Edith Layton (4 page)

So the baron and his wife hadn’t accused Meg of anything but stupidity and carelessness. But they did that constantly. Everyone else in the house looked at her with suspicion, too, and no one but the Bow Street Runner would talk to her. It had become unendurable.

Meg decided she wouldn’t endure it. She was no adventuress, but she couldn’t just sit and wait for Rosalind to return or send word. She had to take ac
tion the way Rosie’s childhood friend, and fiancé, young Tom Rackham, immediately had. He’d leaped on a horse and rode off to find her. That was simpler for a hotheaded, rich young gentleman than it was for a paid servant. But Meg had once had independence. And she wasn’t going to give up what little of it she had left without a fight.

The Runner had been kinder to her. He’d given her permission to leave an unpleasant situation and stay with her retired governess for the duration—as long as she left her direction with him. Meg did more. She also sent a letter to her old governess, swearing her to secrecy, begging that she tell anyone who asked that she
was
there, or would be arriving soon. Because Meg wasn’t going there. The only way to prove her innocence and ensure a bearable future was to strike out on her own and find Rosalind.

The thought of Rosie leaving her redheaded, mischief-loving Thomas for another man was ridiculous. They’d been a well-matched pair, always playing like a pair of puppies. She also couldn’t believe Rosie could have kept such a secret from her. After all, Rosie was seventeen and Meg three and twenty, so they’d been more like friends than mistress and servant…or so Meg had thought.

But there had been that one night when Meg had wondered why Rosie wasn’t in bed and had gone looking for her. She’d found Rosie standing in the library, studying one of her father’s folding canvas-backed traveling maps, a finger paused on a spot
amongst the roads and routes. Rosie had been startled when she’d seen Meg appear in the doorway.

“What is it?” Rosie had said as she hurriedly folded up the map again.

“I only wondered why you weren’t in bed,” Meg had said.

“Oh,” Rosie had said with a forced giggle, “I thuppose I couldn’t thleep I wath thinking tho much about my honeymoon trip. Tom theth we’ll thee a bit of England before we leave. We’ll travel down to Brighton. No…no, Penthance? Bother, thomething with a ‘B’ or a ‘P’ in it, anyway. Then we’ll get board a packet for the Continent. Thuth fun! I can hardly wait!”

“Well, you’d better, because that’s months away!” Meg had told her. “Come to bed, silly. We’ve almost a year to get through before you leave. You don’t have to memorize maps now.”

So, laughing, the two had gone up the stairs again.

Meg had told the Runner about it. But she hadn’t remembered anything else until the night before she herself had left. Then she’d wandered back to the library, trying to recreate that moment, if only because it was the only time she’d felt Rosie had lied to her. Meg had found the map and unfolded it. And then in a flare of lamp light, she’d noticed a pock, an indentation, only that, but just exactly where Rosie had put her finger that night, she’d swear it. Meg stared:
Plymouth
.

That was where Meg was going now. She had to believe that was the right direction. It was never
pleasant traveling alone, but she’d been on her own before. Servants after all, even jumped-up ones, didn’t need chaperones when going from one position to another. But it was daunting. She had two weeks in which to find Rosie. Dressed in gray or brown like a servant, eyes downcast, she’d thought she could be as much as invisible as she traveled. But the clock was ticking and it was proving more difficult than she’d imagined.

Rosie could have gone off on a lark and gotten herself into trouble, and she herself was in trouble now. If she didn’t find Rosie, she’d be dismissed without a reference.

That would mean she’d have to go back to live with the two maiden aunts who’d taken her in when she’d been orphaned at thirteen. When she’d left them six years later she’d vowed she’d never again live on their charity. Not that they were cruel, or couldn’t afford her upkeep. They were only frugal, insular, and totally lacking laughter. Their house in the Lake District was remote, and exquisitely lonely. If Meg returned there, it would probably be where she’d spend the rest of her life.

She was too wellborn for her aunts to allow her to be courted by local lads, and they wouldn’t sponsor her in Society, even such as there was there. There were few single men of any kind near her aunts’ house; it was difficult enough finding women friends. That was why Meg had gone for a position when she’d turned nineteen: to find company. She’d found work, and little else, but at least that little had
been interesting. She’d had two positions in London that showed her how the upper class lived, even if she only lived on the edges of their privileged world. Then she’d gone to the countryside to stay with Rosie, where she’d felt like a guest, not a servant.

