“Then we fell in with him,” she said, making a sour grimace of the word, “in Berwick.” He had been an English soldier named Harte, newly released from service, who took them “under his protection”—a concept that Harte implemented by setting up Nessie’s mother in a small cottage where she could entertain his army acquaintances in comfort and privacy.

“He saw what a profit could be made, and so he’d go out now and again, huntin’, and come back wi’ some poor lass he’d found starvin’ on the roads. He’d speak soft to them, buy them shoes and feed them up, and next thing they kent, they were spreading their legs three times a night for the soldiers who’d put a bullet through their husbands’ heids—and within two years, Bob Harte was drivin’ a coach-and-four.”

It might be an approximation of the truth—or it might not.

Having no grounds for personal delusion, it was clear to Grey that a whore’s profession was one founded on mendacity. And if one could not believe in a whore’s central premise, unspoken though it was, one could scarcely place great credence in anything she said.

Still, it was an absorbing story—as it was meant to be, he thought cynically. He did not stop her, though; beyond the necessity of putting her at ease if he was to get any information from her, the simple fact was that he enjoyed hearing her talk.

“We met Bob Harte when I was nay more than five,” she said, putting a fist to her mouth to stifle a belch. “He waited until I was eleven—when I began to bleed—and then . . .” She paused, blinking, as though searching for inspiration.

“And then your mother, bent upon protecting your virtue, slew him in order to preserve you,” Grey suggested. “She was taken up and hanged, of course, whereupon you found yourself obliged by necessity to embrace the fate which she had sacrificed herself to prevent?” He lifted his glass to her in ironic toast, leaning back in his seat.

Rather to his surprise, she burst out laughing.

“No,” she said, wiping a hand beneath her nose, which had gone quite pink, “but that’s no bad. Better than the truth, aye? I’ll remember that one.” She lifted her glass in acknowledgment, then tilted back her head and drained it.

He reached for the bottle, only to find it empty. Rather to his surprise, the other was empty, too.

“I’ll get more,” Nessie said promptly. She bounced off the bed and was out of the room before he could protest. She had left the knife, he saw; it lay on the table, next to a covered basket. Leaning over and lifting the napkin from this, he discovered that it contained a pot of some slippery unguent, and various interesting appliances, a few of obvious intent, others quite mysterious in function.