Edith Layton (7 page)

Daffyd lay on his back, getting his wind back, stunned, disbelieving, and bizarrely enough, vastly entertained by his rescuer’s dramatic abilities.

“Well?” she demanded, her hands on her hips. “Are none of you going to help him to his feet? Oh, it will go badly for you if you have hurt any part of him,” she said angrily.

The men scrambled to help Daffyd up. One dusted off his jacket, another awkwardly patted his shoulder. One somehow produced his hat, which had been left at the inn.

“Are you all right, my dear?” Meg asked Daffyd with such solicitousness he almost believed every word she’d said was true.

“I am well enough,” he said with hard-won calm.
“Thank you, my dear.” He took her hand and raised it to his lips.

She colored, and looked away. He hoped it was dark enough, because no man would believe a well-loved female could blush at such a trifle. But from the corner of his eyes he saw that these louts were impressed by her shyness and his gesture. Only a highborn fellow would salute a woman who’d just saved his life in such a trifling way. Only a lady would be so moved by it, too.

“I think, however,” he said, mastering understatement, “that we should not rest here this night.”

The innkeeper had come hurrying out of the inn to join the growing crowd and see what the fuss was all about. Now he pushed through the throng. “Oh, sir. Lady,” he said, bowing low. “Please, stay on. Let me make it up to you. Didn’t know you two were together, sir, seeing as how you arrived separate. I’d have given you a better room. I will!” he added, on inspiration. “Free, too. Can’t have folk thinking we’re savages here. The
Magpie
’s got a reputation for comfort. Quality used to stop here all the time. Please, let us show you we still got the touch. And don’t be feared of being disturbed! These knot heads come within an inch of you again, and I’ll shoot them myself, I will!”

The serving girl had pressed forward too. But she was staring at Daffyd and frowning. “But what about your fiancée?” she asked him. “I mean, you said you was looking for your fiancée: a blond who lisps. And so, who is this lady?”

The crowd grew still.

Meg turned to Daffyd, newborn fear in her wide eyes.

“Oh, that,” he said, in his most refined accents. “Well, my dear,” he told the serving girl, “If I’d asked after my sister, would you have been so quick to help me? No, I don’t think so. Or so I have found it to be in these past days. You might have thought I was chasing my sister to force her to marry against her wishes. That’s what I hear she’s been telling people all along the road so they’ll help her and I won’t find her. But I must. In truth, she’s a rich young girl besotted by a very bad man who wants her fortune. So it’s much easier to say she’s my love, and get answers, then say she’s my relative and have people try to protect her. Women are soft hearted, brothers can be painted as villains. Come, my dear, don’t you agree?”

The girl smiled.

“Now, my lady here,” Daffyd went on, “is helping me in my quest, and since there are questions only a woman can ask, she travels a bit apart from me until nightfall. She says my sister is her cousin. Because after all, I ask you: Who in the world has any sympathy for in-laws?”

There were nods and chuckles. The men who had held him began backing away. At last Daffyd could breathe easily again. He turned his head and put his lips against Meg’s ear as though he were brushing a kiss there. He felt her stiffen, and quickly whispered, “We have to stay here, if only for the night. It’s too late to travel on with any safety tonight.”

She swallowed hard. He could hear it. Then she nodded. “We have to talk,” she whispered back.

“Oh, never doubt it,” he said.

The room they were led to was sumptuous, by the
Magpie
’s standards. It was large, there was a fire in a hearth: two chairs, a table, a wardrobe, and a huge, high bed. Daffyd wondered if the sheets on the bed were still warm. He was certain someone had been turfed out so he and Margaret Shaw could be put in. His calm in the face of disaster and her histrionics had convinced the innkeeper they were Quality. The Quality were famous for their queer habits and mad starts. And whatever else they were, the Quality were needed for the prosperity of any inn.

The men who had almost hanged him had each apologized humbly and then vanished into the night. The innkeeper had bowed so much he looked like a Mandarin. The servants rushed to make sure their every need was met. But their only need now was for the night to pass.

Daffyd looked at his new roommate. She was pacing.

“This will never do,” she muttered.

