Читать книгу Regency Redemption: The Inconvenient Duchess / An Unladylike Offer - Christine Merrill, Christine Merrill - Страница 16

Marcus looked up at the fading paint on the inn’s sign: The Duke’s Right Arm.

It sounded promising. Lucky, if he believed in luck. But the picture, which was of a dismembered arm lying on a grassy background, spoiled the image he wanted of a place that offered aid and succour. It would have been his last choice if he needed a bed for the night, or a drink, for that matter. The windows were dirty, and the door forbidding. It was his last choice now, as he’d visited all the other inns in the area.

Gentle questioning of the innkeepers had revealed a thorough knowledge of the area’s great houses and their inhabitants. Everyone knew the local lords, and their families. If he combined the information gained from the various places, he had a good idea of the comings and goings of the guests in the area. Small amounts of gold, spread amongst the ostlers and stable boys, told him all there was to know about who had visited whom and what they drove to get there.

And no one, anywhere, knew anything of Miranda Grey or Cecily Dawson. Or recognised the vague description he could give of a woman in her fifties and her tall ward.

They were not members of any of the families. They had not stayed in any of the inns at times corresponding to the dates on the letters. They had not been seen travelling. They were not known to be residing in any of the places he had visited.

Short of barging up to the front doors in question and demanding to know how Cecily had come by her writing materials, there was little hope in that direction.

This was his last chance. A disreputable inn in a miserable village that was little more than a cluster of cottages for workers at the nearby textile mill, owned by the cit whose stationery he kept folded in his pocket. It was not the place he wanted to find information about his new wife, but it made an irritating sort of sense. The factory owner’s stationery had been used to write the last of the letters to his mother. If the writer had worked hardest to create a good impression for the first letter, perhaps she’d grabbed what was closest to hand when writing the last.

He opened the grimy door and stepped into the taproom of the inn, and all faces turned towards him. The wave of disdain from the other customers was palpable.

He stepped forward and took a seat, staring back and daring them to find his presence strange. The thought crossed his mind that no one knew his location, and his purse was dangerously heavy. If he did not watch his back on the way out, he was likely to finish this search by receiving a knock on the head and a push into the nearest ditch.

The serving girl fixed him with a sullen glare, not bothering to flirt or flounce. Apparently, she felt the chances of gaining a few coppers by courtesy were not worth the effort. Without asking for his order she put a pint of ale in front of him. ‘If you want else, go elsewhere. You get what we have.’

He caught her wrist as she turned away from him. ‘Maybe you can help me. I’m looking for two women.’

She pulled her arm out of his grasp. ‘I said, this is all we serve. You will get nothing more from me.’

‘I apologise for the familiarity.’ He tried to look as harmless as possible. ‘I need nothing more than information.’

‘You’ll find little of that here.’ Her gaze never wavered. ‘But I can offer you advice. We serve ale. It sits in front of you. Drink it and go back where you came.’

He laid a gold coin from his purse on the table in front of him and she glanced at it hungrily. ‘Cecily Dawson. Or Miranda Grey. Have you ever heard the names?’

For a moment her eyes sparkled with something more than lust for the gold in front of her. Then she walked back to the bar and muttered something to the man behind it. He cast a look in Marcus’s direction, and they conversed between themselves. The girl was trying to persuade him of something and he was shaking his head. She persevered. At last, he shrugged and ambled towards the table.

He sat across from Marcus without asking permission and scooped the coin off the table, tossing it to the girl. ‘You’re a brave man, your lordship, coming here alone to ask questions you’ve no business asking.’

He let the title slip by without responding. ‘How do you know I have no business with them?’

‘The likes of you rarely has business with the likes of us. And when you do, it’s never good news.’

Us? So he knew them. Marcus kept his face impassive. ‘I mean them no harm. I have already met Miranda. I just wanted to satisfy my curiosity about certain events in her past before …’ Before what? What could he say that would not reveal too much? ‘Finalising her position.’

‘If it’s references you want—’ the man shrugged ‘—I can give them as well as anybody. She’s a hard worker and honest.’

A barmaid?

‘Ask at any of the houses in the area and the housekeepers will assure you. She’s a good girl.’ The man glared at him. ‘And you’d better not be offering any position that’s less honourable than scullery work. Because if you are, the lads will take you out back and cure you of that notion.’

‘Nothing dishonourable, I assure you, sir. And Lady Dawson? Where can I find her?’

‘I thought your business was with Miranda.’

‘But I want to thank Lady Dawson for sending her to me,’ he lied. ‘She was once a friend of my mother’s.’

The man stared at him, long and hard, as if searching for a crack in his composure.

‘And if I mean her any harm, she can always send for the lads,’ Marcus added. ‘I am, as you pointed out, alone here, trusting in your good reputation to see me safely to my goal.’

The man sighed. ‘If you’re lying, it’s a damn fool errand you’re on after all this time. There is no money there. You’ll come away empty handed. But if you’ve come about little Miranda, they’ll be glad of news.’ He pointed down the street and gave direction to a place on the west side of the village.

‘Thank you.’ Marcus slipped another coin on to the table and the man looked at it a long time before sliding it off the table and into his own pocket.