His gaze was fixed on her face. “Thank you. Now you have a smudge on both cheeks.”
She swiped her face against her shoulder, trying not to blush. “I’ll bring you some cheese in a little,” she said in a rush and hurried out of the room, closing the door behind her.
Richard still stood where she’d left him, scowling. “What the devil are you about, Charlie?”
“He’s hungry, just like us,” Charlotte said firmly, “and there’s plenty to go around. Are the others back from the stables, yet?”
The younger boys seemed to be having a great time pretending to run the inn. As they ate, George in particular was full of praise for the gentleman’s bang-up horses.
“Though to be sure, the innkeeper’s going to get a big surprise when he comes home and finds his house full of guests and his stable full of horses.”
“Where is the wretched man?” Charlotte wondered, swallowing the last of her stew and reaching for some bread to mop up the delicious juices. “And what are we supposed to do about bedchambers?”
“Well, that valet person has nabbed the best one for his lordship,” Richard said disgustedly.
“Is he a lordship?” Charlotte asked with interest.
“No idea who the devil he is, but—”
“Watch your language, Master Richard,” Nurse said severely. “Your sister is not a schoolfellow and neither am I.”
“Sorry,” Richard muttered, casting his eyes to heaven.
Charlotte swallowed her bread and stood. “I’ll fetch us some cheese,” she said, “and when we’ve finished, we’ll sort out bedchambers. You’ll be exhausted, Nurse.”
“Not I,” said the old nurse stoutly.
Charlotte put a plate of scraps on the floor for the dog and gathered up the rest of the used plates and cutlery.
“This isn’t fitting,” Nurse observed.
“But it is necessary,” Charlotte said cheerfully.
Depositing the used plates in the kitchen, she collected the cheese, apples, and nuts, and returned to the coffee room, where she cut a portion for their fellow guest and arranged it on a plate with an apple and a handful of nuts.
“For his lordship?” Richard asked with disapproval. “We’re not obliged to feed him, you know.”
“Of course, we’re not,” Charlotte agreed with a mischievous smile. “But it’s quite fun being the innkeeper’s daughter.” She whisked out of the room with the cheese plate.
With sudden inspiration, she crossed the hall to the eerily empty taproom and found a bottle of what claimed to be brandy, which she also took to the parlor.
He was seated at the table, although to her surprise, he had retied his cravat and fastened his coat. What’s more, he stood up as she entered.
“I found some brandy,” she blurted, nervous for no obvious reason as she deposited the tray on the table. There was something altogether too proud about his posture. “I thought you might like it.”
“I doubt it,” he said dryly. “But I thank you for the effort. Tell me—” Before he could finish, a sudden explosion of noise erupted from the coffee room next door. A joyful bark, followed by the thud of a heavy object—or body—on the floor, and then a door slammed.
“Oh, no,” said Charlotte.
A small, furry whirlwind hurled itself into the parlor and leapt straight into Charlotte’s arms. She caught him automatically, received an enthusiastic slobber across her face, and a demented tail wag before the terrier broke free again, and bounced onto the stranger’s chest.
“Oh, you awful animal!” Charlotte exclaimed, reaching for the dog who had, by now, discovered the stranger to be an excellent stepping stone to the table and a little extra dinner. He was scrambling over the man’s shoulder when George burst into the room.
“Sorry, Charlie!” George panted, “Horry left the door ajar and he bolted out before we could catch him. Oh, the devil!” He uttered the last as Spring leapt for the table.
However, before either Charlotte or George could grab him, the stranger reached behind and caught the dog in both hands.
“Well?” he said sternly, holding Spring in front of him. “Are we on such terms that you think you can help yourself to my dinner?”
Spring wagged his tail and looked sheepish.
“He doesn’t think at all, sir,” George observed. “We think he’s insane, but Charlie would keep him.”
Spring’s tongue shot out and licked his captor’s nose. The stranger’s lip twitched.
Encouraged, Charlotte said, “There isn’t a mean b-bone in his… body. He’s just too excitable.”
