Читать книгу Regency Rogues: Outrageous Scandal - Энни Берроуз, Annie Burrows - Страница 13

Chapter Four

‘You are wrong,’ Prudence said. ‘Aunt Charity is a pillar of the community. Positively steeped in good works. She couldn’t have done anything like that.’

Though why could she recall nothing after drinking that warm milk?

He made no answer.

It must have been because he was negotiating a tricky turn before going under the archway of an inn. The inn was, moreover, right on a busy crossroads, so that traffic seemed to be coming at them from all directions. It was concentration that had put the frown between his brows and made his mouth pull into an uncompromising line.

It wasn’t because he disagreed with her.

Of course he was wrong. Aunt Charity couldn’t possibly have done what he said.

Yet how else could she have ended up in bed with a stranger? Naked? She would never, ever have gone to his room of her own accord, removed every stitch of clothing, flung it all over the place, and then got into bed with him.

And the man denied having lured her there.

He brought the gig to a halt and called over an ostler.

Well, no, he hadn’t exactly denied it, she reflected as he got down, came round to her side and helped her from the seat. Because she hadn’t accused him of doing any luring. But from the things he’d said he seemed to think she’d been in some kind of conspiracy against him. And he was also unclear about what had happened last night after dinner. Claimed to have no recollection of how they’d wound up in bed together, either.

So what he was saying was that someone else must be responsible. Since she wasn’t. And he wasn’t.

Which left only her aunt.

And uncle.

Or this Hugo person he kept mentioning.

‘Come on,’ he said a touch impatiently.

She blinked, and realised she’d been standing still in the bustling inn yard, in a kind of daze, while she struggled with the horrid notion he’d put in her head.

‘Well, I want some breakfast even if you don’t,’ he said, turning on his heel and stalking towards the inn door.

Beast!

She had no choice but to trot along in his wake. Well, no acceptable choice anyway. She certainly wasn’t going to loiter in another inn yard, populated by yet more greasy-haired ostlers with lecherous eyes. And she did want breakfast. And she had no money.

When she caught up with him he was standing in the doorway to what looked like the main bar. Which was full of men, talking and swigging tankards of ale. It must be a market day for the place to be so busy and for so many men to look so inebriated this early.

‘Stay here,’ he growled, before striding across to the bar. ‘I want a private parlour,’ he said to the burly man in a stained apron who was presiding over the bar. ‘For myself and...’ he waved a hand in her direction ‘...my niece.’

His niece? Why on earth was he telling the landlord she was his niece?

The answer came to her as soon as she looked at the burly tapster and saw the expression on his face as he eyed their appearance. Bad enough to have been called a trollop by the landlady of the last inn she’d been inside. At least if people thought she was this man’s niece it gave an acceptable explanation for them travelling together, if not for the way they were dressed.

‘And breakfast,’ her ‘uncle’ was saying, as though completely impervious to what the burly man might be thinking about his appearance—or hers. ‘Steak, onions, ale, bread and butter, and a pot of tea.’

The burly man behind the bar looked at her, looked over the rowdy market-day crowd, then gave a sort of shrug.

‘Well, there ain’t nobody in the coffee room at present, since the Birmingham stage has just gone out. You’re welcome to sit in there, if you like.’

‘The coffee room?’

Her muddy-coated, bloodstained companion looked affronted. He opened his mouth to make an objection, but as he did so the landlord’s attention was snagged by a group of men at a far table, all surging to their feet as though intending to leave. They were rather boisterous, so Prudence wasn’t all that surprised when the burly man came out from behind the bar to make sure they all paid before leaving. Her newly acquired ‘uncle’, however, looked far from pleased at being brushed aside as though his order for breakfast was of no account. He must be really hungry. Or spoiling for a fight. Things really hadn’t been going his way this morning, had they?

Some of the boisterous men looked as though they were spoiling for a fight, too. But the burly landlord dealt with them deftly, thrusting them through the doorway next to which she was standing one by one the moment he’d extracted some money from them. She wouldn’t be a bit surprised to learn that he’d been in the army. He had that look about him—that confidence and air of authority she’d seen fall like a mantle over men who had risen through the ranks to become sergeants. She’d heard such men talk about opening taverns when they got out, too...

