Eleanor peeked into the common room, to see it stacked jowl to jowl with well-dressed London gentlemen. How odd. But then she overheard the one closest to the door talking about the “fine mill here tomorrow” and realized that this small village must be the site for a boxing match. Of course. There was nothing surer to bring the gentlemen of the ton out of London and into scruffy, undersize inns than the chance to see two of their fellow men pummel and bloody each other.
“We’ll have to take our supper in our rooms, Francesca,” she told her sister, who had been in a deep yet very quiet discussion with the landlord. Eleanor was sure he was their landlord, for he wore a huge, greasy, leather-brown apron, and he’d already been handed a small handful of coins, doled out by Eleanor, who had been doled out to herself by Walter’s solicitor, coin by cheeseparing coin—complete with written instructions on how and when to spend every last bent penny.
“Yes, I’ve already deduced that, Eleanor,” Francesca said, looking at the short, steep flight of stairs, then sighing. “I don’t understand. Walter gave me strict instructions to give each innkeeper an extra ten pence, to assure us the best rooms, but it didn’t help last night, and the horrid man back there just laughed and handed it back. As for dining in our rooms? Definitely. The inn is immensely overcrowded, and although they are all gentlemen, I’m sure it would not do for females to be too obviously in their midst. Walter mustn’t have known.”
“Probably not,” Eleanor said, following her sister up the stairs. “He probably reserves the worst rooms in the worst inns quite regularly.”
Francesca paused at the head of the stairs and turned to glare at her sister, tears in her eyes. “Stop it, Eleanor. Just stop it. I’m wretchedly tired, my ankles are swollen, I’m dragging this…this lump with me wherever I go. I’m facing a confinement with no real idea as to exactly what that entails, except to be fairly certain I’m not going to enjoy it. I don’t need you to remind me every five minutes that this has been a horrid trip. Simply horrid.”
“Ah, Frannie, I’m sorry,” Eleanor said, gathering her sister into her arms, giving her a gentle hug. “Come on, let’s find our room and I’ll scare up a tub for you.”
“I won’t fit,” Francesca said, sniffling. “I don’t fit anywhere anymore. I’m just a great big fat lump. I can’t even wear my rings. Everyone must think I’m some…some fallen woman, not even wed. I just want to go home, Elly. I just want to go home.”
“And we’ll be there tomorrow, I promise,” Eleanor said, taking the key from her sister and inserting it in Number Three. “Now, let’s get you bathed and into bed. And I promise not to be a beast, all right?”
“You weren’t having a successful Season anyway,” Francesca said as she sat on the single chair in the room and let Eleanor tug off her half-boots—which wasn’t an easy chore.
“Thank you so much, Frannie, for reminding me of that fact yet again,” Eleanor said, holding the muddy half-boots by their laces and looking around for a place to put them. Not that the small room could be much damaged if she went outside, gathered some mud in a pail and decorated the walls with it.
“Dark hair was in vogue when I came out,” Francesca went on, not seeming to realize that she didn’t have her sister’s sympathy at the moment, and really shouldn’t push. “I could have had my choice of five gentlemen.”
“And yet you chose Walter. Life is strewn with mysteries, isn’t it?” Eleanor said, then figuratively bit her tongue as her sister, never the steadiest trooper in any battle, burst into tears.
“WHO WAS THAT, NICK?” Sir James Donaldson said as he picked up the first of what were sure to be many mugs of home-brewed ale. “Fiske? Can’t say as I know him.”
“Neither can I, Jamie, not really,” Nicholas said, tipping back his chair as he propped his own mug of ale on his flat belly, then lifted his Hessian-clad feet onto the tabletop. “But the lady seemed to know me, so I was polite. God knows, I’m always polite to females.”
“That’s not all you are to females, Nicky,” Beecher Thorndyke said, turning around his own rude chair and straddling it. He was drinking lemonade, still nursing a curst hangover from the previous evening. “Gave me a bad turn for a moment, you know, wondering if you’d put the bun in her oven and she’d tracked you down.”
