Maggie tightened her hand on his arm as the two of them approached the counter.
The barman looked between them, his flinty gaze at last settling on St. Clare’s face. “Can I help you, milord?” A heavy strain of sarcasm colored his words.
“My companion has one or two questions for you,” St. Clare said. “Try to keep a civil tongue in your head.”
Maggie’s heart clutched on an unexpected surge of gratitude. She’d thought that St. Clare would handle the questioning. That he’d prefer her to remain mute—a silent observer to their adventure rather than a participant in it.
But that wasn’t how he felt about her at all.
She was his companion, he’d said. Just as she’d always been. His equal, and second self. Not someone to be silenced. But someone he would help to be heard.
If she could have flung her arms around his neck and kissed him in that moment without causing a furor, she would have done so, and gladly.
The barman looked at her. “Questions about what?”
She moistened her lips, focusing her mind on the task at hand. “Are you the proprietor?”
“Who wants to know?”
“Well…I do, of course.” What a thing to ask! “I’m looking for someone.”
Some of the younger men at the bar hooted. “Will I do, missus?” one of them called out.
St. Clare gave them a cool glance. The men quieted.
Maggie ignored them. “I’m looking for a man who frequented the tavern many years ago.”
“How many years?” the barman asked.
“Thirty, approximately. A trifle less, perhaps. It was long before my time.”
“And mine,” he said. “Wasn’t but a babe thirty years ago, was I?”
Her spirits dimmed.
“Who can we speak to?” St. Clare asked. “There must be someone about.” He cast a pointed glance at the three old men in the corner. They were watching him—had been ever since Maggie and St. Clare had entered the tavern. “What about them?”
“Nah. It’s me father you want.” The barman spat on the ground. “But can’t think why it’d be worth it to trouble the old man at this time of night.”
“You’ll be compensated, of course,” Maggie said.
The barman’s gaze narrowed. “Secrets don’t come cheap around here, milady. And you won’t find none of us willing to sell out one of our own.”
“There’s no question of that.” St. Clare’s voice deepened—projecting through the tavern, though he didn’t raise it one jot. “This is a family matter.”
A swell of whispers rose in response to his words.
Maggie gave St. Clare a frowning glance. But there was no time to inquire what he was playing at.
He slid a gold sovereign across the bar. “There’s another for you once we’ve spoken to him.”
The barman picked up the sovereign and bit it. Seemingly satisfied, he dropped it into the pocket of his stained waistcoat. He walked out from behind the counter, jerking his head toward a dark, narrow staircase. “He’s upstairs in his room.”
St. Clare didn’t budge. “Summon him. We’ll speak to him here.”
“Can’t do,” the barman said. “He don’t come downstairs no more.”
Maggie felt St. Clare’s arm tense under her hand. She understood why. It could very well be a trap. A means of isolating them so that they could rob them of all of their money, not merely the promised gold sovereigns.
“And why not?” she asked.
“Because,” the barman said, “the old codger is blind.”
St. Clare cursed himself for agreeing to bring Maggie to this godforsaken place, and doubly so for permitting her to accompany the barman up the narrow wooden staircase. The whole of it went against his every instinct. Against every bit of his better judgment.
And yet, here they were.
He followed close behind her, the stairs creaking with every booted footstep. They were ascending into darkness, met by an odor fouler than the stink of sour ale and perspiration that permeated the taproom. It smelled of stale urine, rotten meat, and unwashed male bodies.
The barman stopped in front of a door at the end of the corridor. “He’s in here.”
St. Clare drew Maggie back to his side. He was ready for anything, but when the door opened, there was no one lying in wait. No one in the room at all, save a small man in a chair who turned his clouded eyes blindly toward the door. His wrinkled face was lit by the light of the full moon shining through a grease-streaked window.
“Who’s there?” he croaked.
“It’s me, Pa,” the barman said. “These folks want to ask you about someone from the old days.”
“What folks?”
