Читать книгу Regency Rogues: Outrageous Scandal - Энни Берроуз, Annie Burrows - Страница 14

Chapter Five

Perhaps his real name wasn’t Gregory Willingale at all. Perhaps he was using an alias, for some reason. But what could she do about it anyway? Run to the burly bartender with a tale of being abandoned by her aunt and left to the mercy of a man she’d never clapped eyes on until the night before? What would that achieve? Nothing—that was what. She already knew precisely what people who worked in inns thought of girls who went to them with tales of that sort. They thought they were making them up. At least that was what the landlady of the last inn had said. Before lecturing her about her lack of morals and throwing her out.

Earlier this morning she’d thought the woman must be incredibly cruel to do such a thing. But if Prudence had been the landlady of an inn, with a business to run, would she have believed such a fantastic tale? Why, she was living through it and she hardly believed it herself.

She cleared her throat.

‘So, Mr Willingale,’ she said, but only after swallowing the last of the sirloin he’d shared with her. ‘Or should I call you Uncle Willingale? What do you propose we do next?’

Her own next step would depend very much on whatever his plans were. She’d only make up her mind what to do when she’d heard what they were.

‘I am not sure,’ he said through a mouthful of beef. ‘I do not think we are in possession of enough facts.’

Goodness. That was pretty much the same conclusion she’d just drawn.

‘Though I do think,’ he said, scooping up a forkful of onions and depositing it on her plate, ‘that in some way your guardians are attempting to defraud you of your inheritance.’

‘Thank you,’ she said meekly. ‘For the onions, I mean,’ she hastily explained, before spreading them on one of the remaining slices of bread and butter, then folding it into a sort of sandwich.

‘You’re welcome. Though how abandoning you in a small hostelry in the middle of nowhere will serve their purpose I cannot imagine. Surely the disappearance of a wealthy young woman will not go unnoticed wherever it is you come from?’

Since her mouth was full, she shook her head.

‘It might not be noticed,’ she admitted, as soon as her mouth was free to use it for anything other than eating. ‘Not for a very long time anyway. Because we were on our way to Bath.’

‘Bath?’

Why did he look as though he didn’t believe her?

‘Yes, Bath. Why not? I know it isn’t exactly fashionable any more, but we are far from fashionable people. And I did tell you, didn’t I, that Aunt Charity had been trying to get me to marry...? Well, someone I don’t much care for.’

‘A relative of her new husband?’ he said grimly.

‘Yes.’

‘And then she suddenly changed her tack, did she? Offered to take you somewhere you could meet a young man you might actually like?’

‘There’s no need to say it like that!’ Though she had been rather surprised by her aunt’s sudden volte-face. ‘She said she would rather see me married to anyone than have me create talk by moving out of her house to set up home on my own.’

‘My mental powers are growing stronger by the minute,’ Gregory said sarcastically, sawing off another piece of steak. ‘Do go on,’ he said, when she glowered at him over the rim of her teacup. ‘You were about to tell me why nobody will be raising a hue and cry.’

‘I have already told you. Aunt Charity finally saw that nothing on earth would induce me to marry...that toad. So she told everyone she was going to take me to Bath and keep me there until she’d found me a match, since I had turned up my nose at the best Stoketown had to offer.’

‘Stoketown? You hail from Stoketown?’

‘Yes.’

‘And your aunt claimed she was taking you to Bath?’

‘Yes.’

He laid down his knife and fork. ‘You are not very bright, are you?’

‘What? How dare you?’

‘I dare because you were headed in entirely the wrong direction ever to end up in Bath. You should have gone in a south-westerly direction from Stoketown. Instead you had been travelling in completely the opposite direction. Wherever it was your guardians were planning to take you, it most definitely wasn’t Bath.’

‘I don’t believe you. That cannot be true.’ Though why would he say such a thing if he didn’t think it?

‘Would you like me to ask the landlord to bring us a road map?’ he asked her calmly. ‘He probably has one, since this inn is on a staging route.’

‘I’ve had enough of landlords for one day,’ she said bitterly. ‘The less I have to do with the one of this tavern, the better.’

‘So you believe you were not headed in the direction of Bath?’

She turned her cup round and round on its saucer for a few moments, thinking as hard as she could. ‘I cannot think of any reason why you should say that if it weren’t true,’ she said pensively. ‘But then, I cannot think of any reason why Aunt Charity should claim to be taking me there and actually be taking me in the opposite direction, either.’