“Much,” agreed the stranger, bending his tall body to place the dog on the floor. George hastily backed to the door to close it. “Sit,” the man commanded. “And stay.”
Charlotte almost laughed at such wild optimism. But to her astonishment, Spring did sit, although his tail wagged so hard she could feel the draught.
“Good God,” George uttered. “Do you see that, Charlie?”
“Oh, I do,” Charlotte replied, awed.
“There, I knew you were good at heart,” the man said to Spring and, swiping a small leftover piece of meat from his plate, he fed it to him. Spring gazed up at him adoringly.
Charlotte took the leash from George and slipped it over the dog’s head. “Thank you, sir,” she managed. “And my apologies.”
“I suspect the gratitude should all be mine,” the gentleman said obscurely as she led the dog to the door, “Might I have a word?”
Charlotte hesitated, then passed the leash to George. “Let’s try to keep him calm now—no more games with him.”
George sighed. “Very well.” He cast a quick grin over his shoulder at the stranger. “Sorry, sir, but you must admit he is funny.”
“He is,” the gentleman agreed, with a faint twitch of his lip. He seemed not to be a great smiler. But George grinned back all the same and led the dog out. He only pranced a little.
Charlotte held the door open for them, but did not close it behind them.
The gentleman indicated the chair opposite his own. “Please, join me.”
Her eyebrows flew up. “Oh, no, I couldn’t do that.”
“Just for a few minutes.” He met her gaze. “You have no idea how desperate I am to know what’s going on.”
“Going on?” she repeated, playing for time.
“Exactly. Come, sit down. You may share my cheese if you wish, and I wouldn’t make such an offer to just anyone.”
She continued to regard him uncertainly from just inside the door.
He sighed. “Madam, you’re no more the innkeeper’s wife than I am. Or his daughter or sister. In fact, I begin to suspect he is not even the innkeeper but your servant.”
“Well, if you know all that, there is nothing for me to explain,” Charlotte said at once.
His eyebrows flew up. “On the contrary, there is everything to explain! Where is the wretched innkeeper, and why are you serving me dinner?”
She took a step farther into the room. “Truthfully? I have no idea where the innkeeper is, or any of his family or servants. The inn was deserted when we arrived. The… boys were hungry and we gave up waiting. So, I went to the kitchen myself and heated up the stew. It seemed only fair to share since you were in the same… boat as us. As it were.”
“And the boys I’ve seen are your brothers?” he guessed.
“For their sins or mine.”
“Are there any more of you?”
“There is our old nurse. And John the coachman who helped you with the horses.” She swallowed. “We didn’t mean to mislead you. Exactly. It’s just we make somewhat chaotic company—especially with Spring!”
A flash of amusement warmed the stranger’s cold eyes. “Spring? Is that his name? I’m guessing you didn’t call him after the season of his birth.”
Encouraged, Charlotte laughed. “Indeed not. He was the runt of the litter and I foolishly imagined he was small enough to make a pretty lapdog for my mother or
my sister. But by three months old, he could jump to head height and caused chaos wherever he went. He is virtually untrainable, although I suppose we laugh at him too much to be very strict. I have to say, you were excellent with him.”
For an instant, the stranger looked startled by such praise, though when he blinked, the expression vanished into one of mere thoughtfulness.
He stirred, abruptly changing the subject. “And what is your theory about our absent hosts?”
“That they all went out—perhaps to a wedding or something the whole community might attend—and then stayed put because of the mist.”
“But this inn must be fairly well-used. Why would they not leave someone in charge?”
“Perhaps they did,” Charlotte suggested, “but without supervision he simply took himself off.”
“So, they are all lost in the mist while strangers like you and me found our way here?”
“When you say it like that, it doesn’t make much sense,” she allowed. “But John does know the house. It was his idea to come here when we realized we shouldn’t get home tonight and would have to put up somewhere.” An involuntary smile began to form on her lips. “You think there is some great mystery here,” she guessed.
“Don’t you?”
“Well, I hope for one,” she confided. “I often do, though I am usually disappointed by some thoroughly mundane explanation.”