“A fine lady and her gentleman. Paid a sovereign, they did. And they’ll cough up another when they’ve finished talking to you.”
The old man perked up. “Two sovereigns!”
“This is me father, Ed Mullens,” the barman said by way of introduction. “He’s owned the Crossed Daggers since…1780, wasn’t it, Pa?”
“Aye. Somewhere thereabouts. Come in, come in.” Mullens beckoned to them. “Don’t get many visitors.”
St. Clare and Maggie entered the room. The barman withdrew, shutting the door after him.
“Have you a candle?” Maggie asked.
“On yon table,” Mullens said. “Not much need for it in my condition.”
St. Clare found it, along with a tinderbox, and managed to strike a spark to light the wick. The candle flame flickered.
Maggie pushed back the hood of her cloak. There was a spindly chair near the unmade bed. She sat down upon it carefully, getting straight to the point. “Mr. Mullens, do you recall a man by the name of Father Tuck, or possibly, Friar Tuck? He may have come here sometime thirty years ago.”
“’Course I recall him.” Mullens gave a jagged, phlegmy cough. “What’s he to you, missus?”
“We’re asking the questions,” St. Clare said.
Another hacking cough. “Don’t like to see old Tuck in trouble.”
“We don’t want to cause trouble,” Maggie assured him. “We merely want to learn a little more about the man.”
“He was a churchman.” Mullens laughed hoarsely, which only provoked another cough.
St. Clare went to the window. It looked down over the yard of the tavern. Enzo was still there, alone at his post. He was young and small, but he was capable enough. Like St. Clare, he was well armed. Not only did Enzo carry two horse pistols on his person, there was a rifle in the boot underneath his seat.
“You there,” Mullens gasped, still coughing. “Pour me some wine.”
There was a dusty bottle on a table by the bed. St. Clare uncorked it and poured the contents into the dirty glass at its side. He put the glass into the old man’s hand.
Mullens drank deeply.
St. Clare moved to stand behind Maggie’s chair.
“A former churchman, yes,” she said. “He was expelled from his order, I believe.”
“No former about it. Went back, he did. Gave up the drink.” Mullens drained his glass. “Pious fool.”
St. Clare looked at him. “Went back where?”
“To his church, I reckon. Somewhere in Devonshire. Damned if I know.”
“Devonshire?” Maggie’s expression turned hopeful. “Do you know the name of the church?”
“Why would I?” Mullens was quiet a moment, his wiry brows beetling. “He did come back once, now I recall it. Thumping his Bible at us. Said as how we was to repent. Tossed him out on his arse, the boys did. Never saw him again after. Might be dead for all I know.”
Maggie was undeterred. “He was friends with one of your barmaids, wasn’t he?”
Mullens snorted. “Who says so?”
“Wasn’t he?” she pressed. “I thoug
ht he might have been acquainted with Jenny Seaton.”
Mullens cackled. “Jolly Jenny? There’s a name I’ve not heard in years.”
“You remember her working here?”
“Nothing wrong with my memory, missus. Hired the wench meself, didn’t I? She were only sixteen—straight off the farm—but comely as a dove. Didn’t know nothing about ale, nor men, that one.” His mouth spread in a toothless smile. “She soon learned.”
St. Clare’s hand tightened on the back of Maggie’s chair. He had to force his fingers to unclench.
Maggie cast him a concerned look. Are you all right?
He gave her a brief, tight smile. Never better.
A decade had passed since he’d last seen Jenny Seaton. He’d never meant anything to her, and she’d never meant anything to him. Now wasn’t the time to start feeling protective of her.
“A game girl, she was,” Mullens went on. “But she were never friendly with Tuck. Never met him, don’t think, excepting once—a fair dustup they had.”
Maggie’s brows lifted. “They quarreled?”