“It has to,” he said, leaning back against the wall. “Tell you what: toss me a coverlet, I’ll sleep on the floor. You’ll be safe as a nun. I won’t touch you—unless you want me to.”

She stopped and stared at him.

He flung up his hands. “An attempt at humor. Nothing else. It’s been a hard night. So it wasn’t very
funny. I can’t help it. My humor was bruised, too. Of course I won’t bother you. Especially after what happened yesterday. Fine way to thank you, that would be. I owe you, you know.”

She spoke through gritted teeth. “But if people hear we stayed together, my reputation will be ruined.”

“So will mine. Don’t worry. No one knows us. I didn’t use my real name. Did you? Even if you did, it doesn’t matter. Here, they believe you’re my wife. We’ll never see them again. Who else would see you or know you if they did?”

“Well, the Runner,” she said slowly.

“But he’s not here. So no one knows. Right?”

She nodded.

“So you’re safe. And so am I. See, I really am grateful to you and would do almost anything to thank you,” he said sincerely. “But not marry you. I’d hate to have to do that.”

Her eyes flashed, then narrowed. “I do
not
want to marry you!” she said in a violent whisper. “I saved you because I knew you were innocent of kidnapping that child. Any Christian woman would have done the same. But I don’t want to marry you. I don’t know you; I don’t particularly like you, and so why would I want to marry you? I don’t. Can’t you get that through your head?”

He sat on a chair. “Understood,” he said simply.

“But…” she said, stopping and thinking deeply. “There
is
something you can do for me.”

“I’m listening.”

“Take me with you. In for a penny, in for a pound.
You just said no one will know about tonight, so how will they know about any other nights? I have eight days left to find Rosie and I can do that better with you. And more safely, you said that, too. We can stay in separate rooms at the next inn. But let me come along to find Rosalind! That’s what you can do for me.”

“No,” he said.

“I can help. You saw that tonight. Let me come along. Then if I fail I can at least know I tried everything.”

He looked exasperated. “Why endanger yourself and your reputation? I know it’s no pleasure to sit and wait. I sympathize. I’d hate to do it. But you’re a female, and gently bred, at that. There are dangers and discomforts on the road apart from the possibility of rape. I said I was good at finding things. Just go home and wait.”

Her face was white. But her fists were clenched and her head was high. It was as if now that she’d found courage and anger, she refused to let them go.

“Why not?” she asked, her eyes bright, her voice forceful. “Because I
have
no real home. If I fail to find Rosie, I’ll only have a place with my aunts. A proper place. A remote one, as far from humanity as Napoleon in exile on his island. I’d be like a prisoner too, only I committed no crime except for having no home of my own. Oh, I’d be taken care of. I’d have food and shelter and clothing. And I’d live under my aunts’ feet and their rules for the rest of my life with no will of my own, less than a servant, not
even free as one. Servants at least earn money and have half days off once a week. I know, I had that as a companion.

“But if I go to live with my aunts, I won’t have anything but a place to sleep and eat, though I will work for my keep. And I won’t be thanked for it. I’ll be suffered, and made sure I know it. I’ll be fenced in and hemmed ’round; I’ll have no freedom, no say in my future. That’s why. I know. I’ve lived with them, and vowed never to do so again. But if Rosie is gone and I’m blamed for it…”

She turned her head so he wouldn’t see the furious tears rushing to her eyes. “Ah, why am I bothering to tell you? You can’t understand, how could you? You’re a man, you’ve always been free.”

He stayed absolutely still. Then he shrugged. “Why didn’t you say that from the first? All right. If you want, you can come with me.”

She spun around to face him, her face alight.

He held up a hand. “But no whining. No complaining. No special favors for you. Because all I’ll say is, ‘I told you so.’ And you have to keep up with my pace. Agreed?”

She smiled in rapturous dawning belief, and absolute relief.

“Agreed!”

“A
re you really half gypsy?”

The voice came out of the darkness. Daffyd shifted on his pallet on the floor. It wasn’t as comfortable as the bed would have been, but Miss Margaret Shaw had generously given him two coverlets to sleep with, one for under his body, and one for over it. He had a soft down pillow, and the hearth still radiated warmth. She had the bed, and he the floor next to it, under the window and nearer to the door, in case anyone hadn’t gotten the innkeeper’s warning.