An amused glint entered his steady eyes. “A lady after my own heart. There is nothing more lowering than discovering one’s dinner being late is due not to foreign spies or some dastardly murder plot, but to the scullery maid dropping a previous incarnation of one’s meal on the floor.”
“Exactly,” Charlotte said warmly. She hesitated, then, “If you wish, sir, you are welcome to join us in the coffee room, though we shall not be offended should you choose peace.”
One black eyebrow lifted. “Peace over mystery? Never.” He lifted the tray from the table and inclined his head for her to precede him. “Lead on, Miss…?”
“Charlotte,” she said thoughtlessly. Because of her difficulty speaking the letter b, she often missed out her surname when she could. Fortunately, Thomasina, as the eldest sister, was officially Miss Maybury, while Charlotte was merely Miss Charlotte Maybury.
But her reticence seemed to amuse her new friend, who murmured, “Of course. Why spoil such a mysterious evening with commonplaces like surnames?”
Chapter Two
“… And he sat down, good as gold, just like a proper dog,” George was telling the others with clear awe in his voice. The coffee room door stood open and he still held onto Spring’s lead. He grinned as he saw Charlotte and her companion. “Here he is. Watch this. Will you make him sit again, sir?”
“You make him sit,” the stranger advised. “He’s calm enough to listen.”
It was true. Although Spring was tugging to get to Charlotte, he wasn’t bouncing or scrabbling on the floor as he often did.
“Spring, sit,” George commanded.
Spring glanced at him as though asking, what the devil for? Then he plonked his rear down and took advantage of the loosened leash to waddle forward toward Charlotte, scraping his bottom along the floor.
Horatio laughed. “He’s still sitting! You know, I don’t think he’s as daft as he pretends.”
“He couldn’t be and still live,” Richard commented. He and Horatio had stood courteously as the stranger walked in behind Charlotte. Nurse glowered at the newcomer so fiercely that she had difficulty getting out of her chair.
“Please don’t rise on my account,” the stranger said to her, at once endearing himself to Charlotte. “Especially since I am about to join you at the table, if no one objects.”
Even Richard wasn’t about to object to anyone who could reduce Spring from a state of craziness to sitting in a mere moment.
“This is Miss Crane, whom we all call Nurse,” Charlotte said, “because she has looked after us all and put up with us from birth. And these are my brothers, Richard, George, and Horatio.”
“After Lord Nelson,” Horry said with a scowl, “before you ask.”
“I wouldn’t dream of asking,” the stranger said gravely. “A man’s name is his own business.”
“Which reminds me, we don’t know yours,” Charlotte said, sitting down at the end of the table.
George and Horatio moved up, making room for the stranger who sat and placed his plate of cheese and fruit in the middle of the table. His gaze searched Charlotte’s for a moment, although she couldn’t imagine what he might be looking for.
“Alexander,” he said at last, and glanced quizzically at Horatio. “And no, not as in the Great. Merely as in my father and grandfather. None of us has ever even claimed descent from the great man. I suppose we must lack imagination.”
Horatio grinned.
“If I’d known that,” Charlotte remarked. “I wouldn’t have invited you to share our mystery.”
“I’m already sharing it by mere virtue of being here,” Mr. Alexander pointed out.
“You mean the mystery of our missing hosts?” Richard said. “Have you considered the possibility that they haven’t left at all? That they’ve been gruesomely murdered and abandoned somewhere in the inn?”
“Master Richard!” Nurse exclaimed.
“Well, unless they’ve been stuffed in a cupboard or under the beds, they’re not,” George said. “We’ve had a good look round all the bedchambers, and John scoured the stables and outbuildings. No one’s here, dead or alive.”
“I don’t know now whether to be grateful or not,” Charlotte murmured.
“Were they expecting you?” Mr. Alexander asked.
Charlotte shook her head. “No, for we didn’t mean to stop anywhere until the mist came down and slowed us up. But John, our coachman, would never have brought us to an inn that was not respectable.”
