The Unofficial Suitor (8 page)

There was not much to choose from upstairs—four rooms, each with a double bed, all of them cold and damp with no fires lit. It was a relief, however, to leave her querulous stepmother in the largest of the rooms, with Seffie delegated the impossible task of cheering her up, while Cassie addressed herself to the only slightly less impossible job of securing wood for their fire and food for their stomachs.

Pausing in the door of the taproom, she evaluated her three potential helpers, the coachman and guard evidently still being occupied with the horses. She had already made up her mind to approach the oldest of the three, in hopes that she was not mistaken in her belief that he possessed at least a modicum of kindness in his make-up.

Unfortunately, the only one facing the door was the youngest man, who, as soon as he caught sight of her, started smiling in a way that made her thankful she had not yet put off her cloak. She did not need his smile to know any request she might make of him would undoubtedly be interpreted as an invitation to share her bed. On the other hand, unless she actually entered the taproom, which she was loath to do, she could see no way of attracting the attention of the man with whom she did wish to speak.

The young man chuckled out loud as she hesitated there, then said something in an undertone to his two companions, which caused them both to turn and stare at her.

For Cassie, it was the final burden that proved too much for her to bear, and she turned tiredly away from their mockery and went down the narrow hallway in what she hoped was the direction of the kitchen.

Her thin shoes were soaked through from the snow, her feet felt like blocks of ice with the rest of her not much warmer, her stomach was tied in knots from hunger and anxiety, and every muscle of her body ached from the hours of jolting about in the carriage. All she wanted was a hot bath, a bowl of soup, and a bed to lie down on.

Most of all, she wanted to be home where she belonged and not on her way to London. There was no doubt in her mind but that this day was a good indication of what was to come.

The kitchen, when she found it, was as cold as the rest of the inn.

“Are you in need of some assistance?”

Even before she turned around she knew from his voice that it was the man called Hawke who had followed her. They all three had slight accents, as if they had not lived their entire lives in England, but his voice was the deepest of the three and as such unmistakable. Turning reluctantly, she stared up a long way into a harsh face that had become entirely too familiar to her in the course of the day.

There was no way she could ask a favor of this man, because she had no way of knowing what he might demand of her in return. On the other hand, she might well be able to deal with him if she were the one to strike the bargain in the first place.

“I would be interested in making an arrangement with you that would be mutually beneficial.” She continued with more assurance in her voice than she actually felt. “Since we seem to be left to our own devices here, I propose that you and your friends see to the fires, and I will endeavor to provide food for us all.”

“Agreed,” was all he said before he turned abruptly, leaving her alone in the kitchen.

She could not suppress a shiver at her temerity, and she wondered briefly if she had been wise to make a bargain with such a man. Unwillingly she recalled the stories she had heard about people making pacts with the devil, but then she shook off her silly fancies and set to work to inventory the available food.

In that respect they were fortunate since the absent landlady appeared to keep a well-stocked larder. There was half a leg of lamb, some cold tongue, a few apples that were still firm, and the beginnings of a kettle of chicken soup still hanging from the iron by the fire, evidently abandoned by the landlady in her haste to go to her daughter’s bedside.

Carried away with the unaccustomed abundance of ingredients, Cassie prepared far more food than was necessary, adding the requisite vegetables to the chicken soup and starting three apple pies baking in the oven before slicing the lamb and tongue to make an enormous stack of thick sandwiches.

Having left the food for the coachman and his helper and the three other travelers on the table in the kitchen, she felt a slight twinge of guilt as she carried a tray upstairs to share with Ellen and Seffie. Not guilt because they might be sitting in the taproom expecting her to serve them, which she had never had any intention of doing, but guilt at the quantity of food she had prepared. She consoled herself with the thought that anything not eaten tonight would keep for several days and would probably not actually be wasted.

The fire in the fireplace had already done an adequate job of heating the room, Seffie had done a remarkable job of calming Ellen’s anxieties, and the abundant food was all that the three women needed to help them recover from the stresses of the trip. Of necessity they slept in their shifts, their luggage, such as it was, still on the coach, and they shared the double bed, also. It was a tight squeeze for three, but far, far better than one of them sleeping alone in another room, especially as that one would undoubtedly have been Cassie.

She lay awake a long time after the other two had fallen asleep, worrying at first about how much they would have to pay for their room the next day, but then gradually becoming soothed by the rumble of men’s voices coming up from below, which were audible now that the wind had died down. Every now and then she heard the deeper rumble that was the man called Hawke, and occasionally a burst of laughter, before finally she also drifted off to sleep.

* * * *

In the taproom Richard Hawke paid only the bare minimum of attention to the conversation of his companions. The bulk of his attention was directed to the women upstairs, or rather, to one of the women.

Thanks to the great quantity of brandy he and his friends had imbibed the evening before, he had not paid any special attention to the three during the day. In fact, were he to have been asked earlier to describe them, he would merely have said three women, assorted ages and sizes.

To be sure, Perry had ogled the black-haired one at lunch, and could probably have described her in great detail. His interest had achieved him nothing, but had merely revealed his youth quite clearly. Richard had long since passed the stage where he assessed a woman on the basis of how well nature had endowed her. Although he had later been intrigued with the same young woman, it was not her looks that had attracted him, but rather her attitude.

In a word, she reminded him of Molly. She had fussed over the other two women with the same loving concern Molly had once shown for him, and he suspected this girl could be as fiercely protective of the people she loved as Molly had been. Not only that, but Cassie, as he had heard the other two females call her, had pushed herself to the limits of her physical endurance to provide for them. When he had turned to see her standing in the doorway of the taproom, he had seen the same bone-weary exhaustion that had been a daily part of his life as a slave.