Daffyd stretched and gave a soft sigh of pleasure. It wasn’t the prime accommodation he’d been expecting. But he’d been comfortable with far less in his time. The room was filled with a warm darkness,
and most of all, it wasn’t a permanent darkness. He’d been saved from death. And as always when that happened, just the mere act of breathing felt good. He even felt kindly towards his unwanted charge, where she lay on the big, high bed that was supposed to have been his.

After he’d agreed to take her along, her smile had faded away, and she’d just stood, watching him nervously. It took him a moment to understand the problem. When he had, he’d left the room, used the time to go to the convenience, and then loitered in the night air long enough for her to prepare for bed. He’d guessed she’d have slept fully clothed if he hadn’t given her time to undress. When he returned the room was dark except for one lamp. She was tucked into bed, and his improvised pallet was waiting for him. He’d murmured a “thanks,” she’d murmured a “you’re welcome.” Then she’d blown out the lamp. All he’d seen of her before the light went out was a vague shape beneath her coverlets.

He’d undressed in total darkness, at least, taken off his jacket, neckcloth and boots, and laid himself down. He closed his eyes, and she spoke. It didn’t surprise him. In his experience, darkness always made a man feel like loving and a woman feel like talking. He was sure, though, that all he’d get was talk tonight.

“Yes,” he answered. “My father was a gypsy. My mother isn’t. She’s a lady. But why bother asking? Everyone knows gypsies are liars.”

“I don’t think you’re lying,” she said in a soft, sleepy voice that suddenly made him think he could be much more comfortable if he were in that bed with her. “I think you would lie if it benefited you, but what would be the point of lying to me? Oh,” she said, and he could tell she was smiling. “Actually there would be a point, wouldn’t there? If your grandfather had actually been a consul in Spain, you’d be afraid I’d try to marry you.” She giggled.

“I don’t think
everyone
is trying to marry me,” he said, sounding a little defensive. “Still, it’s a trap women have tried to spring. Mind you, I know I’m not prime goods. But I come from a land where women badly need husbands of any sort. Not just for a fellow’s looks, name or fortune. They need his protection, too.”

“What land?” she asked curiously.

“The Antipodes,” he said.

She didn’t answer. The room was still and dark.

“Botany Bay,” he went on. “Actually, Port Jackson. The penal colony. Well, the whole place is one. I was one too. A convict, that is.”

The only sound was that of a last log ticking into embers in the hearth.

He felt the usual twist of sour amusement deep in his gut. Only this time he also felt a curious sense of disappointment. “You don’t have to leave right away,” he remarked conversationally. “For one thing, it’s too dark. There are worse things out there now than me. You’re safe enough. You can go in the
morning. Remember, I tried to warn you. But you said, ‘In for a penny, in for a pound.’ Don’t worry about the pound, at least, of flesh. I said I wouldn’t harm you and I won’t. So go to sleep.”

“I wasn’t thinking about running away,” she said. “I was just thinking about what you said. Why were you sent to the Antipodes?”

“Because they decided not to hang me. Don’t bolt. I didn’t kill anyone. I was a boy, a street rat, when they sentenced me. I had my hands on a pound note my mate had dipped, and it was my bad luck the beaks found it there when they burst into our lay. They nabbed me and my mate and we were sent to Newgate. Wasn’t the first time. But in the past we’d been caught for trifles. A pound means the rope, and we were for it. We found our luck there, though. We met up with a gent—a real one—and his son, and made a bargain. The man would look after us boys, in return we’d teach him how to get on in the jail. It’s an art, you know, or rather, don’t. But it is.

“It helped them, and got us a voyage to the Antipodes instead of swinging, because the gent had a family with influence. They didn’t want their name involved, and a hanging gets attention. Transportation gets rid of a fellow just as well, but it’s quieter. He got a trip to the Antipodes for himself and his son instead of the noose, and he got us in on the bargain. We became a family. He made us his wards, treated us square as he did his own son. He didn’t have anything to give us but the shirt off his back then, though
it was in tatters, and he needed it. We lived to get through the voyage there. We worked out our sentences, made ourselves rich, and came home again. Only last year, in fact.”