‘Nor why she should give you something that would make you sleep so soundly you wouldn’t even wake when she carried you to the room of the most disreputable person she could find, undressed you, and put you into bed with him? Aha!’ he cried, slapping the tabletop. ‘Disreputable. That was the word I was searching for.’

‘Do you have to sound so pleased about it?’

‘I can’t help it. You have no idea how irritating it has been, not being able to come up with the words I want,’ he said, wiping the gravy from his plate with the last slice of her bread.

Her bread. The bread she’d ordered.

Though, to be fair, he had shared some of his own meal with her. If he had taken the last slice of her bread, at least he’d made up for it by sharing his steak and onions.

‘I wasn’t talking about that,’ she protested.

‘What, then?’

‘I meant about the conclusions you have drawn.’

‘Well, I’m pleased about them, too. That is that things are becoming clear.’

‘Are they?’

‘Yes.’ He finished the bread, picked up his tankard, emptied that, and sat back with a satisfied sigh. ‘I have ruled Hugo out of the equation. You,’ he said, setting the tankard down on the tabletop with a sort of a flourish, ‘are an heiress. And villains are trying to swindle you out of your inheritance. First of all they told everyone they were going to take you to Bath, and then set off in the opposite direction. Where exactly they planned to take you, and what they planned to do when they got there, we may never know. Because one of the horses went lame and they were obliged to rack up at The Bull. Where they were shown to rooms on the very top floor.’

He leaned forward slightly.

‘There were only three rooms on that floor, if you recall. Yours, mine, and I presume theirs?’

She nodded.

‘Your aunt saw me, reached an unflattering conclusion about my integrity on account of my black eye and travel-stained clothing, and decided to make the most of what must have looked like a golden opportunity to dispose of you. You have already admitted that you believe your aunt gave you some sort of sleeping draught.’

‘Well, I suppose she might have done. I didn’t think it was anything more than hot milk at the time, but—’

‘How they managed to administer something similar to me is a bit of a puzzle,’ he said, cutting her off mid-sentence. ‘But let us assume they did. Once I lay sleeping heavily they carried you to my room, safe in the knowledge that there would be no witnesses to the deed since we were isolated up there.’

She shuddered. She couldn’t bear to think of Mr Murgatroyd touching her, doing who knew what to her while she was insensible. Oh, she hoped he’d left the room before her aunt had undressed her. At least she could be certain he hadn’t done that himself. Aunt Charity would never have permitted it.

‘Then, in the morning,’ Gregory continued, ‘they set up a bustle, pretending to search for you. They must have summoned the landlord and dragged him up all those stairs, attracting a crowd on the way so that they could all witness you waking up naked in my bed.’

‘There is no need to look so pleased about it. It was horrid!’

His expression sobered.

‘I beg your pardon,’ he said. ‘But you see I have led a very dull, regulated sort of existence until very recently. Suffocatingly boring, to be perfectly frank. And I had come to the conclusion that what I needed was a bit of a challenge. What could be more challenging than taking on a pair of villains trying to swindle an heiress out of her inheritance? Or solving the mystery of how we ended up naked in the same bed together?’

She wished he wouldn’t keep harping on about the naked part of it. How did he expect her to look him in the eye or hold a sensible conversation when he kept reminding her that she’d been naked?

She had to change the subject.

‘Pardon me for pointing it out,’ she said, indicating his black eye and then the grazes on his knuckles, ‘but you don’t look to me as though you have been leading what you call a dull sort of existence.’

‘Oh, this?’ He chuckled as he flexed his bruised hands. ‘This was the start of my adventure, actually. I’d gone up to Manchester to deal with a...ah...a situation that had come to my attention. I was on my way...er...to meet someone and report back when I...’ He looked a bit sheepish. ‘Well, to be perfectly honest I took a wrong turning. That’s why I ended up at that benighted inn last night. So Hugo couldn’t have done it!’ He slapped the table. ‘Of course he couldn’t.’ He smiled at her. ‘Well, that’s a relief. I shan’t have to hold him to account for what has happened to you. I don’t think I could have forgiven him this.’

His smile faded. He gave her a look she couldn’t interpret, then glared balefully at his empty tankard.

He took a deep breath. ‘I’m going to take you to the place where I’ve arranged to meet him. Straight away.’

She wasn’t at all sure she liked the sound of that.

‘Excuse me, but I’m not convinced that is the right thing to do.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ He looked completely stunned. ‘Why should you not wish to go there?’

