Quince again swatted her backside. “Rosie!” he snarled. “Do it now, or ye will rue this night, I promise ye!”

Rosie’s numb fingers fumbled at the tight leather knot that held her shift together. It took her a few agonizing minutes to loosen it. With a grunt of exasperation, Quince reached up and tugged on the garment. Rosie’s scant protection slid off her shoulders and down her arms. A low bestial roar welcomed the sight of her bared breasts.

Tears of shame pricked behind Rosie’s eyelids. She blinked them back and bit the inside of her cheek to keep from sobbing out loud. In all her nineteen years, she had never felt so alone.

* * *

Observing the scene from the fringe of the crowd, Sir Andrew Ford felt nothing but pity for the poor, halfnaked girl on top of a barrel. She blinked several times in the torchlight. Andrew suspected that she was close to crying. Her pale countenance and wide eyes revealed her terror.

A young giant beside Andrew chuckled. “I vow the wench looks the part,” Brandon Cavendish remarked to his younger brother.

“A virgin in a brothel tent?” snorted Jack Stafford, the third youth in Andrew’s party. “Tis as rare as a unicorn in London.”

“Rare, but not impossible,” Andrew mused. He held a clove-studded orange closer to his nostrils to block out the stench of the rogues and knaves around them.

Guy Cavendish cocked his head. “Even if she is a whore, she’s a pretty little thing.”

Andrew cast a wry glance at his former squire. “How now? Since when have you become a connoisseur of fallen virtue, Guy?”

The golden-haired youth rocked on the balls of his feet. “Life at court has been very…er…instructive, Andrew. And I am a knight now,” he added. “By the hand of the king himself.”

“Ah,” Andrew responded. “For two months only. What has happened since April to your vow to honor womanhood? Did you toss it overboard when we crossed the Channel?”

Before Guy could stammer an answer, Jack interrupted the bantering conversation. “To honor ladies, Andrew.” He pointed to the pitiable object of the evening’s entertainment. “Yon minx is not a lady.”

“But she could be,” Andrew murmured.

Indeed, he could see that the girl was a beauty despite the dirt on her face and the Medusalike appearance of her dull hair. “With a little cleaning and polish, she could be every inch a lady,” he continued.

Brandon chortled. “You are growing soft in the head with your advancing old age, Andrew. That girl is a strumpet, plain as daylight.”

Andrew smoothed his crimson velvet sleeve and fluffed the lace at his wrists. “Looks are deceiving,” he remarked to his three hot-blooded companions. “Tis clothes that make the difference between a prince and a pauper—or can turn a whore into a lady.”

Brandon pointed at the white-faced girl. “You could never turn her into a lady! A strumpet is a strumpet.”

Andrew lifted one eyebrow in mock surprise. “Indeed, Sir Brandon? Perchance you would care to make a wager upon that opinion?”

The elder Cavendish gaped at him. “How now? You can’t be serious!”

Andrew inclined his head. “I fear I am, my young friend. I wager that I can take that delightfully wretched creature and transform her into a duchess who will dine at King Henry’s feast in twelve days’ time.”

Guy whistled through his teeth.

Jack draped his arm around Andrew’s shoulder. “Oh most excellent jest! Pray tell me, what potent wine have you drunk tonight, old man?”

Brandon gave Andrew a calculating look. “’Sdeath! You are serious!” He grinned. “Then make haste, Andrew. The bidding for your virgin has already begun. What will you wager to shoe this goose?”

Andrew plucked Jack’s arm from around the collar of his new doublet. He readjusted his starched collar. “One hundred sovereigns.”

Guy choked. Jack roared with laughter.

Brandon held out his hand. “A princely fortune, but I know that you have enough coin to toss away on such tomfoolery. Done, and here’s my hand to it. Jack and Guy, witness this bargain.”

“Tis reckless folly!” his brother mumbled.

Andrew clasped Brandon’s large hand in his and shook it with zest. The young bear’s jibe about Andrew’s advancing years had pricked his tender self-esteem. “I trust you will earn enough at cards and in the lists to cover your wager, my noble lordling.”

Jack chortled. “Ha! If you win, Andrew. But you do not have your bird in hand as yet, and her price is already two angels.”

Andrew turned his attention to the auction. “Angels for an angel,” he murmured. “Tis fitting. Five,” he shouted.