The Vagabond Duchess. Claire Thornton

crowds until she was close enough to see the fire leaping and roaring towards her. Even at this distance the heat was intense and the noise deafening. She was so shocked she stared into the horrible, mesmerising flames for several seconds, her thoughts emptied of everything except blank horror.

      She gasped and shook herself back into a more practical state of mind, but she understood better now why some people did nothing but huddle close to their threatened homes and wring their hands. The fire was a hideous monster, beyond the scale of everyday human imagining. How could anyone hope to defeat it or even comprehend it?

      She headed back to Cheapside. She was nearly home when she heard a shrill shout cut across the confused babble around her.

      ‘It was him! He’s one of the devils who started it!’ The accusatory voice was so filled with panic and rage Temperance didn’t immediately recognise it.

      ‘I saw him here yesterday. With my own ears I heard him call on the devil! He’s not English. He hates England!’

      Temperance suddenly realised it was her neighbour, Agnes Cruikshank. For an instant she didn’t understand, then she remembered Jack Bow’s exasperation at her comments on his hair.

      ‘He’s a papist French devil!’ Agnes shrieked. ‘He wants us all to burn in our beds. I saw him throwing fireballs…’

      Horror gave Temperance added strength as she forced her way through the increasingly hostile crowd. She broke through a gap to see Jack surrounded by angry, suspicious men and women. The threat of violence crackled in the air. Her neighbours—quiet, reasonable people she’d known all her life—were on the brink of turning into a lynch mob.

       Chapter Three

       T emperance flung herself forward, almost throwing herself into Jack’s arms in her urgency to reach him before anyone else. He reacted to her presence faster than any of his accusers. She saw the flash of recognition in his eyes, then he caught her shoulders and steadied her. She pulled out of his grasp and spun to face her neighbours, holding out her arms to either side to create a barrier between them and Jack.

      ‘He’s not French! He’s English!’ she shouted. ‘His great-grandfather was a grocer! Here, in the City. You’re an idle gossip, Agnes Cruikshank. But it’s evil to accuse an innocent man of such a sinful crime… What?’ she demanded over her shoulder at Jack. ‘Why do you keep pushing me?’

      ‘Because I don’t normally hide behind a woman’s skirts,’ he replied mildly, managing to reverse their positions so he was closest to the crowd. ‘Even when she defends me as well as you just did, Madam Tempest.’

      ‘Tempest?’ A man in the crowd repeated, in a snort of half-amused disbelief. ‘He’s got the measure of Mistress Temperance, right enough.’

      ‘He’s got the look of a foreigner,’ said another man.

      ‘I’m as English as anyone here,’ said Jack. ‘My great-grandfather was a grocer, but I was born in Sussex.’

      Temperance tried to get in front of him again, but he caught her arm and wouldn’t let her.

      ‘I heard the rumours the fire was started by our enemies too,’ Jack said. ‘I came out this morning ready to defend us from the Dutch—but from what I’ve heard the fire started by accident, in the house of the King’s baker in Pudding Lane.’

      ‘Why did you speak in the heathen’s tongue yesterday?’ Agnes came close and peered up at him through slitted eyes. ‘I did hear you. You pulled off your wig and called on the devil.’

      Jack grinned. ‘How long have you lived next door to Mistress Temperance?’ he asked.

      ‘Twenty-three years, near enough,’ Agnes replied, glowering at him. ‘I was there at her birthing.’

      ‘And in all those twenty-three years, haven’t you ever felt the urge to clutch at your hair and swear?’ he asked.

      Several people laughed. Only the improvement in the crowd’s mood stopped Temperance from giving Jack a swift kick on his ankle. She’d thrown herself into the breach, determined to save him, despite his annoying behaviour and questionable morals—and now he repaid her by making fun of her!

      ‘In English.’ Agnes prodded him in the chest. ‘I chastise her in English. Not French.’

      Jack caught Agnes’s hand and held it. ‘But when I was three years old the Roundheads drove my mother out of our home,’ he said, his attention apparently focussed entirely on Agnes. ‘She fled in fear of our lives. I had to wait seventeen years to return home to England. I am not at fault for what happened when I was still a child in arms.’

      ‘You visited the French Court. After so long there you must have French sympathies,’ Agnes said, but she no longer sounded so hostile.

      ‘I went to the French Court when I was fourteen,’ Jack said, releasing Agnes’s hand. ‘That’s a long time ago. I am not a French spy.’

      ‘What was your great-grandfather’s name?’ asked an elderly man Temperance recognised as Nicholas Farley. ‘I’m a grocer, perhaps I knew him.’

      ‘Edmund Beaufleur.’

      ‘Edmund Beaufleur!’ Farley exclaimed. ‘He was Lord Mayor in Queen Bess’s reign.’

      ‘That’s right,’ Jack said.

      ‘Well, well, well.’ Farley nodded with interest. ‘Edmund Beaufleur’s great-grandson. Who’d have thought it?’

      Temperance couldn’t believe it. London was on fire yet, by the looks of things, any minute now Farley would drag Jack off to examine the Company records in the Grocers’ Hall. At least most of the potential lynch mob had dispersed.

      ‘It has been an honour to meet you, sir,’ said Jack to Farley. ‘I look forward to seeing you again in happier times. I’d enjoy learning more about my great-grandfather when we can talk at leisure.’

      ‘Yes.’ Farley looked up and Temperance saw the animation in his face replaced by grim anxiety. ‘There is much to do.’

      ‘Let’s go inside, sweetheart.’ Jack took her elbow and guided her towards her door.

      ‘Yes. Yes.’ She gathered herself and fumbled with her key. A few moments later they were standing in the shop. With the shutters closed the only light came from the open door. Temperance stared at Jack in the gloom.

      ‘They might really have hurt you,’ she whispered, remembering the volatile, angry mood of the crowd when she’d arrived. She started to tremble and wrapped her arms around herself. ‘They were going to attack you—just because Agnes Cruikshank always has to push her nose into other people’s business and n-never gets her f-facts right.’

      Jack closed the distance between them and put his hands on her shoulders. She stood still as he rubbed his hands up and down her back. She was too shaken to protest at his action, and too tall to rest her head on his shoulder and pretend she hadn’t noticed what he was doing. She felt the warmth of his breath against her cheek, the solid strength of his body close to hers.

      ‘They didn’t hurt me—thanks to you,’ he said, his voice soft and soothing. ‘And I do thank you. You are a true virago of a draper, Mistress Tempest.’

      She felt his lips brush her skin, then he kissed her. A real kiss, even though it was on her cheek, not her mouth. Her heart rate accelerated. For a moment she forgot about the disaster overshadowing London. She felt hot, excited, unsure. In the dark of the night she’d imagined him kissing her—even though she hadn’t known if she’d ever see him again. She’d hugged herself, pretending it was his arms around her, wondering what it would feel like if he was really holding her.

      She’d been kissed a few times before, but it had always been an awkward, embarrassing experience. She’d been several inches taller than the hopeful suitor who’d pursued her when she was eighteen. The discrepancy in their heights might not