‘I know nothing about it, that’s why.’ And precious little about him, except that he had recently been in a fight and was being downright shifty about what it had been about.

Oh, yes—and she knew what he looked like naked.

‘It is a very comfortable property in which a relative of mine lives,’ he snapped. ‘A sort of aunt.’

She gave an involuntary shiver.

‘You need not be afraid of her. Well...’ He rubbed his nose with his thumb. ‘I suppose some people do find her impossible, but she won’t behave the way your aunt did—I can promise you that.’

‘I would rather,’ she said tartly, ‘not have anything to do with any sort of aunt—particularly one you freely admit is impossible.’

‘Nevertheless,’ he said firmly, ‘she can provide you with clean clothes, and we will both enjoy good food and comfortable beds. In rooms that nobody will invade,’ he said with a sort of muted anger, ‘the way they did at The Bull. And then, once we are rested and recovered, I can contact people who will be able to get to the bottom of the crime being perpetrated against you.’

‘Will you? I mean...thank you very much,’ she added doubtfully.

If he really did mean to take her to the home of a female relative who lived in some comfort, even if she was a touch difficult to get on with, and contact people on her behalf to right the wrongs done her, then it was the best thing she could think of.

It was just that coming from a man with a black eye and bruised knuckles it sounded a bit too good to be true.

He shot her a piercing glance. ‘Don’t you believe me?’

‘I am sorry,’ she said, a touch defiantly. ‘But I am having trouble believing anything that has happened today. But if you say you mean to help me, then I shall...’ She paused, because she’d been brought up to be very truthful. ‘I shall try to believe you mean it.’

‘Of course I mean it. Your guardians picked the wrong man to use as their dupe when they deposited you in my bed. I will make them rue the day they attempted to cross swords with me.’ He flexed his bruised, grazed hands.

‘Did you make them rue the day as well?’

She’d blurted out the question before she’d even known she was wondering about it. She looked up at him in trepidation. Only to discover he was smiling. True, it wasn’t what she’d call a very nice sort of smile. In fact it looked more like the kind of expression she imagined a fox would have after devastating a henhouse.

‘Yes, I made a whole lot of people sorry yesterday,’ he said.

She swallowed. Reached for the teapot.

Something about the way she poured her second cup of tea must have betrayed her misgivings, because his satisfied smile froze.

‘I don’t generally go about getting into brawls, if that’s what you’re afraid of,’ he said.

‘I’m not afraid.’

He sighed. ‘I wouldn’t blame you if you were. Look...’ He folded his arms across his chest. ‘I’ll tell you what happened, and why it happened, and then you can judge for yourself.’

She shrugged one shoulder, as if she didn’t care, and took a sip of her tea. This time, thankfully, it had much more flavour.

‘It started with a letter from a man who worked in a...a manufactory. In it he described a lot of double-dealing, as well as some very unsavoury behaviour towards the female mill workers by the foreman, and he asked the owner of the mill whether he could bear having such things going on in his name. He couldn’t,’ he said, with a decisive lift to his chin. ‘And so I went to see if I could get evidence of the wrongdoing, and find a way to put a stop to it.’

So he was employed as a sort of investigator? Which explained why he had a secretary. Someone who would help him keep track of the paperwork while he went off doing the actual thief-taking. It also explained why he was reluctant to speak of his trade. He would have to keep a lot of what he did to himself. Or criminals would see him coming.

She took a sip of tea and suddenly saw that that couldn’t be the right conclusion. Because it sounded like rather an exciting sort of way to make a living. And he’d said he had lived a dull, ordered existence. She sighed. Why did nothing make any sense today?

‘I soon found out that it wouldn’t be possible to bring the foreman to trial for what he was doing to the women under his power, because not a one of them would stand up in court and testify. Well, you couldn’t expect it of them.’

‘No,’ she murmured, horrified. ‘So what did you do?’

‘Well, Bodkin—that’s the man who wrote the letter—said that maybe we’d be able to get the overseer dismissed for fraud if we could only find the false ledgers he kept. He sent one set of accounts to...to the mill owner, you see, and kept another to tally up what he was actually making for himself. We couldn’t simply walk in and demand to see the books, because he’d have just shown us the counterfeit ones. So we had to break in at night, and search for them.’

‘Aunt Charity said you looked like a housebreaker,’ she couldn’t help saying. Though she clapped her hand over her mouth as soon as she’d said it.

