He threw his coat down, and stood in his waistcoat and shirt sleeves. The right sleeve of his finely pleated linen shirt had been cut short at the elbow and neatly hemmed, unlike his coat, which was tailored in the usual way.
“Of course, if you’d rather not,” she said quickly, “I’ll understand!”
“No. I insist. You are perfectly right to safeguard your health by making certain of mine,” he said, unbuttoning his waistcoat.
“You can keep your shirt on if you prefer.”
His lip curled. “I would not have you treat me any differently than you would your other lovers!” he said coldly. “You will find nothing wrong with me, however.”
Loosening his cravat, he tore off his collar and pulled his shirt off over his head.
She stared at him in dismay. While he was not covered in sores, the thick, bristling, black hair that covered his torso was scarcely more attractive to her than a nasty rash would have been. On his chest it grew in ugly, black whorls, and, on his belly, deep, thick chevrons plunged downward to his loins. She hardly looked at his amputated limb. That, at least, she thought, a little irrationally, is not his fault.
“There,” he said, slapping his belly proudly. “That, madam, is all muscle. I walk four miles a day without fail. I am as fit as a fiddle.”
A hairy fiddle! she thought with ill-concealed disgust.
In a few minutes more, after an embarrassing struggle with his boots, he was standing before her naked as the day he was born. As always, his posture was excellent. The hair at the joining of his thighs was especially bushy, and the pale flesh of his manhood retreated into it like a little bird into a nest. It was so ugly it was almost fascinating.
“You know,” she said thoughtfully. “You don’t look like the sort of man who’d be all furry under his clothes. I thought you’d be smoother.”
“As you can see, madam, there is nothing the matter with my private parts,” he said, taking himself in hand. “Normal in size and color. Scrupulously clean. Free of all disease.”
Cosy tried to look knowledgeable and interested. “Could you turn around please?” she asked. Her voice squeaked, and she cleared her throat to regain some control over it.
“Certainly.”
“Hmmm,” she said thoughtfully, as she considered what to do next. If she hit him on the head with the poker, there would be the danger of killing him, while the bellows might not be heavy enough to knock him out completely. It was a difficult choice. Meanwhile, the back side of the man was not unworthy of a glance. His shoulders, back, and buttocks were smooth and white. His muscular legs were as much like carved marble as she could wish. There was only a little hair on the back of his calves. If only the front of him matched the back!
“Well?” Benedict said.
“Hush, man! The angels are singing,” she said, stalling for time. Her eye went to the bottle of whiskey. That would knock him out as well as the poker, she reasoned, without breaking his skull. Perfect! “Shall we drink on it, sir?” she asked brightly, jumping up to pour him a glass. When he turned around, she saw with some surprise, that her disgust of him was not as strong as it had been. There was something odd and fascinating about his hairy body, now that she had seen his naked back. He was like a god and a beast joined into one being.
“There are better ways of sealing a bargain such as this,” Benedict grumbled. He was cold, and the cold had caused his manly flesh to shrink. Too proud to offer excuses for his poor showing, he was more eager than ever to give her a practical proof of his fitness.
“To Ireland!” she insisted. “You’ll not refuse to drink to Ireland?”
“To Ireland,” he agreed irritably. He wanted her so badly, he would have toasted France. Against his better judgment, he then drank to Father Murphy, who died for Ireland, and, then to the Boys of Wexford, who also, apparently, died for Ireland. Each time he drank, his glass was refilled as if by magic. She was amazed he was still on his feet.
“To Lord Edward Fitzgerald!” she said, finally, in desperation.
Benedict felt queasy, and the room seemed to be in motion around him. “Did this Lord Edward die for Ireland, too?” he asked suspiciously.
“He did!”
“Excellent,” he said. He drank, and then asked with disarmingly simple innocence, “What happens now? Do we go to bed?”
“Darling,” she said, “you’d never make it.”
The room began to spin around him like a carousel. “I see what you mean,” he mumbled as he slipped painlessly to the floor. “Let’s do it right here, where the cat sleeps.”
“Sleep well, caro mio ben,” she said, kicking him to make sure he was unconscious. “What kept you?” she demanded as Nora belatedly came flying out of the scullery brandishing a frying pan.
“I thought you liked him,” said Nora, staring at the man. “You sang to him and all.”
Cosima’s eyes blazed. “I did no such shameless thing!” she cried. “And if you tell anyone, old woman, I’ll kill you.”
Nora was a little near-sighted. “’Tis a good thing you threw that old carriage rug over him, the naked hoor.”
“I’ve got news for you, Nora,” Cosy retorted. “That’s no carriage rug!”
Chapter 3
“Is it murder?” Ajax Jackson wanted to know.
The two women had awakened the manservant with a bucket of cold water. The massive, wall-eyed Irishman was not entirely sober, but neither was he entirely drunk. His iron-gray hair hung down his back in rivulets. Fortunately, he had fallen asleep in his clothes.
“Murder, indeed!” Nora Murphy scoffed. “And ourselves without a bog handy?”
“There’s a river, woman,” he told Nora. “A river’s as good as a bog.”
Nora rolled her eyes. “The Avon River is not the sort of river you can just toss a body in whenever it suits you. It’s not the Liffey! Sure the people would take notice of a corpse splashing around in the Avon River.”
“Just get him out of here, please,” Cosy said wearily. She stood at a distance, holding the cat in her arms. The naked Englishman looked so harmless in his sleep that she wasn’t even sure she was still angry. She was beginning to think this was all her fault. Perhaps she had flirted with him just a little too hard, given him too much to drink. She knew she had been showing off for him, singing in Italian like a hussy! What was he supposed to think, the poor man, when she turned on the charm like that? If they didn’t get him out of her kitchen soon, she would be down on her knees, waking him up to beg his pardon. Unthinkable!
“We’ll hand him a nice beating first, of course,” Nora said eagerly.
“While he’s drunk?” Jackson sneered. “He’d think it was patty fingers with all the blood running in his eyes. Now, if your brothers were here to defend you, Miss Cosy, they’d geld him for your sake, and he’d wake up with his cullions in his mouth.”
“Ugh!” said Cosy, revolted.
“Too much blood,” said practical Nora. “We could tar and feather him, I suppose.”
“And ourselves without any tar? We could bridle him,” Jackson suggested.
Cosy looked interested. “Bridle him? I never heard of that.”
“May God preserve your innocence, child,” said Nora. “You force the iron bit of a bridle into the unsavory mouth of him. That way his tongue may acquire a touch of civility.”
That sounded like a fair