“Very amusing, Thorny. I always tell everyone what a wit you are,” Nicholas said, his dark eyes flashing. “She’s Walter Fiske’s wife, poor thing. I vaguely remember him from school, I think. He believes he’s my friend.”
“We all believe we’re your friends, Nick,” Beecher Thorndyke said. “It’s safer that way.”
“Good one, Thorny,” Sir James said as Sylvester, Buckland’s valet cum traveling chef and general factotum, placed a large platter on the table, then turned to frown at his employer, who immediately removed his feet from the table. “Ah, your master, Nicky. It never ceases to amaze me how Sylvester runs your life for you. Wouldn’t be surprised if he cut your meat, stap me if I wouldn’t.”
Nicholas smiled at Jamie’s quick attempt to divert Thorny’s attention, letting Thorny think what he wished to think, just as he let everyone think what they wanted to think. All except Jamie, who knew. Jamie, who’d never tell.
“You know what, Thorny?” Nicholas said once Sylvester had delivered all of their platters, already mounded with vegetables and ready for the beef they’d serve themselves, and left the room. “I think I’m going to get drunk tonight. Very drunk, well and truly drunk. It’s the only way I can seriously hope I’ll find a moment’s sleep in that godawful thing upstairs the innkeeper has the audacity to call a bed.”
“You brought your own sheets at least,” Jamie pointed out. “I think I could have drowned in mine last night, they were so damp. And Thorny here snores. Even Sylvester has a room to himself, I’ll wager, while I’m forced to share. It’s so bloody unfair.”
“At least my feet aren’t cold,” Thorny said, reaching for the serving fork. “Good thing the last mill’s tomorrow and we can be out of here. If I’m going to share my bed, I’d rather my companion didn’t have to shave every morning. Gad, how I miss females.”
“Now I’m crushed, Thorny,” Jamie said, winking at Nicholas. “Then I suppose those rumors about you are untrue? Good. Nick, old fellow, would you pass me that key to my chastity belt? Damned thing has begun to chafe, anyway.”
All three men laughed, Thorny joining in just a little late because the joke was at his expense.
By ten that night Nicholas had made good on his promise and was a full three sheets to the wind, and most happily so. He said his good-nights to his friends, promising to meet them at six, to ride out to the site of the mill, and staggered off to bed, candle in hand as he mounted the stairs.
“Good evening, Sylvester,” he said, putting down the candle once inside the small room, and saluting his valet. “I’m drunk. Isn’t that wonderful?”
“My delight knows no bounds, my lord,” Sylvester said, helping Nicholas out of his jacket, then motioning for him to please sit down so he could deal with his Hessians. “It does a man good to indulge at times in the company of friends, and since you’re so strict with the bottle most times, I imagine the headache won’t present too much of a problem.”
“You didn’t have to come along, you know. You don’t even like mills,” Nicholas said, unbuttoning his waistcoat and shirt, not too surprised that he was having a devil of a time trying to loosen each button. “I’m three and thirty, Sylvester, not three. I can manage to muddle through for a few days without your exemplary services.”
“Yes, that’s true. I suppose I could have spent the time at Buckland darning socks.”
Nicholas winced. “You could accept my offer of an estate for yourself, damn it, and stop being my bloody conscience. Oh, damn it, I’m sorry, Sylvester. I didn’t mean that.”
“You didn’t pull down your drawers and sire me, my lord. That was your father,” Sylvester said, carefully folding Nicholas’s jacket over his arm. “You owe me not
hing. There are times I wish our father had not left behind that note, informing you of our relationship. Some things are best left unknown.”
“I’d drink to that, if I thought I could swallow so much as one more drop,” Nicholas said, slipping out of his buckskins to stand there in his small clothes, which he then stripped off, leaving himself completely and unashamedly nude. “My valet of these past ten years is really my brother? I always knew the man was a bastard.”
“Not he, my lord. I am the bastard. I’ve taken the liberty of turning down your bed, my lord. I think you might be happier for a good night’s sleep?”