“Something like. Saw him drinking when she came in. He was fair done for, couldn’t see straight, nor walk upright. Had to be doused with the pump afore he could get himself home. ‘What’s that vicar doing here?’ she asks. ‘Him, a vicar?’ we says. ‘This here sot who’s pissed himself?’ Crying with laughter, we were. Then she commenced crying herself, flew at the man with her fists. Had to pull her off him, we did, the mad cow.”
St. Clare’s gave him an alert look. “When was this?”
“Don’t rightly know.” He shrugged. “A long time hence.”
“Was Gentleman Jim still her beau at the time?” Maggie asked.
“Her beau!” Mullens laughed. “Is that what you heard?”
St. Clare went still. For an instant his breath seemed to stop in his chest. “Wasn’t he?”
“Pour me another.” Mullens blindly thrust out his dirty glass.
This time Maggie took it. Rising from her chair, she crossed the small room to the table with the bottle on it, returning with a fresh drink a moment later. She helped Mullens to find the glass with his hand. “We understood that Jenny Seaton and Gentleman Jim were… That is… That she was his sweetheart.”
“Oh, he fancied her, he did. But he were a strange one, Jim was. A right mysterious devil.” Mullens downed a swallow of his wine with another congested cackle. “He never had no sweetheart.”
St. Clare held the chair as Maggie sat back down.
“May I ask…” She hesitated. “When Jenny quarreled with Father Tuck…was she with child?”
“Not so’s anyone would know. I did hear tell she might have been, but never did find out for certain. She disappeared not long after. Went home, some of the fellers said, to that farm she come from.”
“Where was Jim?” St. Clare asked.
“Gone, some weeks before. We gave him a right send-off.” Mullens breath rattled on a sigh. “The best days of me life, those were. Downstairs, with Jim and the lads. Every night were a feast when he dropped in. Oh, but the lasses were in a fair swoon over him, with his golden hair and fine gentlemanlike ways. Women came for miles to sit on his knee.”
St. Clare wasn’t surprised. An earl’s son at a hedge tavern? With his commanding figure and his aristocratic ways? He’d been handsome, of course. St. Clare knew that much. Handsome and reckless and dangerous.
Maggie leaned forward in her chair. “Did Gentleman Jim know Father Tuck?”
Mullens shrugged. “Might have done. Old Jim knew all sorts. Had friends high and low. Recall one time, he came into the tavern, and…”
The old man ran on with his stories. Tales of the distant past—a happier time for him, clearly.
Maggie let him talk, occasionally prodding him with a question about Jim, Jenny, or Father Tuck, but no relevant information materialized from Mullen’s lips. Merely more reminiscences.
St. Clare went back to the window and peered down into the yard. A man was loitering near the door, staggering about as if he were drunk.
“And you’re certain Father Tuck’s church was in Devonshire?” Maggie asked.
“I told you,” Mullens replied, “nothing wrong with my memory.”
St. Clare looked at Maggie. It was past time that they left. They’d already stayed far longer than he’d planned. The more they delayed their departure, the greater chance that something would go wrong. He opened his mouth to tell her so when a sudden movement in the yard caught his attention.
It was a carriage arriving. A fine carriage, with a team of four prime horses in the traces. Two men sat upon the box, the coachman and a second fellow wrapped in an oilskin coat. He pointed at Enzo and the hired carriage.
Bloody hell.
“Time to go,” St. Clare said. He strode to Maggie and hoisted her from her chair.
She scrambled to her feet. “But I still have questions for Mr. Mullens!”
“There’s no time.” St. Clare urged her to the door, his hand on her arm. “We need to get out of here.” He asked Mullens, “Is there another exit?”
“Through the kitchens,” Mullens said.
St. Clare muttered an oath. They’d still have to descend the staircase. He opened the door and looked out into the hall. No one was about. Not yet. “Out,” he said to Maggie. “Quick as you can.”
Blessedly, she seemed to understand the urgency. “Goodbye, sir,” she said to Mr. Mullens as she exited the room. “I’m obliged to you for the information.”
“Wait!” Mullens called after them. “I didn’t catch your name!”