Mr. Alexander frowned at the slice of cheese he had just cut. “I find that most unsatisfactory.”
Charlotte blinked. “You do?”
The grey, oddly cool eyes focused on her. “Don’t you? It seems to me there is nothing we can do to solve this until the morning, when we have to hope the mist clears.”
“They might come back in the middle of the night,” Horatio said hopefully. “Or they might have been overrun by smugglers or pirates, and never be seen again.”
“Horry, you’re as bloodthirsty as Richard!” Charlotte exclaimed.
Mr. Alexander offered her the cheese he had cut. “But you must admit, smugglers and pirates would be more fun than gruesome bodies under the beds.”
“Not if they caused the gruesome bodies under the bed,” Charlotte objected.
“Miss Charlotte, don’t you go encouraging them!” Nurse commanded, “I won’t have nasty smugglers or pirates anywhere near my charges, and I most certainly won’t be having bodies under the beds!”
“Of course you won’t,” Charlotte soothed. “And we have nothing to worry about, anyway, because we have our fearsome hound to protect us.”
Spring, clearly recognizing himself in this description, thumped his tail on Charlotte’s foot.
“However, I’m going to lock all the doors before we retire,” she added. “So, if the innkeeper comes back in the middle of the night, there may be a lot of banging to get in.”
“He’ll have his own keys,” Richard objected.
“Maybe,” Charlotte said, “but maybe not. The doors were all left open, as though they’d left in a hurry.”
“Or they simply trust their neighbors,” Mr. Alexander offered. His lips quirked as everyone frowned at him. “What? I’m told it happens.”
“But this is an inn,” Charlotte said. “There are always strangers around, even here off the main roads. Which makes it doubly odd for everyone to have simply gone, leaving the inn wide open.”
“So, what’s your explanation, Charlie?” Richard asked, reaching across the table for an apple.
“At the moment, I don’t have one,”
Charlotte admitted. “But I shall do before we leave, and prove it, too.”
“Wager,” Richard said at once. “Put your money where your mouth is.”
“I don’t have any money and neither do you,” Charlotte retorted. She frowned. “Which reminds me, how should we pay for our lodging? Leave the innkeeper a note, or just a reasonable amount for a night’s stay and dinner?”
“Less,” Mr. Alexander advised. “You’ve had to do all the work. I’d leave a note and quarrel about it later. In the meantime, I’ll have my man light the fires in your bedchambers, and bring up water, if necessary.”
“Oh, thank you, but there’s no need,” Charlotte said at once.
“It’s only fair since your man looked after my horses.”
“I helped him,” George said eagerly, “and I must say, sir, they’re very fine animals.”
“Thank you, I think so, too,” Mr. Alexander replied, and handled the ensuing catechism about the horses’ origins, care, feeding and training with a tolerant good nature Charlotte would not have expected from her first sight of him. Not that he said much, but she rather liked his odd, humorous asides and the way he made no effort to dominate or control the conversation.
Despite his air of haughty fashion and his expensively groomed appearance, he seemed perfectly content in the company of three schoolboys, their dowdy sister, and an old servant. And Spring, of course. But then, the inn was otherwise empty and she supposed beggars could not be choosers.
“Do you have other horses?” George demanded. “Those you use when you drive yourself?”
“Yes, I have a team I drive with my curricle.”
“And hunters?” George asked eagerly.
“Yes.”
“I want to join a cavalry regiment,” George confided.
“I’m sure you shall,” Mr. Alexander said patiently.
Even Nurse seemed mollified enough by his manners to stop glaring at him, although after about half an hour, she announced suddenly that it was time to retire.
“We’ll need an early start tomorrow,” she warned. “Your parents will already be worried by your absence tonight.”
“I expect they’ll be too busy to notice,” Charlotte said. After all, they hadn’t even remembered about the school holidays. It was Charlotte who had prompted them. “But you are right, of course. Providing the mist lifts, we must be off at the crack of dawn. If only to ask at the village where on earth the innkeeper is!”
The Deserted Heart: Unmarriageable Series (Unmarriagable Series Book 1) Page 2