Cynthia Bailey Pratt (21 page)

After showing them into her own private rooms, Mrs. Pierce set about getting the table laid. She was flustered but pleased when Jocelyn, after putting her coat and hat on a chair, began to help. “No, no, now, miss. You just sit down and let yourself be waited on. I must snatch a bite when I can . . .I’m half-run off my legs, usually. My boys give me what help they can, but there’s no doubt a woman’s better for the taproom. I was pleased to have boys, but one girl would have been a blessing.”

“How many sons have you, Mrs. Pierce?”

“Oh, three or four. They’ll be along in drips and daps as they find a minute to eat. Nothing but hard work when you run an inn.” Swallowing a piece of ham and sipping at her ale, Mrs. Pierce left the three travelers alone.

Mr. Fletcher ate moodily, staring at the spotless cloth with which the table was spread. The fingers of his right hand drummed beside his plate. After a moment he reached into his right coat pocket and brought out a slender book, reading with frowning concentration. He didn’t seem to cheer up, but at least his nerves were calming.

As Jocelyn cut slices of cake for herself and Arnold, a man came in the back door. He kept his ragged straw hat on and slouched against the wall. Jocelyn said, “Your mother invited us to sit here, instead of in the taproom.”

The man only grunted and reached for the bowl of beans in front of Jocelyn. She saw that his hands, though beautifully shaped, were quite filthy, and she looked away.

“Mark?” she said brightly, as sister to brother. Mr. Fletcher closed his book, leaving in a finger as a bookmark. “Shall we walk? I’d be very interested in the inn’s garden. You know I’m not at all pleased with the one at home. I’m afraid the soil isn’t all it should be.”

Arnold groaned. “Not the gardens!”

“Well, stay if you want to.” She was certain Arnold would not mind sitting while Mrs. Pierce’s son ate his dinner. By the time she returned, they would be the closest of friends.

Mr. Fletcher followed her as she walked through the inn’s spotless kitchen and outside. The sun had almost set, and it was becoming difficult to distinguish colors. The garden she had noticed was to the left. She opened the gate that separated the garden from the open rear lawn and went in. Jocelyn looked about her, admiring the neatness of the garden’s plan and stopping to inspect the tall beanstalks, the fat cabbages, and the bridal bouquets of cauliflower.

“It was clever of them to put the garden here,” she said, looking toward the drive over a low hedge of viburnum, the white flowers glowing in the pink light of sunset. A dark carriage with a gold and green device on the door was drawn up before the inn. “If it were in the rear, they wouldn’t know if guests arrived while they were gardening.”

Mr. Fletcher glowered down at the dirt between his boots. He didn’t even look up when he heard a groom swearing at a horse along the drive on the other side of the hedge. He waved a hand past his cheek and said glumly, “Let’s go in. There are flies out here.”

“Surely not so early in the year.” Jocelyn still looked idly over the hedge. The horse couldn’t be more than two years old and was mostly leg. He was backing and dancing on the drive. The groom held the reins tightly, and his hand bobbed up and down as the horse tossed its head.

He made a long arm and rapped at the front door. When it opened, he said, “Mum, tell the colonel his horse is ready. And hurry him along. I want my supper.” The horse playfully jerked away, yanking the reins from the young groom’s hand. There were several noisy moments until the groom captured them again.

The horse kept trying its tricks while the young groom listened to the coachman on the box of the carriage. All Jocelyn could see of him was the back of his tall hat, but his unhappy voice carried clearly to her. “Never have I known ‘Himself never to travel more ‘n six hours a day, unless it should happen t’be His Majesty’s busyness, which this t’ain’t. Now here we are again, and changing bosses, an’ all because some young minx don’t have sense enough to stay out of the way of me coach. It t’ain’t sensible, I tell ye.” The landlady’s son answered the driver’s complaint with one of his own about missing his supper while having to hold a horse that couldn’t stand still for two seconds together . . . Blast it!

Jocelyn turned to share her amusement with Mr. Fletcher. He had gone into the inn. She yawned and looked up to see the moon rising in the darkening sky. It would be nice when she could go to bed and draw the covers up to her chin. The viburnum breathed out sweetness.