“Probably not, but the mere hope comforts me,” Nicholas said, aiming himself toward the bed under the eaves. “I’m sorry, Sylvester. It’s just that Thorny said something earlier, innocently enough, and I—”
“Think too much?” Sylvester offered, watching as Nicholas dropped back against the pillows, closed his eyes.
“You do know,” Nicholas said, not opening his eyes, “that you are the only person in this world, save Jamie, who is not afraid of me?”
“Secretly, my lord, I shudder in my boots at the mere sight of you.”
Nicholas chuckled. “Good night, Sylvester.”
“Good night, my lord. Sleep well.”
“ELEANOR?”
Eleanor moaned, turned onto her side, trying to arrange her body around the lumps in the mattress rather than rest on them.
“Eleanor? Aren’t you awake?”
“No. I’m sleeping.”
“Silly, you wouldn’t be talking to me if you were asleep. Except, of course, for when you were ten and walked and talked in your sleep.”
“You still believe that?” Eleanor smiled in the darkness. “It was just my way of getting past you and down to the kitchens for the last of the apple tart. You mean, you never knew?”
“You’re a horrid person, Eleanor, and were, even as a child. No, I didn’t know. But, now that you’re awake, I’d like to know where my tin of sugarplums is, if you please.”
“It could be in Jericho for all I care,” Eleanor grumbled, pulling the sheets up closer over her shoulder then shoving them back down again, as they didn’t smell quite fresh. “I’m not getting out of this bed until sun is shining through that dirty window. At least then I can be fairly sure that the bugs in this hovel have scurried back to their holes.”
“Bugs?”
“Bugs, vermin, very possibly bats. Does it really matter?”
“It most certainly does! What if I were bitten?”
What if she should be bitten? With not a thought to her sister? How like Francesca. Eleanor sort of pursed her lips and moved them back and forth across her teeth, trying to figure out if she should be incensed or amused. She settled for amused. “Don’t worry, Francesca. They’ll probably just go after the sugarplums.”
“But that’s the point,” Francesca persisted, to Eleanor’s chagrin. “I’ve already gotten up, looked for the tin. It’s not here. It has to still be in the coach, don’t you think? And I need those sugarplums, Eleanor. I don’t think I could sleep a wink if I don’t have at least three. Red ones.”
“Red ones,” Eleanor grumbled, sitting up in the bed. “Let me take a crazy guess here, Francesca. You want me to go out to the stables, locate our coach, and fetch you three red sugarplums?”
“No.”
“Good,” Eleanor said, settling against the pillow once more.
“I want the entire tin,” Francesca said, ripping the covers off her sister. “Please, Elly?”
Their father, lacking the control of a wife, had sometimes slipped in the presence of his daughters, mouthing words best confined to evenings of cards with his fellows. Francesca had pretended to be temporarily deaf at these times, but Eleanor had all but raced for her copybook and taken notes.
A small litany of nasty words played inside Eleanor’s head now as she slipped her legs over the side of the bed and aimed them toward what she hoped was the location of her slippers. “I don’t believe I’m doing this,” she muttered as she shoved her arms into the sleeves of her dressing gown. “You will never ask me for another favor as long as you live. Never.”
“Of course,” Francesca said, undoubtedly smiling in the dark, for the woman at least maintained enough common sense never to gloat so openly in the daylight. “I would never ask such a thing from you, Elly, were it not that I so crave my sugarplums. I am forever in your debt.”
“I know you wouldn’t, until the next time,” Eleanor muttered under her breath, lighting the single bedside candle, which did little to illuminate the darkness. “Ouch!” she said, smacking a shin against a piece of furniture as she made her way to the door. “Heaven forbid this miserable inn could extend its largesse to include a glass for the candle, so I’d have more light.”
“There is almost a full moon,” Francesca offered. This time Eleanor was pretty sure she heard a giggle at the end of that announcement.
“Don’t push me, Francesca. And don’t get out of bed to lock the door behind me. The vermin, remember?” That, and the thought that Francesca could lock the door then refuse to let her back in until she apologized for every supposed insult since their childhood, which was always a consideration.