Now she was three and twenty and if she didn’t find silly little Rosie, her whole future would be past.

She’d been traveling down from the baron’s house for two days now, with many an alarm and a few starts to frighten her, but no real danger. Meeting a dangerous man was only something else she had to face, and get over. The feelings the fellow had awakened in her were troubling, though. He seemed to be considering more than the truth of what she was saying. He seemed to be thinking about how she’d feel in his arms, and that made her consider it as well.

She was wise enough to know those were feelings she couldn’t afford to have. With great luck she might someday meet a man she could marry. She couldn’t tarry with any other kind. Anyway, she knew very well that she wasn’t the sort of female that appealed to such a man. His apparent interest in her body was only another way to threaten or coerce her. As though such a man would be lusting for a nondescript female in cheap, drab, concealing clothes, with not a shred of coquetry in her!

Meg scowled. She’d be damned if he’d fool her. Literally. She shivered again. It wasn’t only the sexual allure of the man. He positively radiated danger of all sorts. It was only too bad that they were traveling the same road.

Meg’s expression brightened. But since he was going her way it meant he’d gotten his information from the Runners. And she was the one who had given the Runners that information. That gave her an edge. She smiled. “Stick like a burr,” indeed! He believed she was headed for Brighton. Good. When she could, she’d leave the Brighton Road. She’d head for Plymouth and, hopefully, Rosie. Her wild guess might find Rosie, and then she could go on with her life as though nothing had happened.

Meg took off her gown and folded it. She washed in the cool water from the pitcher and basin on the table, brushed her teeth, slipped on a nightshift, went to the bed and sat to brush and braid her hair for the night.

She hated to get a late start in the morning, but she had to leave the inn after he did, so he’d think she’d gone home. Her fingers stilled on her night braid. Her spirits lifted. The gypsy didn’t know where her home was. So it didn’t matter where he saw her going. She finished braiding her hair and pulled back the bedcovers.

She stopped. She felt a tickling in her bladder that told her she’d forgotten to do one last thing before going to bed. Drat the man for rattling her so much as to make her forget it!

Meg peered under the bed and saw the cracked thunder mug left for her use. Her nose wrinkled. She hated to sleep with that smell in her nostrils, especially since it always got stronger as the night went on.

So it was off to the Jericho then. It was located out back of the inn, in the garden. The trip would have been easier when she’d been dressed. But she had a night robe, and she had a cape, so she didn’t have to get dressed again.

Meg went down the stair and peered around. The tap was closed, the room was empty, but the inn wasn’t entirely still. The serving wench came clomping out of the room, empty mugs in her hands. She gave Meg a cold, haughty stare.

“The Jericho is out back?” Meg asked, with equal friendliness.

“Where else?” the wench said, and marched into the kitchens.

Well, so the dark man hadn’t taken company to his bed tonight, Meg thought. She was a little surprised, but more annoyed when she found herself relieved. She stepped out into the night and made her way into the garden, and then into the vine-covered outhouse.

Her mission didn’t take long. The rain had stopped. It was a cool, damp, misty night; the only light came from the inn and the two lanterns burning in front of it. Meg began to wend her way back to the light, and stopped, her hand flying to her throat, as she saw a dark figure standing in the path before her.

“No worries!” the dark man said, throwing up his hands. “I mean you no harm. Just came out to blow a cloud.”

Meg waited until her heart stopped hammering enough for her to speak. She looked around to see she was close enough to the inn to be heard if she
screamed. “You came out to smoke a cheroot in front of the privy?”

“Why not? Some folks say it smells the same.”

“That’s vulgar,” she said.

“Aye, what else did you expect from me?”

She didn’t deign to reply.

“I didn’t expect anyone to be out and about at this hour, either,” he added.

She didn’t believe him. “Well, but I am, and I should like to be inside now. So if you’d be so kind as to let me pass?”

“Oh. Sorry,” he said, stepping aside and sweeping her a mocking bow.

She picked up her head and marched toward the inn. Her cheeks burned. Ridiculous to be uncomfortable about being seen leaving a privy, but she was.

“So, you’re leaving me tomorrow?” she heard him ask.

“I am going home,” she snapped, “as soon as I may.”

“Good night,” he said. “Godspeed.”