St. Clare shut the door behind him, silencing the old man’s cries. The hall dissolved into darkness again. There was only a faint glow at the end of it—the light from the taproom drifting up the stairs.
“What is it?” Maggie asked as she hurried along at his side. “Some sort of villainy?”
“The worst kind,” St. Clare said. “Someone’s followed us here.”
“What!” She would have stopped in her tracks if he hadn’t jockeyed her along to the landing.
“Put up your hood. We’ll duck out through the kitchens. There’s a chance we might be able to get to the carriage without anyone seeing you.” He sensed the futility of the plan as soon as he’d given voice to it. Enzo and their hired carriage had already been spotted. Recognized, even.
Maggie drew her hood over her head, and then took his hand, clutching it tightly as she followed him down the stairs. “Who is it?” she asked. “Not your cousin?”
He didn’t have to supply an answer. They’d no sooner descended halfway down the steps than an all-too-familiar voice echoed up the staircase.
“I know she’s here somewhere,” Fred bellowed. “Don’t make me fetch the magistrate.”
St. Clare’s shoulders bunched with tension. The dratted fool. Threatening the inhabitants of a hedge tavern with the magistrate? As if every villain below wasn’t armed to the teeth and ready to fight.
“Oh no,” Maggie groaned. “What is he doing here?”
The answer to that question came in much the same fashion.
“We don’t want any trouble.” Lionel Beresford’s languid words drifted up to them in the darkness. “Only tell us where we can find the lady and the rogue who’s abducted her.”
“Abducted!” Maggie bristled. She sounded more outraged than worried about being discovered.
St. Clare supposed it hadn’t yet occurred to her how all this might look. The two of them, alone in a tavern in the middle of the night, emerging from a long while spent in an upstairs bedroom.
He led her down another few steps—carefully, quietly—until they were but two steps away from the floor of the taproom.
“Don’t much like the gentry coming into my tavern making threats,” the barman said. “Nor waving pistols abou
t.”
Pistols?
“The bloody idiot,” St. Clare muttered. “He’s going to get himself killed.”
“Where are they?” Fred demanded again.
“Don’t be too hasty with that weapon, my friend,” Lionel said. “I think I can guess where my cousin has taken his captive.” And to the barman: “You have rooms above, do you not, my good fellow? A place a man can be private with a lady?”
The barman guffawed. “Did you hear that, Bill? A lady? In the Crossed Daggers?”
An elderly warble answered him, Bill presumably. “Don’t see no ladies here.”
St. Clare squeezed Maggie’s hand. There was no way to duck out to the kitchen without being observed. Their only hope was that Fred and Lionel would lose interest and back away to the other side of the tavern.
It was a scant hope, and one that was quickly dispelled.
“I’ll send my valet up to have a look around,” Lionel said.
St. Clare tensed. It was either wait to be discovered or reveal themselves voluntarily. Exchanging a swift glance with Maggie, he knew at once which one she’d prefer.
“No need,” he said, descending the final steps with her at his side.
Fred stood by the tall counter, a pistol hanging loose in his hand. Lionel was nearby, wrapped up in a fashionable overcoat, his hat still on his head. His valet, a shifty-faced man of indeterminate age, stood next to him.
At the sight of St. Clare and Maggie, Fred’s ruddy face mottled with fury. He advanced on them, his pistol half raised against any perceived interference on the part of the tavern’s customers. “I didn’t want to believe it,” he said, giving Maggie a look of disgust. “You, sneaking out of the house like the veriest light-skirt. For an assignation at a hedge tavern of all places.” He pointed his pistol at St. Clare. “You’ll answer for this.”
“I intend to,” St. Clare replied “Though I do wonder how it is you came to find us here?”
“Ah,” Lionel said. “That would be my doing.”
Maggie dropped St. Clare’s hand. “You set your valet after me, didn’t you? Of all the cheap, underhanded tricks. And you a guest in my home!”
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