Francesca did things like that. But, then, Francesca never thought far enough to realize that, for instance, if she kept Eleanor on the other side of the door, that meant Eleanor could pop a sugarplum into her mouth for every minute she was kept locked out. Eleanor always won, in the end. But, sometimes, it simply wasn’t worth the bother.
She closed the door and turned to her left, sliding her hand along the wall, counting the doors until she felt the rude banister of the stairs that led to the entryway of the inn. Three doors and then the banister. She’d remember that. Not that she had to; their room number had been chalked on the door.
She hugged the wall as she made her way down the steep flight, then quickly sneaked outside before one of the gentlemen staggered out of the common room to see her in her old plaid dressing gown, the one that had been her father’s.
Her foot sank in the muddy inn yard and she grimaced, knowing this little excursion would put paid to her slippers, which were a lovely pink satin and only six months old, just long enough to break them in comfortably.
Holding both the brass candlestick and her dressing gown hem high, she made her way across the yard and into the stables, then past the ostler she’d seen earlier, who was sleeping with his back against the wall, his feet on an overturned bucket.
Eleanor opened the off-side door of the coach and peered inside. Oh, how marvelous. The coachman was snoring on one of the seats, Walter’s largesse not extending to providing a room for the man. No wonder the man was so surly, refusing to unload more than a single portmanteau for each sister. And no wonder the coach reeked of sauerkraut and sweat and, tonight, home-brewed ale.
Holding the candle higher, Eleanor spied the sugarplum tin. The coachie’s left foot was braced against it, which wasn’t as terrible as having him use it for a pillow, but how on earth was she supposed to move the thing without waking the man?
She stood very still, contemplating her problem, then looked around the stables until she found a riding crop with a dangling loop of leather hanging from one end.
Slowly, carefully, she aimed the riding crop into the coach, then lightly skimmed the leather loop over the coachman’s face.
He wrinkled his nose. He swiped at his cheek. And then he shifted his entire body in his deep, ale-induced sleep, his foot sliding off the tin. Withdrawing the whip, Eleanor reached inside the coach once more and quickly lifted out the tin, tucking it under one arm.
So far, so good. Except for the slippers.
She replace the riding crop, then stepped back into the night, looking up at the moon. What time was it? Surely after midnight, not late enough for the gentlemen to retire to their rooms, but much too late for her to be wandering around an inn yard in her dressing gown—not that there would ever be a prope
r time for her to do that.
Carefully picking her way back to the door of the inn, she kept her head down and was mightily surprised to be suddenly looking at a pair of very large, buckled, black shoes.
She looked up, a long way up, saw the clerical collar, and gulped.
“Good evening, my child,” the giant said, smiling kindly. “Lost your way, have you?”
“Oh. Oh, no, sir. I’m…I’m just fetching something for…for my mistress. Good evening, sir, and, um…bless you, sir,” she ended with a quick dip of a curtsy, such as a maid might employ.
“Allow me to hold the door open for you, child,” the man offered, and Eleanor quickly slipped into the vestibule, just in time to hear a second male voice say, “Lucky thing she met you, Chester, and not one of the drunken bucks in there.”
“Indeed, William,” the cleric named Chester replied on a sigh. “Moral tone is so sadly lacking when our fellow man gathers for these mills. A pretty young thing like that? Truly a tragedy waiting to happen. Perhaps I should go back, escort her to her mistress’s rooms?”
Eleanor, hearing this, turned toward the stairs with a jerk, and the damn flame on the damn candle damn well sputtered and went out, leaving her totally in the dark unless she wished to ask someone in the common room to relight it.
“Damn,” she said succinctly, repeating the word that echoed in her head, and quickly held out a hand to the wall, to help guide herself up the stairs before Reverend Chester Whoever decided to play Good Samaritan. Francesca would have kittens if she were returned to her room by one of the clergy.
Reaching the top of the stairs, and still very much in the dark—this innkeeper could give Walter lessons in economy—she slowly made her way down the hallway, counting doors as she ran her fingers along the wall.
The Wedding Chase: In His Lordship's BedPrisoner of the TowerWord of a Gentleman Page 2