He heard movement, and looked up. He thought he’d see her flinging on her cape and rushing out into the night. Instead, she sat bolt upright and stared down at him.

“No!” she breathed in excitement. “I heard about you! I was in London with Miss Fisher, as her companion, last year. She traveled in a fashionable set. You and your brothers were the talk of the town. The gentleman was the Earl of Egremont rightfully returned to his estate! And you were one of his two wards? People could speak of nothing else. What a story! And so you were the gypsy lad! I
am
impressed….” Her voice dwindled. “That is, if you’ retelling the truth now?”

“Why should I lie? Forget that, a gypsy doesn’t need a reason. But I’m not. Lying, that is.”

“So what are you doing tracking down Rosalind…? Oh! Now it makes sense. Your mother is her godmother, she’s the lady you spoke of. That’s wonderful! I wish you’d told me straight away, I wouldn’t have been wary of you. I feel as though I know you now.”

He flung off his coverlet and marched, stocking-foot, over to her bedside. He towered over her in her bed. “You,” he said angrily, “are the greatest fool in the world, even if you are smart! You
don’t
know me.
Notoriety is not acquaintance. You trust too much and think too little. I could be a rapist, a murderer, a thoroughgoing villain. And yet here you sit crowing because you know me? You should be locked up somewhere and the key thrown away. For your own good.”

She shrank from him. That was satisfying, but it made him feel like a bully. Then she rallied, and stared him down—or rather, up, lifting her chin and facing him squarely. That made him feel much better.

“I am perhaps too trusting,” she retorted. “And I don’t always make good judgments, but only because though I’ve encountered meanness of spirit, it’s always been the socially acceptable sort, if you know what I mean. I have no experience of crime and criminals, that’s true. But I learn quickly, and I have good instincts…most of the time. Yes, it was foolish of me to think you can be trusted simply because I had heard about you.”

She paused, then added, “But I had confidence in you before I did. Because you’ve always treated me with, if not civility, then at least decency. You saved me from villains when there was nothing for you in it. So that’s why I trust you, and if that’s no reason to, then how can anyone know when to trust anyone?”

Though it was too dark to be sure, he knew she was looking him straight in the eye.

“Aye,” he said in a lower voice. “There’s that. A person has to take risks. And trust their own judgment, or else they’d never be able to take a step out
the door. All right. But don’t trust me too far, and make up your own mind when it comes to important things. I’ll take you along with me, but I won’t be your papa, understand?”

“‘
Papa
’?” she asked, amazed. “I never thought so!”

“Or brother, or whatever,” he grumbled as he went back to his pallet on the floor.

“Of course not,” she said.

“Of course,” he said softly, thoughtfully, after a moment, “There are other masculine roles I can play aside from papa and brother, especially on such a wakeful night. There are things I can do to help you relax, for example, help send you off to sweet and easy sleep. Eventually.”

There was a silence. It went on. It was definitely waiting. And listening. He suddenly had expectations for the long night ahead. But he thought of the quiet pansy-faced girl in the bed, and took his time before going on.

“You don’t have to worry,” he finally added in a lower, softer voice. “I won’t compromise you. Promise! No, honestly, that’s a fact. You might not know, but there are things that can be done between a man and a woman that are sweet, enjoyable; things that won’t endanger you in any way, to get you through a long and lonely night. Things your governess never told you. Intimate, yes, but never the final intimacy that could jeopardize your future. After all,” he said with indignation, “life’s hard enough for
a female, so it would be a selfish careless lout who leaves a babe in his wake each time he seeks pleasure! Pleasure can be given and gotten with no one but us ever the wiser.”

“I do not love you,” she said in a stiff little voice.

He stifled a snort of surprised laughter. “Love has nothing to do with it. I’m talking about pleasure, a good way to pass dreary time. Rich folk are always looking for sport and thrills. Poor folk don’t have the time or money for that. But they’re just as good at finding pleasure. I’ve seen it in slums and prisons, everywhere. See, if you don’t have anything to pleasure yourself with except for your body, you learn how to use it. You don’t have to love to love what we can do.”

The silence was deafening.