Her suppositions were rudely interrupted by a couple of the boisterous men half falling against her on their way out, knocking her against the doorjamb. She decided enough was enough. It was all very well for her uncle to stand there looking indignant, but it wasn’t getting them anywhere. Ignoring his command to stay where she was, she threaded her way through the tables to his side and plucked at his sleeve to gain his attention over the uproar.

‘Can we go into the coffee room, please...er... Uncle?’ she said.

He frowned down at her with displeasure.

She lifted her chin. ‘I’m really not feeling all that well.’ In fact the hot, crowded room appeared to be contracting and then expanding around her, and her head swam unpleasantly.

The frown on his face turned to a look of concern. ‘You will feel better for something to eat and that cup of tea,’ he declared, slipping his arm round her waist. ‘I am only sorry we cannot have complete privacy, because what we have to discuss will of necessity be rather...’

‘It certainly will,’ she muttered, rather shocked at how good it felt to have him supporting her into the coffee room, when not half an hour since she’d been trying to escape him. ‘Perhaps,’ she suggested as he lowered her gently into a chair, ‘we should discuss things right now, before anyone comes in.’

‘We will be able to think more clearly once we’ve had something to eat and drink,’ he said.

‘How do you know? Have you ever been drugged before?’

He quirked one eyebrow at her as he drew up a chair next to her. Then leaned in so that he could speak quietly. ‘So you do accept that is the case?’

She clasped her hands in her lap. ‘Couldn’t there have been some sort of mistake? Perhaps I stumbled into your room by accident?’

‘And tore off all your clothes and flung them about in some sort of mad fit before leaping into my bed? It isn’t likely. Unless you are in the habit of sleepwalking?’

She flushed as he described the very scenario she’d already dismissed as being completely impossible. Shook her head at his question about sleepwalking.

‘Then what other explanation can there be?’

‘What about this Hugo person you keep asking if I know?’

‘Yes,’ he said grimly. ‘I still wonder if he could somehow be at the back of it. He has good reason to meddle in the business that brought me up here, you see. Only...’

He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck, looking troubled. Then shook his head.

‘Only he isn’t a bad lad—not really. Only selfish and thoughtless. Or so I’ve always thought.’

‘Always? You have known him a long time?’

‘Since his birth,’ said Gregory. ‘He is my cousin. My nearest male relative, in point of fact. Ever since he left school I have been attempting to teach him all he needs to know should he ever have to step into my shoes. He couldn’t have thought it through. If it was him.’

‘But how on earth could he have persuaded my aunt to do such a thing? Let alone my uncle?’

‘He might have put the case in such a way that your aunt would have thought she was acting for your benefit.’

‘My benefit? How could it be of any benefit to...to humiliate me and abandon me? Anything could have happened. If you were not the kind of man who...that is if you were not a... I mean...although you don’t look it... I think you are a gentleman. You could easily have taken advantage of me. And you haven’t. Unless... Oh! Are you married?’

‘No. Not any more.’

‘I am so sorry. I did not mean to make you uncomfortable by mentioning a topic that must surely cause you sorrow.’

‘It doesn’t.’ He gave a sort of grimace. Then explained, ‘My wife has been dead these eight years.’

‘Oh, that’s good. I mean...not that she’s dead, but that it is long enough ago that you are past the worst of your grief. But anyway, what I was going to say was that perhaps you are simply not the sort. To break your marriage vows. I know that even the most unlikely-looking men can be doggedly faithful...’

His gaze turned so icy she shivered.

‘Not that you look like the unfaithful sort,’ she hastily amended. ‘Or the sort that... And anyway you have been married, so... That is... Oh, dear, I do not know what I mean, precisely.’

She could feel her cheeks growing hotter and hotter the longer she continued to babble at him. But to her relief his gaze suddenly thawed.

‘I think I detected a sort of compliment amongst all those observations,’ he said with a wry smile.

‘Thank goodness.’ She heaved a sigh of relief. ‘I mean, it is not that I intended to compliment you, but...’