She didn’t reply. She still had almost two weeks of the absence granted by the Runner before she had to go back to the baron and face the consequences of Rosie’s disappearance. She’d use them well. And so if she ran into the gypsy again, if he somehow chose her path, she’d watch him as carefully as he was obviously watching her now.

The back of her neck crawled as she walked to the inn, but she forbade herself to turn around. She was sure he hadn’t moved. She was equally sure he’d
come out to see where she was going. She was relieved he hadn’t accepted the insane bargain she’d offered earlier: It would have been impossible to travel with him. He was deceptive, and much too aware of his attraction. She’d been lucky, because her offer had been made out of fear and cowardice and she was ashamed of herself for it. She had to behave rationally. She would, from now on.

She didn’t trust the dark man, but she believed him, in that he was determined to find Rosalind. But so was she.

“O
h, but miss,” the innkeeper’s wife said, “I already told the poor young man I didn’t know anything about his fiancée. Isn’t it shocking, though? Why would a girl leave such a well set up and nice-spoken young fellow at the altar? Although I heard it wasn’t exactly the altar, since he said she run off in the night. Bride nerves, that’s all it was,” she declared, putting her elbows on the desk as she warmed to the subject. “So I told him, and so it was! She’ll be back, never fear, says I.”

Meg sighed. “And when did you tell him this?”

“Why just this morning, miss.”

“But I thought mine was the first coach to arrive today.”

“So it is,” the innkeeper’s wife said comfortably.
“But the young man, he came on horseback, even earlier.”

Horseback!
Meg felt as though she’d been struck in the face with the news. She’d never thought about that. So that was why he’d been a step ahead of her all day yesterday. Well, good. That meant he wasn’t following her. But it also meant that she might just as well save her breath to cool her porridge for this last leg she’d take on the Brighton Road. Except, she reasoned slowly, if he
had
found out anything, she could discover what it was, too. There was a lot to be said for following the gypsy, actually.

“And now it turns out the girl was your cousin!” the innkeeper’s wife marveled. “Wonders will never cease. Well, if I find out anything, be sure I’ll send the news on ahead to where you’re bound. Where are you going next, miss?” she asked eagerly.

“I’m on my way to…” Meg paused. There was a jot too much eagerness in the woman’s tone, a touch too much excitement. “To Brighton,” she said.

She’d better not trust anyone. Who was to say that the gypsy hadn’t promised the woman payment for information about where she was bound? “Thank you,” she added. “I’ll be stopping where the coach does along the way, so if you hear of anything and can send on information I’ll be grateful.” And surprised, she thought.

Meg swallowed her tea, and hopped back up into the coach again when the guard signaled it was time to move on. There was a long way to travel before she’d leave the road and strike out on her own. When
she found the place where the road diverged and went east and west, she wouldn’t get on the Brighton stage again. There was a junction where passengers could continue on to Brighton or go west along the coast road toward Plymouth. That was where she’d make her move.

And if she didn’t find a shadow of Rosie in all her travels, in Plymouth or anywhere along the way?

Meg sighed, closed her eyes and laid her head on the back of her seat as the coach rocked on down the long road. Well, then, she’d have wasted her time and her money. So what? She wouldn’t need either when she was back with the aunts, after all.

The
Stoned Crow
wasn’t as tidy an inn as the
Old Fancy
across the street, where the coaches stopped, nor as famous for its menu as the
Rose and Bull
, a little way from there. But it wasn’t as crowded either, and that suited Meg’s purposes exactly. The fewer people who saw her come and go from this crossroads, the better. She got a room at the top of the stairs, looked out the window, and saw the Brighton coach leave the
Old Fancy
’s busy inn yard a half hour later. She planned to get on the next coach headed toward Plymouth at first light.

But there was dinner to be had first, and a night to get through. Meg went downstairs. The
Stoned Crow
had a separate taproom and a small dining parlor. The tap was dark, thick with smoke, noisy, and filled with men. The parlor’s air was fresher, but it was half empty. Meg could see why. The bits of carpet on the
floor were threadbare and stained, the floor itself in little better state. A fitful fire was slowly strangling in the sooty hearth, and the tables were battered and dented. But no one from the coach she’d arrived on was here, and that was what mattered most. Meg seated herself and waited to have her dinner.

But first, as always, as soon she gave the serving woman her order, she asked her usual question.

“A runaway heiress?” the woman asked with interest when she was done.