“I mean,” he said with a little more force. “I know my way about. Well, you know us gypsies, we can steal the egg out from under a hen without ruffling a feather.” He winced, realizing, too late, what a bad analogy that was. He also knew she wouldn’t be seduced by words alone, no matter how tender. And his, he admitted, were not.

She knew that, too.

“I do not have an egg,” she snapped. “Nor would I want it stolen if I did. And if you so much as lay a finger on me, I shall…I’ll…”

“Oh, I know, I know,” he said grumpily. “Forget it, it was a mad start brought on by a late night. I’m more tired than I know. Go to sleep, alone and untouched. Don’t worry. I didn’t say I was mad with
desire, did I? But think about it. What sort of a man would I be if I didn’t even ask?”

“A nicer one,” she said.

He had no answer. So he just turned his back on her.

He heard her settle down in her coverlets again. It took him longer to do that in his own makeshift bed. He hadn’t seen her, but she’d smelled of faint flowers, and her voice had sounded sweet and sleepy and warm. Until he’d offered to share that warm bed of hers.

Daffyd turned over again with a thump that made his hip feel the floor beneath his blankets. He winced and thought,
Good!
The last thing he needed was to feel randy now. She wasn’t his sort. Even if she were, he never let himself become entangled with any female who wanted more than a joyous night with him. And since that was decidedly not what he’d get from her this night, he closed his eyes and forced himself to think about nothing, until there were nothing but dreams on his mind.

She ate like a hawk. A fastidious hawk. But then, all hawks were fastidious. He’d seen one take down a songbird once: pluck it from the sky, land in a meadow, shuck it out of its feathers, and leave nothing but a neat pile of feathers and fluff behind when it was done eating. But he’d never seen a human female engulf and devour a meal with similar rapacity and delicacy until he’d seen Miss Margaret Shaw eat her breakfast. Daffyd was charmed.

She was full of surprises this morning. He sat
across the table from her and watched her demolish a trencherman’s meal of eggs, steak, ham, sausage, bacon, fried tomatoes, biscuits, butter and honey. She used her fork and knife like a surgeon and didn’t get one speck of food or sauce on her chin or her gown. And she made polite conversation all the while.

Her plate was finally empty when she looked up and saw his expression. Her cheeks flushed. She put down her fork. “I was very hungry this morning,” she said. “The food’s delicious, the country air must be the spice I needed.”

He smiled.

She blushed more. “Truth is,” she admitted. “I do like a good breakfast.”

“Nothing to apologize for. You’ll need it. We’re going to be doing some hard traveling. Are you ready?”

She blinked. Lovely eyes, he thought, golden in the sunlight, like the hawk he’d been thinking about. It was an odd comparison. She was nothing like a bird of prey, she was the most helpless female he’d ever spent a night with. But then he thought about how she’d thrown herself on him and saved him from being hanged. Not so helpless, then. But inexperienced. He doubted she’d stay with him long enough to get much more experience of the world.

Daffyd rose from the table. “I’ll pay the reckoning, get our horses ready, and we’ll go in a half hour.” He saw her horrified expression and frowned. She wasn’t ready to travel? But she’d been on fire to
accompany him last night. Maybe she’d had second thoughts. Or maybe it was a difficult time of the month for her? Surely she didn’t expect him to wait on her moon cycles? Whatever it was, it freed him of all obligations. He ought to have been overjoyed, but found himself disappointed in her.

“What?” he asked abruptly. “Change your mind? I have to leave before noon. If you can’t, I’ll see you safely on the next stage out.”

“Oh, no. I’ll be ready. It was just unexpected. But how foolish of me,” she said, rallying. “I ought to have known we’d leave at first light. Thank you for letting me sleep on as long as you did.”

He nodded. He hadn’t been monster enough to wake her at dawn. She’d looked so vulnerable, sleeping. Without her bright eyes to distract him, or her usual gray gowns to disguise her, he’d seen how defenseless she looked. He’d been able to stand over her and study her, seeing her hair braided like a girl, the slight shape of her beneath the covers. Like a girl, indeed, he’d thought. Most women he had experience with would have woken as he approached them. The females he knew always slept with one eye open. Seeing him approaching their bed, they’d either have reached out their arms to him or come at him with a knife. Miss Margaret Shaw just dreamed on, her cheeks flushed, her lips parted in sleep.