He held up his hand. ‘Just stop right there, before you say anything else to embarrass yourself. And let me bring you back to the point in question. Which is this: perhaps your aunt thought to put you in a compromising position so that she could arrange an advantageous match for you.’

‘An advantageous match? Are you mad?’ She looked at his muddy coat, his blackened eye, the grazes on his knuckles.

And he pokered up.

‘Although,’ she said hastily, in an attempt to smooth down the feathers she’d ruffled by implying that someone would have to be mad to consider marrying the likes of him, ‘of late she has been growing increasingly annoyed by my refusal to get married. On account of her wanting a particular member of her husband’s family to benefit from my inheritance.’

‘Your inheritance?’

Oh, dear. She shouldn’t have blurted that out. So far he had been behaving rather well, all things considered. But once he knew she would come into a great deal of money upon making a good marriage it was bound to bring out the worst in him. He had told her he was no longer married. And, whatever line of business he was in, acquiring a rich wife would be a definite asset.

Why hadn’t she kept quiet about it? Why was she blurting out the answers to all his questions at all?

She rubbed at the spot between her brows where once she’d thought her brain resided.

‘You don’t think,’ he persisted, ‘that your aunt chose to put you into my bed, out of the beds of all the single men who were at that inn last night, for a particular reason? Or that she chose to stay at that particular inn knowing that I would be there?’

She kept on rubbing at her forehead, willing her brain to wake up and come to her rescue. But it was no use.

‘I don’t know what you mean!’ she eventually cried out in frustration. ‘We only stopped there because one of the horses went lame. We were supposed to be pushing on to Mexworth. Uncle Murgatroyd was livid when the postilions said we’d have to put up at the next place we came to. And Aunt Charity said it was a miserable little hovel and she’d never set foot in it. And then the postilion said she could sleep in the stable if she liked, but didn’t she think she’d prefer a bed with sheets? And then they had a rare old set-to, right in the middle of the road...’

‘I can just picture it,’ he put in dryly.

‘The upshot was that we didn’t have any choice. It was sheer coincidence that we were staying at the same inn as you last night. And I’m sure my aunt wouldn’t have wanted to compromise you into marriage with me anyway. She made some very derogatory remarks about you last night at supper. Said you looked exactly the sort of ruffian she would expect to find in a dingy little tavern in a town she’d never heard of.’

He sat back then, a thoughtful expression on his face.

‘How much money, exactly, will you receive when you marry?’

Or was it a calculating expression, that look she’d seen?

She lowered her eyes, feeling absurdly disappointed. If he suddenly started paying her compliments and...and making up to her, the way so many men did when they found out about her dowry, then she would...she would...

The way she felt today, she’d probably burst into tears.

Fortunately he didn’t notice, since at that moment a serving girl came in with a tray bearing a teapot, a tankard and a jug. He was so keen on getting on the outside of his ale that she might have thrown a tantrum and she didn’t think he’d notice.

She snapped her cup onto its saucer and threw two sugar lumps into it before splashing a generous dollop of milk on top. She removed the lid from the teapot and stirred the brew vigorously.

‘What will happen,’ he asked, setting down his tankard once he’d drained it, ‘to the money if you don’t marry?’

‘I will gain control of it for myself when I am twenty-five,’ she replied dreamily as she poured out a stream of fragrant brown liquid. Oh, but she was counting the days until she need rely on nobody but herself.

She came back to the present with an unpleasant jerk the moment she noticed the pale, unappealing colour of the brew in her cup. She’d put far too much milk in first. Even once she stirred it it was going to be far too weak.

‘And in the meantime who manages it for you?’

‘My trustees. At least...’ She paused, the teaspoon poised in mid-air as yet another horrible thought popped into her head. ‘Oh. Oh, no.’

‘What? What is it you’ve thought of?’

‘Well, it is probably nothing. Only Aunt Charity remarried last year. Mr Murgatroyd.’

She couldn’t help saying the name with distaste. Nothing had been the same since he’d come into their lives. Well, he’d always been there—right from the first moment she’d gone to live with her aunt. But back then he’d just been one of the congregation into which her aunt had introduced her. She hadn’t disliked him any more than any other of the mealy-mouthed men who’d taken such delight in making her life as dreary as possible. It hadn’t been until he’d married her aunt that she’d discovered how nasty he really was.