“I didn’t say heiress,” Meg said, “but she might be considered such.” She sighed, accepting the inevitable. “I suppose her fiancé told you that, did he? When did you speak with him?”

The woman cocked her head to the side. Her hair was untidy, her round face shiny from running to the tap, the kitchens, and back to the tables. Meg hoped her hands were cleaner than her apron. Service was not only cheaper here than at the two more popular inns, it was definitely more casual.

“I never talked to no fiancée,” the woman said. She focused on Meg as though seeing her for the first time. Meg put up her chin, hoping a well-bred air of affront at being evaluated so openly would make up for her being alone and in such plain, unfashionable clothing.

It must have done, the woman’s face grew a poorly concealed look of cunning, as she asked, “So he’s after her, too? I suppose there’s a reward?”

Meg’s hopes rose. “Yes, there is. Have you heard about her?”

“I may have,” the woman said evasively. “Not like I know nothing exactly, o’course. But I hear things. Lemme think on a bit. I’ll be back with your soup, and by then mebbe—who knows?—I’ll have some information for you, too.”

By the time the woman returned, Meg was more starved for news than for her dinner.

“Uh huh,” the woman said quietly as she put the bowl of soup down in front of Meg. “I heared something. Not saying as to how I’m disobliging, miss, but I gotta see the color of your coin first, if you know what I mean.” She gave Meg a look that showed she wondered if she could pay for her dinner, much less information.

“Oh, yes,” Meg said. “And wouldn’t I be the fool to show my money before getting anything for it? I lost quite a bit on the way down here by doing just that,” she added in her loftiest accents. “But I am, you might say, a downier pigeon than that now, thank you. I do learn from my mistakes. I pay when I’m convinced there’s something to pay for. So. What can you tell me?”

She fell still, hoping she’d be taken for a wealthy eccentric. She had some money to pay for information, but never much.

The woman frowned, then shrugged. She leaned down as if rearranging Meg’s tableware and lowered her voice, “Well, see, right after I talked to you, I heared these three fellas at the tap talking about a runaway heiress and suchlike. So I just went and asked them a thing or two, and they got shifty. Mean
ing they won’t tell me nothing, ’cause they know I got nothing, so they got nothing to gain from it, see? But then I told them you was looking to know more, and that you offered money, too. So what I can do is show you who they are and you can ask them yourself. But not for nothing.” She straightened, and waited.

Meg dug into her purse and produced a coin, large enough for her to regret, small enough to make the serving woman frown.

But the woman took it and dropped it into her apron pocket. “Listen,” she said. “I gotta work now. I’ll pass the word, and come back and tell you when they’re ready for you.”

The soup was salty and thin. The roast that came next was tough and stringy, and the gray lumps accompanying it might have been vegetables before they were cooked into total submission. Meg didn’t notice. She was too busy trying to peer into the corners of the taproom. If she got a hint of Rosie’s whereabouts she could leave this dismal place as the sun rose and get on with her hunt.

The parlor slowly emptied of diners. Meg could see men straggling out of the tap, too. The hour was growing late; she was tired from a day of traveling. But she couldn’t leave the room, much less close an eye, if there were a chance she’d learn more about Rosalind.

When everyone had left the parlor, and when Meg was about to march upstairs, convinced she’d been
fleeced, the serving woman appeared again. She looked furtive. Meg’s hopes rose again.

“All right,” the woman said. “Go on in to the tap. Them is the three at the table toward the corner by the window. Ain’t many left in there now, you can’t miss them.” She hurried away.

Meg went into the tap and looked around. It had been less inviting than the parlor. It was more so now. The smell of ale was thick as the air, which was heavy with coal and pipe smoke. There was only a handful of men left in the dim room—and three of them sat shoulder to shoulder at a table by the window. Meg straightened her own shoulders and advanced.

She stopped when she got to their table and plucked up her courage. They were not the sort of men she was accustomed to speaking to.

One was dark, but the darkness of that face wasn’t his natural complexion, the irregular streaks on it showed it came from grime. His hair wasn’t visible beneath his battered hat, but the calculation in his narrowed eyes was. The man in the middle was cleaner, or at least pink faced. He wore clothes that showed his attempt at playing the peacock, because he had a soiled red kerchief tied around his plump neck. The third man was thick, and looked thick-witted too, as he gave her a wide and broken-toothed smile that had no humor in it.

