The Proposition (22 page)

He was graceful and precise. He knew what he was doing.

He finished some sort of explanation. "…but only if you station the dogs in good tactical positions," he said. "Then you're ready to send the ferrets into the likely places. They raid the nest. What escapes them
has to face the dogs. And me—I try to get any who get by the first two lines of attack."

It was a battlefield to him, a war to be waged with his animal army. Winnie shuddered again. She must have made a sound, for he stopped and looked around. "You're gonna go before I start. But I just wanted you to know, I guess, it's gonna be better when I'm done." As if she'd argued with him he said, "It's none worse than foxhunting. In fact, the terriers cut their teeth on foxes. Magic here'll go to ground for fox
or
rat, follow the darn thing right under the earth, then stay there barking till you dig him and the animal out."

She grimaced. "Heavens, if I even saw a rat—" She looked at him. "What's it like?"

"See them?" He laughed at her timid curiosity. "They're going to be jumping out of the woodwork, leaping everywhere." He shook his head. "It'll be about as crazy as you can imagine for a few minutes, all of us chasing each other, with rats making us wild. It isn't pretty, Win, but it sure is exciting. You'd be safe up in the loft, if you wanted to watch."

"Safe?"

"Brown rats don't like heights."

"Um, no, thank you."

"It's a shame," he teased her. "You're missing about the most exciting thing you'll ever see in your life."

She doubted that. She suspected she was looking at the most exciting thing in her life. A man with coshes and belled collars hanging off him, in hobnailed boots that clacked like thunder on her floor, who wanted to make her carriage house "better."

"What?" he said. "Why are you staring at me like that?" He smiled, then, as if she'd accused him of something, said, "All right, I brought you out here because I wanted you to see how good I am at it. If you stayed, you'd be impressed." His face drew up further into his recklessly confident, left-tilting grin.

"I am impressed." She smiled back, if a little uneasily. Rats. Ugh. "I'm sure you're enormously competent." She shook
her
head.
"You're
good at a lot of things."

He tilted his head with interest. "You're always fixing me."

"You're good at a lot of things," she repeated.

"Do you think so?" He liked the idea.

"Yes."

She looked around. With a little shiver she could imagine his battle plan come to life. Yet it was too earthy and frightening to let her mind go very far with it. Though it would be triumphant, she didn't doubt. "So you have—" She didn't know what to call them then found, "customers and places you go?"

"Ace," he said, having fun with her.

"How do you remember where you've been and haven't been and who needs it done and how much you charge?"

He glanced over his shoulder as if she were crazy. "I don't remember it. I write it down."

"Where?" she asked. She envisioned scraps of paper or the back of his hand.

She received another glance that mocked her doltish lack of imagination. "In a book, Win."

"A ledger?"

He rolled his eyes. "You could call it that. I'm a businessman. I have a hundred regular customers, and every year I have to sell myself to a hundred new ones. I write down their addresses, where I've been, what they've said. I add up what I make—last year, I earned sixty-four pounds. That's not too bad for a bloke"—he corrected—"for a fellow like me. Damn good, in fact."

It was indeed. She was stunned. And he kept records?

He went on. "Joe there is Magic's son. The fellow with the cart has a bitch Maj is fond of. I traded first pick of the litter next time for second, in exchange for the use of his cart today."

"That was nice of you."

"No, it wasn't. That's what I'm trying to tell you. It's my business. I have to keep the fellow happy and making a living, or I don't get to use his cart; he couldn't afford to keep it…
"

He kept going, keen to talk about his work. He was proud of it. And Winnie surprised herself with how fascinating she found the ins and outs of ratcatching.

Mick took out a ferret, snapped on a belled collar "
…
because this is the one going under the boards, and I want to know where she is." He held the little animal up. Her dark coat was glossy, mink-colored. "Pretty, isn't she?"

As he dropped it back into its box for the moment, Winnie thought, no, not the ferret, the
man
was beautiful, long-armed, long-legged, physical, robustly reeking of health. Even in rat clothes.

A ratcatcher. He
was
one. Imagine. And he'd kissed her: once gently, once with so much passion it had made her cry.

Oh, dear, dear, she reprimanded herself. Don't find him exciting. Or, no, why not hire a chimney sweep to clean the chimney, then kiss him, too? She could call the glazier to fix the front window and perhaps have a hug. And the plumber was a nice
man
—smirk, smirk, smirk.
Oh, Edwina, she thought, get hold of yourself.

Rats, she thought. Goodness. Time to leave. He was set up, ready to begin. She turned. "Well—" she said.

Mick watched her and knew she was about to go. For no better reason than he wanted to hold her there, he said, "Watch this."

He raised his arm over Magic, snapped his fingers. And ol' Magic did his old magic. Just for fun, just because Mick wanted him to, he started to jump.

Now Magic wasn't a good-looking dog. He had a white body, a whiskery-looking snout from the white fur flecking into brown, a short, shaggy coat, and a wizened little face. A scruffy little dog, barely a foot high at the withers. But Maj had the heart of a giant. If he did something, he put his whole, fearless self into it.

He jumped more than five feet into the air. Straight up. Then, his neat little feet no sooner touching the ground, he went up, straight up again. It delighted Mick to see the energy the dog put into it. Over and over. He wouldn't stop till Mick told him to. If Mick should die someday between when he told the dog to jump and the stop signal, Maj would jump himself to death.

Mick smiled at Win, at her face beaming with wonder. "It's like he has springs in his back legs," he said. "Have you ever seen anything like it? He's jumping five times his height. If I could do that, I could leap this carnage house."

She shook her head, glued now to the sight. He felt exhilarated, seeing her there, her expression amused, absorbed. Oh, he wanted to charm her. He wanted to woo her, make her stay. He just wasn't sure how to do it. Not by setting rats loose on her.

