“It is good you think so now …”
“But?”
“I’m afraid that while you have been shielded from the gossips so far, I have no doubt that when your family returns, so too will the gossip.”
Because Julia’s mother had never courted anonymity.
Serena gave a faint smile. “I am sorry to have to speak on such matters, but I know to my detriment just how scorching such words can be, which is why I much prefer to be far from here if at all possible.”
“You think it best I leave London?”
“I think it best you talk with Jon and Catherine when they return. Perhaps there is someplace where you might be able to regain your place in society without the critics watching your every move.”
Hope flickered. Perhaps she could reestablish herself as a widow in a village where she was unknown. She and Thomas had previously managed to assume new identities in a social scene far from their norm; she knew what would need to be done. For a moment, a glorious vista unfurled before her: a cottage of her own; a child she would raise; a place where she would be respected, not condemned; and perhaps, one day, even a new husband—one she would be very sure was safe, and would lead her to security, not into fears.
The remembrance of her reality dissolved the dream, dissolved her hopes. So many questions clamored for attention: her husband’s whereabouts—if in fact he was alive, her family’s reaction, her future, society. How would she survive the next few weeks?
“I do not wish to alarm you, but I feel it best you are prepared.”
“Thank you.” Julia forced a smile.
“I hope you know we will be praying for you.”
Heat edged her eyes, and she forced back the tears at the younger girl’s kindness.
Perhaps God would pay attention to sweet Serena and kind Henry, even if He had no time for her.
As for the rest of it? She lifted her chin. Her mother and her brother would require tact to help them see her point of view; Serena and Henry might have to help them see things from her perspective. And society? Maybe one day she might be accepted in society again. Maybe one day she might even care.
CHAPTER SIX
Dover
“WELL, HELLO THERE.” A buxom woman with eyes as empty as her smile sidled up to him. The Golden Anchor was not his usual port of call, but when a man was desperate for the readies he would do anything, even cross the threshold of a public hostelry that shouted its antecedents as a place of ill-repute. He’d be willing to bet his life that this place once was home to not a few smugglers, and he would stake his health that descendants of those same smugglers still lurked within its walls today. At least, that’s what he was hoping for.
“A man like you looks like he needs to relax,” she continued, tracing a finger down his shirtfront.
He forced himself not to flinch, nodding instead, before allowing himself to be gently drawn inside. He had no intention for the type of relaxing she seemed to have in mind, but he would certainly relax once he had coin in his pocket again. And the only way to do that was to hope the luck that had brought them safely back to English shores would continue to hold.
Within five minutes he had a drink. Within ten he was reasonably sure he had been sized up as something of a flat, an easy mark. No doubt the ill-matched Spanish clothes he now wore had engendered such belief, his prison-tattered trousers and coat exchanged for the slightly cleaner garments worn by Harrow and Smith. Or perhaps it was the poor accent he’d adopted, or the certain look of vacuity he’d assumed which had won him more gold than it ought over the years, from White’s in London to the gambling hells of the Subcontinent.
Within fifteen minutes, by pretending to be in his altitudes, drinking a little too deep, he had given the impression that the Spaniard could not hold his liquor. This seemed to convince the decidedly smoky tavern inhabitants that he was ripe for the plucking, as, after giving their game a suitably interested look, they invited him to join their card game.
Within the hour, he had given an altogether different impression as the sharp memory he liked to hide behind droopy eyelids had helped him to win more than enough to finance the onward journey, for both himself and the three men shivering in a laneway outside.
“Señors, gracias for the game but I must go,” he mumbled, depositing his winnings into the coat pocket; he hoped it had no holes. He pushed back his chair, rising.
The man seated opposite—a cursed ivory turner if ever he met one—seemed to want to gnash his teeth, offering a very peculiar smile instead. “Please, don’t be so quick to leave. The night be young—”
“But I be not.” Some days, like now, he felt older than the hills. If only he could sleep. But first to find his—
“Siddown.” A hand clamped on his shoulder.
Thomas flinched. Forced himself to relax. Ran a surreptitious eye around the room, noting the way many of the tavern inhabitants leaned forward as if expecting a fracas to commence. Well, he wouldn’t want to disappoint …
He slumped, as if to resume his seat. As soon as he felt the hand on his shoulder relax he used the extra momentum to elbow his captor in the groin before smashing his clenched fist into the bulbous nose. He caught the look of shock on the faces around him—yes, it was dirty fighting, but effective—and knew he had but a moment before they joined their compatriot in routing the supposed Spaniard. He leapt to his feet and spun around, tipping over a chair in his haste to reach the door.
Yelled obscenities filled the room as a surge of men followed him. But only so many could meet him in the narrow hallway, and the skills of years of boxing soon came to the fore, as one man after another soon followed their friend to the filthy floor.
But even as he felt the adrenaline surging, he knew his strength to be rather less than par, and prepared to make his escape. A bear of a man pushed past a table, sending it crashing to the ground. “Oy!”
“Sí?” Before the man had a chance to touch him, he kicked out at the man’s knee—another dirty trick, but there was no honor among men like these—heard the loud huff of surprised indignation, and finished him off with a fist to the jaw. The man staggered backwards. So much for thinking his fighting days were behind him.
