The Proposition by Judith Ivory Page A

Magic. "And your dog has to have a bath, too."
    Ha. Mick began reasonably, "Well, if you can get Maj in your tub, feel free to wash him. But Miss Bollash, if this cockeyed bet goes sour, Freddie here be me livelihood. Freddie be the best damn ferret what ever was. I gotta have her with me."
    "I can't have some rodent—"
    "Ain't a rodent. The opposite. She hates rodents. She hunts them."
    "He can't hunt them in my house."
    "She. Freddie be a jill, and she's gotta be with me. A good ferret is like gold, you see."
    She waffled. He thought he was going to win for a second, when she asked, "How do you keep her where you live?"
    "She has a cage she sleeps in sometimes."
    "Can we get it?"
    "I'd guess."
    "All right. Can we put the cage out back in the carriage house?"
    "No, gotta have her with me, I'm saying."
    "Not in the house."
    He thought about it. He wanted the bet to go, he guessed. It was going to be harder, more than he first thought, but he wasn't ready to give it up. He didn't lose a hundred pounds easy. Besides, the idea of talking posh and living nice, more for fun than anything, had grown on him. "Well, if the carriage house is close. And has light and lots of air, and I can go see her plenty. But no bath, all right? I'll wash up in a sink."
    "And a bath, Mr. Tremore. For you. A bath and a haircut and a shave." She frowned at his upper lip again. "A shave every day," she continued. "And clean clothes. This is not going to be a lark, sir." She took a breath, pink-faced. For a skittish thing she sure could get her knickers in a knot. "You will be struggling with a lot of new ideas, a bath being your first, I suppose. You will have more than mere difficult sounds and constructions of the English language to learn. If you intend to be a gentleman in six weeks, you'd best begin by listening to me."
    "I ain't the one who ain't listening," he said. "I'll learn all what makes sense to me, but nothing else. How can I? Things got to make sense or I'll just be mimicking what I don't see, what I gotta see from the inside, you know? And a bath I don't see at all. It be unhealthy for one. I'll catch me death. I could drown—I can't swim. I'll wash up in a basin. I always do. I'm a clean bloke—"
    "Not clean enough—"
    "Bloody clean enough for some." Damn her anyway. He told her, "You ain't the first fine lady, you know, to take me upstairs, Miss Bollash—"
    He watched her face turn white. Oh, hell, he thought. He ran his hand into his hair—and got a palmful of soot. He'd forgotten. Bloody hell, he didn't doubt he looked like a cat caught all night in a coal bin. He'd been up a flue, crawled around on a floor, then been chased partway through London only to end up beat on by a dozen people.
    All right, he was dirty. All right, he wished he could call that last back. The fact that ratting rich ladies' houses had occasionally landed him upstairs in rich ladies' beds—ladies a lot less particular than this one—was most surely something not to discuss with Miss Edwina Bollash.
    As brittle as ice, she told him, "You'll have a bath or leave immediately." She wasn't joking. Once she had a bite-hold of something, there was no getting it away from her.
    But he meant what he said, too, and would damn well see she give him respect for his part in what they were planning to do. "Not unless you and Milton here be strong enough to put me in it."
    Her bottom lip came up, covering a piece of her top lip as she pressed her mouth tight. She looked pained for a moment. Then she said softly, "Leave."
    "Pardon?"
    Louder, "Leave."
    He scowled, staring at her. Relentless, she was. "Fine then," he said. "Suit yourself."
    He pushed past the two of 'em: the prudey Miss Know-It-All, wasting her time trying to wash life clean, and her manservant, soaking wet from trying to help her do it.
    Didn't need this. Stupid idea. No, made no sense whanking around with a bloody-arse bet that wasn't good for nothing but entertaining a bunch a' rich folks. Sod them.