For Maj's sake, he gave a nod of his head, and the dog settled to earth, bright-eyed, happy, ready to go again the second he might be asked. Mick fed him a piece of apple from his pocket, something the dog loved, his payment—though had there been no payment that would have been all right, too; often there wasn't.

Mick knew Win wasn't listening as he told her about the dog; he was barely listening to himself. He wanted to say,
Don't go. Just stay. Stay and keep looking at me like that.
He rattled on instead, "Only once did a rat ever mess with this fierce little fellow, and the bite only made Magic madder…"

He glanced at Winnie. She was enjoying the dog's antics, but she was dancing on her feet a little. The ratting made her nervous. She didn't like the atmosphere. She didn't want to watch rats killed.

Why had he brought her out here? He could have predicted her reaction.

He knew the answer, of course. Her face was the answer. Because he was so damn good at this that it was obvious even in the way he laid out his attack—and he was so damn awkward at everything else she was teaching him. He wanted to be
…
skillful, elegant at something in front of her. Ha. Elegant at being a ratcatcher. Now, there was a way to impress the ladies.

Thing was, it often did impress them. More than once, a lady had watched from over her upstairs banister as he got rid of the brown rats below. Brown rats on the ground floor, the milder black rats in the upper stories; it never varied. It was the order of the rat world. A few cats could take care of the black rats upstairs, but Mick was the man for the meaner ones who dominated the more accessible turf. More than once, a lady had watched him do the deed, shrieking in disgust but riveted. Then he'd clean himself up in her scullery or mudroom, and been invited for a cup of tea or a glass of claret, where one thing led to another.

"I have to go," Winnie said.

He looked up at her. "I know. I'll wash and change, then meet you for the afternoon lesson. I'll be on time."

"That would be good." She took a step, then rotated back. "Oh, and I have to tell you something. Milton," she said, as if the man should be forgiven for something, tolerated. Then she shook her head. "No, not Milton. Me—"

Mick waited. The blood in his body knew before he did. It reacted to her expression or reluctance or something. It started to pump hard, rush. He was going to be told something bad.

She said, "Um, I'd, uh—like you to move your things downstairs to the room next to Milton's. He'll help you do it."

More for her to deny it, he asked, "You want me to move into the servants' quarters?"

She shook her head no, but she confirmed it. "You'll be with Milton," like it was a big privilege, "the room down one from his."

"Right."

Defensively, she added what he already knew. "I like Milton. He's more than a servant. He lives downstairs because he prefers to and because it's proper."

"And because he's your butler."

She frowned, opened her mouth, then said nothing, like she was angry with at him for saying it out loud.

While the reality of it raced around inside him. He knew why he was being moved. Mick the rake, banished. Maybe she could remember not to kiss the help, if the East End hooligan-help lived a few feet further away from her. Bloody hell, she was welcome to try.

He didn't dare say anything for a moment. And he didn't want her to see his disappointment, so he turned his back, waving away her tongue-tied, irritated confusion. "No need to explain," he said. He stooped down and stroked his dog. "I'm as good as there, Miss Bollash. I'll do it as soon as we finish here. You better go now. I'm gonna start."

He stood, dusted his hands on his trousers, pulled his gloves off his belt.

Just then, a ferret down the way made an angry little sound at her coworker in the carrier. There was a hiss and a little
bonk
of soft bodies.

And, like that, Winnie was on him. Her weight hit him. She grabbed his shoulders and half-climbed his back to his neck. She all but knocked him down, before he got a leg-hold of her with her clutching him by his chin and a handful of ear.

"Ferrets," he muttered as best he could with her arm under his jaw.

Her body relaxed a little, though she didn't relinquish her higher position. She had her legs wrapped around him like a vise, skirts and all.

"Just ferrets," he assured her.

He torqued at the waist and slowly pulled her down him, trying to lower a sizeable woman from an awkward position without dropping her. Oh, it was right odd and delicious, the feel of easing her down. He jerked when her parted legs slid for a second over the top of his thigh. She leaped, too, from the contact of their bodies, though she was more taken aback. Him, he was getting used to the jumps and jolts of their pleasure. It was a fierce thing. No help for it; it slammed them around.

He peeled her off him, his blood hopping. He could feel the place where her breasts had pressed into his back, the place where she'd straddled his thigh. Christ, he thought. He shifted her around in front of him, lowering her by her spectacular bum, down onto her feet.

And there she was, her face an inch away from his for a second, her body all but up against him. She paused, looking up. If he blew on her, her eyelashes would've fluttered from his breath. For one blistering moment, he was sure she was waiting—waiting for him to do what he normally might. If he wanted to kiss a woman who got this close, he didn't usually hesitate.

This time, though, he murmured down into her face, "It'd be my fault again, wouldn't it?"

"What would?" She wet her lips, staying right there, waiting.

Hell, he thought. He didn't do half bad, when he had some distance. But when she was this close, it just made him angry she wouldn't admit it. He asked bluntly, "Do you want me to kiss you?"

"No!" she said instantly. Though the shock in her face, he would've guessed, was more for having her mind read than from the idea.

He turned her loose, pushing her away. "Fine. If you ever do, just remember I like a little participation. A little share in the responsibility, Miss Bollash. If you want me to kiss you, it'd be right damn nice if you'd say so. Otherwise"—he reverted intentionally—"you ain't havin' a kiss from me."

She glared and pressed her lips so hard together, they turned white. Her face was full of havoc—frustration, vexation, bewilderment—for what had just happened.

Then the mean witch of a woman said, "Instead of
right—right nice
or
right fine—
you
should say
quite
or
rather
or even
ratherish."