The gravel crunched beneath booted feet. Looking toward the drive, Jocelyn saw a man with a valise in his hand enter the carriage. At first she thought this might be the owner of the splendid equipage but soon realized that someone who could afford to travel in such style wouldn’t be carrying his own baggage. She watched idly to see who else would come out. Perhaps it would be a duke, regal and perfectly dressed. Or a general, uniform brilliant with gold lace and medals.

She yawned once more and was about to turn away when the door opened again, shedding a yellow rectangle of light onto the drive. A couple came out of the inn. The man wore a tall hat and a voluminous cloak. The girl who leaned on his arm was also wearing a cloak, the hood up. The groom let go of the saddled horse, which promptly began to eat the flowers in pots by the door, and leapt to open the door for the couple. The man, who Jocelyn now saw moved like someone who was very tired, stood back to let the girl enter first. He stopped to talk to the driver, who touched his hat with the handle of his whip.

“Right you are, sorr. We’ll not stop for nothin’.”

The groom offered his hand to the man, and he leaned heavily upon it to get up into the carriage. The carriage door closed.

The groom then saw what the horse was doing and caught at the reins. The horse moved cannily away at the last instant just as if it were playing with him.

The traveling chaise started forward with a great creak and many rattles from the harness.

The restive horse wanted to follow and the groom snatched again at the reins, alternately cursing it and pleading with it to stand still. Suddenly a hatless man emerged from the inn and leapt onto the horse. Even as it reared up, the rider snatched the reins from the air. The groom shouted wordlessly as the rider brought the horse under control.

As the horse leapt and curvetted, the rider shouted, “It was Helena! In the coach! I’ll get her!” All four hooves came down at once. Fletcher’s heels touched the animal’s rounded sides, and they were away.

Chapter Thirteen

Jocelyn stood gaping in the garden. Only seconds had passed since Mr. Fletcher had come running out, seen the horse before him, mounted, and ridden off, seemingly all in one motion. Her first thought was to wonder if he left behind enough money to pay their bill. She walked quickly toward the garden gate, even as she heard the landlady’s son calling his mother.

Inside, lamps blazed and everyone spoke at once, with the exception of the man who had joined Fletcher and Jocelyn while at table. He stood in the shadows under the stairs, Arnold close beside him. Jocelyn saw her cousin wore a wide grin, but she did not have time then to investigate what mischief he’d gotten into.

Quite a few men with ale pots in their hands created a general confusion, and more were coming out of the taproom to observe the commotion. Mrs. Pierce stood in the middle of the room, her hands beating the air as she begged for silence. “Please, Colonel! Please, Jack! Gentlemen, please!” No one paid her any heed.

“Just stole him. Mum! He just stole him, right outta my hand.” Mrs. Pierce’s son stared stupidly into his hand as if expecting to see the young horse there.

“My horse, by God! What’s he done with my horse? I mean to say, can the fellow ride?” A very tall gentleman in a mustard-colored coat and gray riding breeches who seemed to be all arms and legs appeared more confused than angered by the theft of his horse.

“Can he ride? I should say!” A fat young man bounced up and down like a barking terrier. “Saw everything from the window. Jumped into the saddle like he was born to it.” Several voices clamored in agreement.

Mrs. Pierce saw Jocelyn. “You!” she said, as if surprised to see her. The crowd followed their hostess’s gaze. Though, all told, there were only ten observers, Jocelyn felt as if hundreds of fascinated eyes surveyed her.

“Yes, of course.” She did not know whether to claim ignorance of what had occurred or to join in the discussion, which seemed to be divided between concern for the colonel’s horse and admiration for Mr. Fletcher’s horsemanship. She said calmly, “I wonder, could you tell me why my companion has left?”

“Your companion! I knew he wasn’t your brother.” Mrs. Pierce’s mouth tightened to a thin line. One of her customers nudged another in his well-padded ribs. Jocelyn saw the men’s expressions change from excited interest in the accomplice of a thief to another kind of interest. Her color rose.

Mrs. Pierce looked at their faces and said in a voice clear enough to penetrate the liquored minds of her customers, “Jack, tell Bob to hand drinks around to all our good friends. Free of charge.”

At that there was a rush toward the taproom. Mrs. Pierce touched the colonel placatingly on the arm. “I apologize to you, sir. I don’t know quite what to do about your horse at the moment but . . .”