Following her to the kitchen, he had expected to be met with tears, pouts, fluttering eyelashes, and other obvious bids for sympathy—all designed to elicit from him the required offer of assistance. From the start, he had been prepared to send her up to join the other women, and to set John to fixing the food while he and Perry carried in the wood.

Instead, she had faced him squarely, almost managing to hide the fear she had of him, and had made her proposal. She had gotten less by bargaining than she would have obtained simply by ordering him to fetch the wood and fix the food, did she but know it.

He had not sent her up to her room as he had planned. Somehow he felt it would be belittling her simply to brush aside her efforts to manage, especially when she had shown such courage in asking, and so he had simply agreed to do as she requested.

Nor had she stinted on her part of the bargain, either, as many women would have done. Richard added that to her list of virtues and was impressed with the total. He would have to search far and wide to find someone who more closely fit his requirements for a wife. There was something to think about in that.

The other thing to think about was a puzzling memory of the girl sleeping snuggled up next to him, but that memory was so vague, he was not sure if he was remembering what had actually happened or something he had merely dreamed.

In the morning Cassie slipped out of bed without waking her companions and hurriedly pulled on her dress, forcing her feet back into her shoes which, although dry, were stiffened by the soaking they had received the day before.

The room was marvelously warm in spite of the fact that the fire had died out during the night, and a glance out the window confirmed the message the sun was trying to communicate—the snow had vanished, to be replaced by a day that was as unexpectedly balmy as the day before had been unseasonably cold. It was the kind of day when one could expect to see the first daffodils poking green shoots above the ground, and Cassie longed to be home in her own garden.

Upon descending to the ground floor, she found she was the first one to rise. The innkeeper was no longer sprawled in front of the door to the taproom, but was now snoring as loudly as ever on a wooden bench by the fire. In the kitchen the table was littered with dirty dishes, but to her amazement, not a single scrap remained of the food she had prepared the night before.

Cassie felt not the slightest responsibility to clean up after the others, but after a short debate with herself, she decided that even though breakfast had not been specifically mentioned in the bargain she had made, it would be petty to fix food for Ellen, Seffie, and herself without fixing anything for the men at the same time, especially when she found a supply of wood stacked conveniently on the floor beside the fireplace.

She had no idea what the men might be accustomed to in the way of breakfast, but from the quantities they had consumed the night before, the important thing would seem to be providing an ample amount. First she mixed up a batch of scones, and while they baked, she cooked some rice and made a huge pot of kedgeree, although the thought of such a heavy breakfast turned her stomach. For herself and her companions, she coddled three eggs, buttered some of the scones, and made a pot of hot tea.

Meeting the man called Hawke on the stairs as she was going up, she was surprised when, without asking, he took the heavy tray she was carrying out of her hands and preceded her back up the stairs. She wracked her brain for something to say to him, but remained tongue-tied when he handed it back to her at the door to her room and thanked her formally for the food she had prepared the night before.

* * * *

Emerging with his friends from the taproom after a satisfying breakfast, Perry was treated to the sight of the shy little miss from the day before arguing resolutely with the landlord, who was obviously feeling the effects of the brandy he had consumed the day before. Quite a battle it was, too, with the outcome, at least in Perry’s opinion, a foregone conclusion. It was doubtful if the landlord, even without a splitting headache, would have been a match for the chit, who was in a fiery temper.

“See here—you have charged us for the use of two rooms and a private parlor. That is outrageous. You are a scoundrel and a cheat, for you do not even have a private parlor in this entire inn, and if you had not been spending the night in a drunken stupor, you would also know that we have occupied only one room. And furthermore, I refuse to pay one penny for a meal I not only had to cook for myself, but which I also cooked for your other guests, and a sorry landlord it is who so shamelessly neglects his guests the way you have done. I’ve a good mind to stay and tell your wife exactly how you behaved behind her back.”

It was an empty threat, thought Perry with amusement, since the girl called Cassie would by necessity have to leave when the stage did or be stranded in this hedgerow tavern, but apparently the mention of his wife coupled with the hammers that, from the looks of him, were pounding behind the landlord’s eyes was enough to make him give up the struggle. Muttering to himself, the poor man took the amount of money Cassie was willing to pay, though the look he gave her was not such as would cause anyone to think she had made a friend of him.

“Now there’s a suitable candidate for your wife, Hawke,” murmured Perry, as the chit retired triumphant from the field of battle. “At least you will have to admit, she knows the value of money.”

“I do believe you are right,” his friend replied, his attention still on the outer door through which she had vanished.

“Richard, you can’t be serious. I was merely funning. Why, she’s nothing but a servant girl. Haven’t you seen how she waits on the other two, who are obviously of gentle birth?”

“Yes, I have noticed the way she takes care of them, but I have seen nothing subservient in her manner. And as you have pointed out, a proper appreciation for the value of money was one of my criteria for a wife.”

“I’ll admit she’s as tasty a morsel as I’ve ever seen, and I could understand any man wanting to mount her, but—”

There was an abrupt silence as Richard turned to him with such a menacing look that the words he had been about to say died in his throat. Perry had never before felt the impact of Hawke’s anger directed at him, and he realized that his estimation of Hawke’s natural power over other people had been woefully inadequate. He was silenced more effectively with one look than he would have been if another man had grabbed him by the neck with both hands and shaken him into submission.

“Perhaps I did not make my meaning clear. I intend to marry that young lady in the near future, and I will take it amiss if anyone displays the slightest disrespect toward her or her companions.”

Perry turned automatically to Tuke, not sure what he was seeking from the other man, whether confirmation that Hawke was serious, or some kind of support in his attempt to make Richard see the light of reason. But he could read nothing more in Tuke’s shuttered gaze than he could in Hawke’s, and any urge he might have felt to dissuade his friend from committing such an act of folly died before it was even born.