“Gentlemen,” she said as calmly as she could. “I’ve been told you might know something about my cousin. She’s a very pretty blond, blue-eyed young
woman who dresses like a lady.” She paused, because she realized she hated to so much as describe pretty Rosalind to this foul-looking trio. Still, not only in spite of, but because of the way they looked, she reasoned they must have their ears to the ground.

Knowing that she had to, she added, “She speaks with a lisp, as well, and it’s unmistakable. I’ve reason to believe she’s traveling this road. I’m looking for her, and I’ve missed her at all turns. I—I’ll pay for information about her, if you have any.”

The men gave each other significant looks. Then the plump one spoke up. “Might be we have, at that, little lady. Could be. What do you think, men?”

“What?” the filthy one grunted. “How do we know she ain’t playing at something, eh? Got a man or two behind that there door, Missy? And him with an eye on robbing decent folk, someways?”

The thickset man giggled.

“Aye, right,” the plump one said. “She don’t look like she’s running a rig, but who knows? After all, there are dark forces afoot here, and don’t we know it?”

“No, no one’s with me,” Meg said quickly. “I vow it. I was separated from my cousin, and that’s why I must find her.”

“Well…” The grimy man looked at the others, and then they all stared at her.

“Aye, she’ll do,” the plump one said. “But not here! Listen, Missy. What we say could get us in some trouble, y’see. So, best we don’t spill it here
where anyone can overhear. Want us to come up to your room?”

Meg took a step back. She didn’t even want to be in the same inn with them. She shook her head and managed to say, “No, that would be most improper!”

The plump man grinned. “Aye, so it would. Where’s my head? We ain’t used to Quality like you, miss. Begging your pardon. So then, if not here or there, how about you meet us ’round back? It’s dark enough to cover us, and quiet enough so’s we can hear anyone coming. Just out back. You go now. We’ll meet you soon’s as we see the coast’s clear.”

Meg hesitated.

“Blimey!” the grimy man said. “Look, she’s scart to even talk to us. So then why did you come ’round bothering with us, Missy, eh?”

“C’mon, miss,” the plump one said, with a smile. “You want to know about your cousin, right? Well, we know a thing or two. But we ain’t putting our necks on the line, not for any money. Though we do like money. And I hear you got some for us, in exchange for what we know. So meet us halfway, just ’round back.” He spread his hands wide. “Why not? What’s there? The stables. A Jericho. But leastways that way we can see anyone coming, and we can be gone if we do. What we have to say might make some folks mad at us, and that we don’t need. Y’see?”

She nodded. But stayed where she was.

“Well, then,” the plump one said with an elaborate
shrug, “if you don’t care about your cousin, so be it. Though, from what I heard about what’s happening to her, if she was my woman, I’d care something terrible, I can tell you.”

That did it. Meg nodded, and slowly backed away. “Out back,” she whispered. “I’ll be there.”

It was both darker and quieter behind the inn than Meg had realized. The place had been bustling only hours before, now even the better inns across the street were still. Coaches came early; travelers went to bed early too. The
Stoned Crow
had fewer guests to begin with, so the back of the inn was as quiet as a graveyard and just as full of life. The
Stoned Crow
didn’t spend money where it could be seen. There were no lamps or lanterns lit behind the inn. Meg could only see by the light of the half moon above.

Though it was too dark to see more than an outline of the stables, Meg could smell the horses. Unfortunately, she could also smell the Jericho. She vowed to use the hated basin under her bed tonight; she’d gagged when she’d entered the noxious outbuilding during the day. Nothing would induce her to go in there at night.

Meg stood and waited for the trio of men to appear. She had three sizeable coins in her purse, one to give each man. She hoped it would be enough. She was just beginning to wonder why they hadn’t asked her how much money she would reward them with, when she was distracted by a soft, but clear “
Hist
!” coming from the stable yard.

She squinted, and then made out three figures standing at the side of the stables. A very dark side of it. She shivered and fought back a desire to run right back to the inn. They said they knew something about Rosalind. She wanted to believe it. But she wasn’t a fool, and she was suddenly too uneasy here. Still, she reasoned she was within shouting distance of the inn. And she was so very tired of traveling an increasingly cold trail. And more than all that, they’d implied that Rosie was in danger.

She forced herself to stand erect, and walked toward the men.

“Yes?” she whispered. “I’m here. What have you to tell me?”