“Don’t even mention it.” He sat up, slowly, one hand pressed to his forehead.

“Oh, a wee bit peaky this morn, are we?” A brown glass bottle and a pair of wooden tumblers had appeared on the washstand; she poured out something the color of ditch water and thrust the cup into his hand. “Try that; hair o’ the dog that bit ye is the best cure, or so they say.” She slopped a generous tot into her own glass and drank it off as though it were water.

It wasn’t water. He thought it was possibly turpentine, from the smell. Still, he wouldn’t be put to shame by a fourteen-year-old whore; he tossed it back in a gulp.

Not turpentine; vitriol. The liquid burned a fiery path straight down his gullet and into his bowels, sending a gust of brimstone fumes through the cavities of his head. Whisky, that’s what it was, and very raw whisky, at that.

“Aye, that’s the stuff,” she said approvingly, watching him. “Have another?”

Incapable of speech, he blinked watering eyes and held out his cup. Another fuming swallow, and he found that he had recovered sufficient presence of mind to inquire after his vanished clothes.

“Oh, aye. Just here.” She hopped up, bright as a sparrow, and pulled open a panel in the wall that hid a row of clothes pegs, upon which his uniform and linen had been hung with care.

“Did you undress me?”

“I dinna see anyone else here, do you?” She put a hand above her eyes, peering about the room in exaggerated fashion. He ignored this, pulling the shirt over his head.

“Why?”

He thought the glint of a smile showed in her eyes, though no trace of it touched her lips.

“So much as ye drank, I kent ye’d wake soon to have a piss, and like enough to stagger off then, if ye could. If ye stayed the night through, though, Magda wouldna bring anyone else up for me.” She shrugged, shift sliding off one scrawny shoulder. “Best sleep I’ve had in months.”

“I am deeply gratified to have been of benefit to you, madam,” Grey said dryly, assuming his breeches. “And what is likely to be the cost of an entire night spent in your charming company?”

“Two pound,” she said promptly. “Ye can pay me now, if ye like.”

He gave her a jaundiced look, one hand on his pocketbook.

“Two pound? Ten shillings, more like. Try again.”

“Ten shillings?” She tried to look insulted, but failed, thus informing him that he had been close in his estimate. “Well . . . one and six, then. Or perhaps one and ten”—she eyed him, her small pink tongue darting out to touch her upper lip in speculation—“if I can find out for ye where he goes?”

“Where who goes?”

“The Cornish lad ye were asking after—Trevelyan.”