‘He persuaded my trustees,’ she continued, ‘that he was a more proper person to take over the management of my money once he became the husband of my guardian.’

‘And they agreed?’

‘To be honest there was only one of them left. They were all older than my grandfather when he set up the trust in the first place. And the one who outlived him wasn’t all that...um...’

‘Capable?’

‘That’s a very good word for it.’

He looked into his tankard with a stunned expression. ‘I always thought drink addled a man’s brains. But this ale appears to have restored my intellect. That’s the first time since I awoke this morning that I have been able to come up with an appropriate word.’

‘Good for you,’ she said gloomily, then took a sip of the milky tea. Which wasn’t strong enough to produce any kind of restorative effect.

‘And your uncle—this man your aunt has married—is now in charge of handling your inheritance? Until such time as you marry? Do I have it correct?’

‘Yes.’

He set his tankard down on the table with a snap. ‘So when shall I expect him to come calling? Demanding I make an honest woman of you?’

She shrugged. ‘I would have thought he would have done so this morning, if he was going to do it at all. Instead of which he left the inn, taking all my luggage with him. You’d better pour yourself another tankard of ale and see if it will give you another brilliant idea, Mr—’ She stopped. ‘You never did tell me your name.’

‘You never asked me for it.’

‘I told you mine. It is only polite to reciprocate when a lady has introduced herself.’

He reared back, as though offended that she’d criticised his manners.

‘A lady,’ he replied cuttingly, ‘would never introduce herself.’

‘A gentleman,’ she snapped back, ‘would not make any kind of comment about any female’s station in life. And you still haven’t told me your name. I can only assume you must be ashamed of it.’

‘Ashamed of it? Never.’

‘Then why won’t you tell me what it is? Why are you being so evasive?’

He narrowed his eyes.

‘I am not being evasive. Last time we came to an introduction we veered off into a more pressing conversation about bread and butter I seem to recall. And this time I...’ He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘I became distracted again.’ He set down his tankard and pressed the heels of his hands against his temples, closing his eyes as though in pain.

‘Oh, does your head hurt? I do beg your pardon. I am not usually so snappish. Or so insensitive.’

‘And I am not usually so clumsy,’ he said, lowering his hands and opening his eyes to regard her ruefully. ‘I fear we are not seeing each other at our best.’

He’d opened his mouth to say something else when the door swung open again, this time to permit two serving girls to come in, each bearing a tray of food.

Prudence looked at his steak, which was smothered in a mountain of onions, and then down at her plate of bread and butter with a touch of disappointment.

‘Wishing you’d ordered more? I can order you some eggs to go with that, if you like?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t suppose I could eat them if you did order them, though it is very kind of you. It is just the smell of those onions...’ She half closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. ‘Ohhh...’ she couldn’t help moaning. ‘They are making my mouth water.’

He gave her a very strange look. Dropped his gaze as though he felt uncomfortable. Fumbled with his knife and fork.

‘Here,’ he said brusquely, cutting off a small piece of meat and depositing it on her plate. ‘Just a mouthful will do you no harm.’

And then he smiled at her. For the very first time. And something inside her sort of melted.

She’d never known a man with a black eye could smile with such charm.

Though was he deploying his charm on purpose? He certainly hadn’t bothered smiling at her before he’d heard she was an heiress.

‘Are you ever,’ she asked, reaching for a knife and fork, ‘going to tell me your name?’

His smile disappeared.

‘It is Willingale,’ he said quickly. Too quickly? ‘Gregory Willingale.’

Then he set about his steak with the air of a man who hadn’t eaten for a se’ennight.

Thank goodness she hadn’t been fooled by that charming smile into thinking he was a man she could trust. Which, she admitted, she had started to do. Why, she hadn’t talked to anyone so frankly and freely since her parents had died.

Which wouldn’t do. Because he had secrets, did her uncle Gregory. She’d seen a distinct flash of guilt when he’d spoken the name Willingale.

Which meant he was definitely hiding something.