He frowned. ‘It’s funny, but I would never have thought I’d be keen to tell anyone about Wragley’s. But you blurting out things the way you just did... Perhaps it’s something to do with the drug we were given. We can’t help saying whatever is on our minds.’

‘I...suppose that might be it,’ she said, relieved that he wasn’t disposed to take her to task for being so rude. ‘Although...’ She paused.

‘What?’

‘Never mind,’ she said with a shake of her head. She didn’t want to admit that for some reason she felt as though she could say anything to him. ‘You were telling me about how you tried to find the second set of books?’

‘Oh, yes. Well, long story short, we found them. Only the night watchman saw the light from our lantern, called for help and came after us. It was touch and go for a while, but eventually we got clean away,’ he ended with a grin.

So even if he wasn’t a professional thief-taker, he certainly enjoyed investigating crime and seeing villains brought to book. A man who could speak of such an adventure with that look of relish on his face would be perfect for helping her untangle whatever it was that Aunt Charity and Uncle Murgatroyd thought they’d achieved last night.

Someone who could fight for her. Defend her. And he was certainly capable of that. She only had to think of all those bulging muscles. The ones she’d seen that morning as he’d gone stalking about the bedroom, stark naked and furious.

Oh, dear, there was that word again. The one that made her blush, since this time it wasn’t just her own nudity she was picturing but his.

She pushed it out of her mind. Instantly it was replaced by the memory of him handing her his jacket. And that after she’d almost brained him with a rock.

Which helped her come to a decision.

‘I should like you to make Aunt Charity and Uncle Murgatroyd sorry, too. Because I think you are right. I think they are trying to take my money. Trying to make me disappear altogether, actually. If it was them who put me in your room—’

‘Who else could it have been?’

‘I know, I know. You’re clearly very good at working out how criminals think. It still isn’t very pleasant to accept it. But...’ She drew a deep breath. ‘Very well, when they put me in your room,’ she said, although her stomach gave a little lurch, ‘they probably did take advantage of the way the rooms were isolated up there—particularly after they saw the way you looked and behaved at dinner. I do think they believed that of all the men in that place you looked the most likely to treat me the worst.’

‘For that alone I should break them. How dare they assume any such thing?’

And that was another thing. He had a vested interest in clearing his own name, too. Now that she’d heard the lengths to which he’d gone to right the wrongs being done to the women at that mill, she felt much better about going to the house of which he’d spoken. They would need somewhere to go and hatch their plans for...not revenge. Justice. Yes, it was only justice she wanted.

‘So you will help me track them down and make them pay?’

Make them pay? ‘I most certainly will,’ he said.

He would set his people on their trail. He would tell them it was their top priority. From what Prudence had told him so far, he wouldn’t be surprised to learn they’d actually been heading for Liverpool. Possibly with a view to leaving the country altogether, if her uncle had actually swindled her out of all her money. On the off-chance that the case was not as bad as all that, he’d make sure his staff found out everything about their business dealings, too, and gained control of any leases or mortgages they had. He would throw a cordon around them so tight that they wouldn’t be able to sneeze without his permission.

And if it turned out that they had stolen Prudence’s inheritance, and hadn’t had the sense to get out of the country while they could, then he would crush them. Utterly.

Just then the door opened and the landlord came in.

‘Next coach’s due in any time now,’ he said without preamble. ‘Time for you to make off.’

Gregory deliberately relaxed his hands, which he’d clenched into fists as he’d been considering all the ways he could make Prudence’s relatives pay for what they’d done. ‘Bring me the reckoning, then,’ he said. ‘I am ready to depart.’

He turned to see Prudence eyeing him warily.

‘Hand me my purse, would you, niece? It’s in my pocket.’

She continued to stare at him in that considering way until he was forced to speak to her more sternly.

‘Prudence, my purse.’

She jumped, but then dug her hand into one of the pockets of the jacket he’d lent her. And then the other one. And then, instead of handing over his purse, she pulled out the stocking he’d thrust in there and forgotten all about. She gazed at it in bewilderment.

Before she could start asking awkward questions he darted round the table, whipped it out of her hand and thrust it into his waistcoat. And then, because she appeared so stunned by the discovery of one of her undergarments that she’d forgotten to hand him his purse, he decided he might as well get it himself.

It wasn’t there. Not in the pocket where he could have sworn he’d put it. A cold, sick swirl of panic had him delving into all the jacket pockets, several times over. Even though it was obvious what had happened.

‘It’s gone,’ he said, tamping down the panic as he faced the truth. ‘We’ve been robbed.’