Without waiting to see if the bruiser joined the upended table, Thomas fled into the frigid night air, working to ignore the throbbing pain in his hand, the burn in his lungs as he hastened to the point of rendezvous. God forbid the men not be there …
A twist of a lane, a back alleyway more, and he had joined Benson, Smith, and Harrow, motioning them for silence even as he struggled to quiet his breathing as the sounds of pounding footsteps filled the street.
He jerked his head towards the door opposite, another tavern. After a hasty exchange of coats and a general dusting down of their apparel to release the worst of the fight-acquired dirt, they followed him into the dim interior, eyes wide, mouth closed. He nodded to the innkeeper, ordered a round of ales with the precious coins, and settled into the darkest corner of the room.
“What happened?” Harrow asked in an undervoice.
“I have the funds, which I shall give you when we don’t have a dozen pairs of eyes watching.”
Harrow nodded. Benson grunted. Smith’s face wore a look as vacant as Thomas had tried to assume. His heart twisted with compassion. Poor lad.
“It appears the men took exception to someone like me winning at their expense, so I had to rely on other methods of persuasion.” He held up a fist. “Here’s hoping they feel no need to visit every tavern in Dover to search for poor Pedro.”
“Pedro?”
“Sí.” He smiled.
It wouldn’t hurt for them to know he could hold his own in a brawl. And provided they could leave without further assault—poor Smith would never last a fight—then they should be free to carry on with their plans to finally, finally return to their loved ones. Whatever the men’s feelings about such things, they should not complain too much. He had just won their passage back to their respect
ive homes.
The door burst open and in surged a group of men. Thomas forced himself to appear relaxed as he searched the room for potential exits. He dipped two fingers in his beer and smoothed his hair, encouraging the others to straighten to the stance of the soldiers they had once been. A couple of twists of the sad strip of linen that had once served as his cravat and he hoped he appeared more like a man who once had counted a viscount as his friend.
A loud voice came from near the taproom. “I’m looking for a Spaniard. Any newcomers in here?”
“The only strangers be that group in the corner.”
Heart sinking, wishing he’d had time to scrape the fuzz from his face and further disguise himself from the role he’d played earlier, Thomas turned to the others. “Seems we shall need to brazen things out. Follow my lead.”
By now the men were approaching their table, their eyes hard, tight with suspicion. “Smith, sit up,” he muttered.
“Sir! Your hand.”
Spying the hatch of bloodied grazes Harrow referred to, Thomas tucked his right hand from view, and wrapped his less fight-affected left fingers around the pewter tankard as the men loomed above their table, chests puffed out like bantam cockerels.
“Oy, I rec’nise that jacket!” One of the men blustered. “Oy, you!”
“Ignore them,” Thomas hissed, before taking a deliberate sip of beer.
“Oy! I be speaking to you. Look at me.” The man said, nudging Smith, who turned to look up at them with a creased brow.
“I beg your pardon?” he said in his soft voice.
Thomas held his breath, glad the fool had chosen the mildest of them to make his accusation, and not chosen Benson to vent his spleen. Who knew what that hothead might say.
“That’s not ’im,” one of the others said, among a chorus of disapprobation.
“Excuse me,” Thomas said in a stern voice that had never failed to win him respect on the Subcontinent. “I do believe you owe my friend an explanation for your rough behavior.”
“And who be you?” the man said, eyeing him narrowly.
“I be Major Thomas Hale, of the Nineteenth Regiment of His Majesty’s Army.” He eyed the man with a straight look, surprised at the tinge of honor he felt at finally speaking the truth.
The man sneered. “Sure, and I be the King of England.”
“Really? You surprise me. I did not think such an exalted personage favored these types of places.”
The other man swore, then said in a low voice Thomas supposed he was not meant to overhear, “He looks like the one they called the Spaniard.”
Thomas flicked a warning look at Benson, whose hands had clenched at the words, and forced his shoulders back in the manner opposite of the vacant creature whose pose he had earlier assumed. “I beg your pardon, I must have misunderstood. Do you dare have the temerity to accuse me of not being who I say I am?”
“Well, you surely don’t look like any major I’ve ever seen.”
“And precisely how many majors of His Majesty’s Army have you had opportunity to meet?” He raised an eyebrow in the manner of his former friend Carmichael, an effective means to dampen pretensions.
“Well, I, er …”
“My good man, although it pains me to stoop to even acknowledge such levels of derogatory accusation, I can supply you with the direction of more than a dozen men who can vouch that I have most certainly served His Majesty in this way. Or would you prefer the recommendation of an earl?” Carmichael would be an earl one day. Although whether he still deigned to stand as Thomas’s friend …
“I … er …”
“Have you paper and ink? My friends and I have just recently crossed over from France, and our trunks were mysteriously waylaid”—all true, although the trunks had disappeared somewhere during their imprisonment in Spain—“and we are forced to wait until such means are afforded us for their return. But I am more than willing to oblige those of you who have the nerve to doubt my veracity.” He turned to his men seated at the table. “I must be in a good mood, for I do not normally appreciate being thought a liar.”