The tall gentleman followed her words with jerky nods of his head as if they were written on the air before him. He interrupted her with an emphatic, “Nothing to be done . . . nothing, nothing. I mean to say, if the fellow can ride, it’s all right, then. Isn’t it, hey, isn’t it?” He walked away into the taproom, arguing with himself, alternately nodding and shaking his head.

Facing the landlady, Jocelyn braced herself for an ugly scene ending in expulsion from the inn. The night that seemed so pleasant when viewed from the garden had an uninviting air when she thought of sleeping out in it.

Mrs. Pierce said, “I’m sorry, miss. I shouldn’t have said anything in front of that lot. Give you and me both a bad repute. I think, maybe, you should tell me what kind of trouble it is?”

Jocelyn blinked at the landlady’s magnanimity. “I will,” she promised, “but first could you tell me what made my . . . friend leave so suddenly. And on someone else’s horse?”

“Why, nothing in the world! I was merely chatting away to him, and he ran for the door like the bailiff was coming behind him.” She seemed a little put out. As an innkeeper, and a woman, she was used to being treated with some respect.

“What were you talking of?”

“Nothing important. I told him of my business, bad though it’s been, and then, to give him a hint, I told him about the young lady His Lordship brung in this evening.”

“A young lady?” Jocelyn asked to prompt her. Could this really be Helena, or was Mr. Fletcher chasing a wild goose?

“That’s right. This young lady, out on the road all alone, fainted right in front of Lord Ashspring’s carriage. Well, it’s a marvel she wasn’t kilt outright. A regular beauty, she was, too. A good thing His Lordship found her instead of some I could name. A fine old gentleman, well known to the late Mr. Pierce’s family. I told him—your ‘friend’—about the girl in the hope that he’d do right by you. He should know the dangers a girl alone is heir to. A thing he’s more than likely never thought of before. I know what these men are like, my dear, and my advice to you is to marry before you forget yourself.”

With a smile Jocelyn said, “It seems I’m forgotten already.”

“No, now then,” Mrs. Pierce said, patting the girl’s shoulder. “The lad’ll be back as soon as he recollects himself. Though it is strange, come to think of it, that he’d take off so after one girl when he’s got another right here.” She looked toward the taproom door, where two or three men, their tankards refilled, stared out at them. Giving them a cold glare, Mrs. Pierce said haughtily, “Let’s go back to my parlor, where we can be private. You were going to tell me about your troubles.”

The landlady turned and then let out a little scream, pressing her hand to her white-swathed bosom. The grimy man moved out from the shadows in a lazy way Jocelyn instantly recognized from her own kitchen.

“Permit me to explain them to you, mistress,” Hammond said, taking off his hat. His hair was matted with sweat and his face and hands were filthy. His clothing was a shade more disreputable than before.

“You!” Jocelyn exclaimed.

Hammond’s face suddenly creased with a smile as bright as brass and twice as bold. She blushed anew with pleasure and embarrassment, a sensation of power tingling her nerve endings. Hammond only smiled like that at her.

Mrs. Pierce nearly burst with curiosity. “Another of them?” She looked at Jocelyn with renewed suspicion, mingled with new respect.

“No, indeed, ma’am,” Hammond said. “I’m the only one.”

Jocelyn suddenly remembered she was not overly pleased with Hammond even if she loved him. If he’d been sensible and brought Arnold and her this far, she would not now be in the lurch. “How do you come to be here, Hammond?” she asked with a lift of her chin, stepping away from his outstretched hand. “I thought you’d be in Oxford by now.”

“Well, I would be,” he said, his smile not fading a jot despite her reception. “If our friend’s horse hadn’t picked up a stone six miles back. You passed me on the road, you know.’’

“I didn’t see you.”

“I saw you, though. Our friend drives at a spanking pace. It’s a pity he didn’t choose better for me. Though the horse he picked up here seems to show he has some taste. I caught a ride with a carter, and counted myself lucky to get it, even if it wasn’t of the quality Fletcher found.”

“Heaven save us!” said Mrs. Pierce, following this conversation with a frown. “It’s like a congregation!”

Just then Mr. Fletcher limped in, splashed to the eyebrows with mud. Arnold snorted and chuckled, finding the sight of his former tutor vastly amusing.

There was no time to speak before the colonel came striding out from the taproom. “Back, are you? Tell me, how far did you get? Come on, then.”

Bewildered, Mr. Fletcher answered, “About a mile.”