt’s softness was without merit. It was her motherly fretting and the insistence on cake that had first broached the boy’s reserve. Without that, Lord Cotereigh’s high-handedness might have felt too bullying. But the boy had come to life a little under her aunt’s warmth, his guard had lowered, and now his spirit was set free to do battle with the viscount’s. She picked up the bottle from the side table where she’d put it, unsure which one of them would win.
“Surely it would be better to shave his head,” said Lord Cotereigh as she returned to kneel by the bath.
She handed him the bottle and set to work with the cup, wetting the boy’s hair, advising him to close his eyes.
Lord Cotereigh was right. Shaving the boy’s headwouldhave been easier. But how could she explain that her soft heart protested the idea? He was a beautiful boy, despite all his bones and bruises. Those blue eyes and that black hair… She hadn’t been able to order it shorn. It would’ve made him even more of a victim somehow. They did it to convicts, before transportation. She’d been down to the docks several times, on one of her inconsequential missions of mercy… She set her jaw. What good did any of it do?
Lord Cotereigh uncorked the bottle, took a sniff, and winced.
“Good Lord. What is this stuff?”
“Mainly turpentine, I believe.”
The boy, too, had caught the pungent, chemical scent. “What’s that?” He opened his eyes, jerking his head round to look, and consequently got a whole cup full of water down his face. He spluttered, wincing at the soapy water in his eyes.