They murmured their agreement, with louder references to “major.”
He glanced at his accusers, whose air of suspicion seemed now clouded with confusion, then pushed to his feet and said in a carrying voice, “I say, barman, this ale is the finest we’ve had in a good long while. We need another round. I assure you, the Frenchies have nothing to compare.”
There was a general murmur of agreement, and he could feel the subtle shift in the atmosphere of the tavern’s clientele veering to his side, especially when the barman placed their tankards before them and Thomas paid him with more of their hard-won coin. “Do you know how many months it is since we’ve enjoyed such superior beverages? I’m sure you cannot. Shall you tell them, Captain Harrow?” he continued, elevating his friend a rank.
“Six.”
“Six months?”
“Yes, nigh on half a year.” Thomas said. “Do you know what it does to an Englishman’s soul to be deprived of quality libations for so lengthy a time? Why, it sends him almost mad.” He eyed his main accuser’s attire with an upraised brow. “Tell me, have you also risked life and limb to serve His Majesty and know what it is to forgo such pleasure?”
“Well, I … no.”
“Really? You astound me.”
The man muttered to his companion, “He don’t sound like no Spaniard I ever heard.”
“A Spaniard?” Thomas arched his brows. “Don’t tell me you were seeking a Hibernian? What did he look like?”
“Well, not unlike you, but a bit coarser, seemed like something of a loose fish.”
“I am gratified that you can observe the difference,” he said, not without irony.
Harrow coughed, forcing Thomas to eye him sternly, before he returned his attention to the men who remained before them. “You must forgive the good captain here. I’m afraid he must have picked up a little something on the journey over.” He leaned forward. “I’m hopeful it’s nothing too infectious.”
The men took a step back, eyeing them all with one more glance before finally trudging from the room.
“Hold,” he cautioned his friends, Benson in particular seemed ready to leap up and run away. “We cannot afford to draw suspicion upon ourselves by instantly fleeing.”
“Do you think it wise to give your own name?” Harrow asked.
“I cannot be sure, but perhaps the ring of truth might well be what persuaded them to finally leave.”
“That or your attempt to sound like a gentleman,” Benson muttered.
How to explain he used to talk like that most of the time? That he used to dine in superior circles and had counted numerous men of rank and fortune among his friends? He might have shared much about his life in recent months in attempts to stave off madness, but certain more personal factors like this were hard to explain. So he did not.
“Talking fancy like that made ’em go away,” Smith said.
“Exactly so,” said “Captain” Harrow, with a narrow-eyed look at Benson.
Thomas could feel the level of amity decreasing with every passing minute. Smith uttered another of those lung-rattling coughs that dug further resolve for Thomas to return him home as soon as possible. God forbid Smith get this close but no farther. His family had to see him, even if it be for one last time. No, they needed to leave, but before they could do so, he still had some important things to do. He waited until watching eyes had grown bored and turned away before drawing the rhino from his pocket. He counted out the coins, preserving a slightly larger portion for himself, and handed the three men their shares. “That should do you for a passage to London,” he said.
“Why’d you have to buy more grog? We would’ve had more if you hadn’t spent it,” grumbled Benson.
“Acknowledging another’s superior qualities tends to have a disarming effect,” Thomas said. “You might have noticed the general mood grew decidedly warmer toward us when the men could
see we appreciated such ale.”
“But it wasn’t even that good,” Benson griped, eyeing Thomas’s pile of coins. “Anyway, why do you get to have more?”
“Because I’m the one who took the risk by gambling. And I’m the one who saved your necks back in Spain. And I am the one who has the farthest to travel, home to Edinburgh if you must know.” He looked at the pittance of coin in his hands. “I don’t even know if this is enough for me to get halfway there, but that’s better than nothing. And at least it’s enough for a hot meal.”
They all rose, Thomas again loudly proclaiming the merits of the establishment. Once outside, it was determined wisest to separate and arrange their passage to their various locales: London, Leicestershire, and Scotland.
“Thank you, sir,” said Smith. “I would’ve been dead many times over by now were it not for you.”
Thomas clasped the outstretched hand in a careful grip. “You and I shall travel northwards together. I’ll see you to Leicester, don’t you worry.”
The lad repeated his obligation, the pale face twisting concern within. Smith would be lucky to make it home alive, but Thomas would do his best to ensure he did.
“Well, I too am right thankful,” said Harrow. The redhead shook hands firmly. “If there’s anything I can do for you, you need only shout.”
Thomas nodded, eyeing the other man, whose sullen expression had not wavered despite the other men’s expressed gratitude. “Godspeed, Benson. I trust your family will be pleased to see you return.”
“Even if it’s only six months late.”
“That was not my fault,” Thomas said. “Besides, it cannot be helped now.”
Harrow eyed Benson as one might a loathsome insect. “Anyone would think you held Hale responsible! What kind of worm-meal of a man are you?”
Benson’s lips pulled back, his pock-marked, freckled face flushing as his hand clenched.
“Let’s have none of that now,” Thomas cautioned. “We don’t want to draw further attention to ourselves. Godspeed, Harrow.”
The Making of Mrs. Hale Page 5