“You’ve been most helpful, madam.” Daniel withdrew his heavy purse. “We might as well settle accounts now. You did say it would be ten shillings, nine pence, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” She watched with keen eyes as he removed several coins from his purse.
“Here’s eleven shillings for the delicious dinner.” He plunked down two crowns and a shilling, then added another crown. “And five more for the information.” He dropped the purse onto the table beside the sketch, and the coins jingled loudly. “Did the man happen to say where they were headed?”
She scooped up the silver and dropped it into her apron pocket, eyeing the purse with a twinge of regret. “He didn’t say. But the ostler might know.”
Daniel fished out another shilling and gave it to her.
“Thank you all the same. I knew a fine Englishwoman like yourself would be happy to help me and my wife.” Then he actually winked at the older woman.
To Helena’s surprise, the harridan blushed as pink as a schoolgirl. “Oh, go on with you now, Mr. Brennan. It were nothing. You just let me know if you and your wife need anything else for your trip. And I’ll go see if there mightn’t be a bit of pie hiding somewhere in the kitchen after all.”
Helena could hardly contain herself until the woman left. Then she leaned forward and hissed, “What a liar you are! Your poor sainted mother in Sussex indeed!”
“That wasn’t a lie,” he protested genially as he tucked the sketch and miniature back into his waistcoat pocket. “You notice I didn’t say she managed an inn in
Sussex.
I said I was raised in Sussex, and that’s true. My mother’s name was indeed Molly, though it was Molly Blake, since Da never married her. And she did run her father’s inn, but in Essex, before she met up with my da.” He sighed. “He was a bad influence on her.”
“I should say so. And what about
him
? Saying he was a soldier!”
He grinned. “Wild Danny did join up for a stint as a young man. Would you have preferred I’d mentioned his later profession?”
“God forbid. If she thought you were a thieving Irishman before, I can only imagine what she’d say if she knew your father was a highwayman.”
“Y’see, lass, you don’t have to tell everything, though it’s best to stick as close to the truth as possible. I learned that from Griff when he made me masquerade for him. I didn’t fie a bit—I just hid parts of the truth, is all.”
Indeed he had. Daniel Brennan could charm the snakes
off the head of Medusa with winks and grins and half truths. Such a rascal, he was.
He slid his purse into his coat pocket, and it dawned on her that the rascal had also paid for everything. That would not do.
“Daniel, you must let me pay the costs of this trip. It should not be at your expense.”
“It’s not.” He gave her the same quick wink he’d given the innkeeper’s wife. “I plan to charge Griff for every penny.”
“Oh.” She hadn’t thought of that. “Will he mind? Paying all this just to make sure Juliet doesn’t…make a fool of herself?”
“Do you think Rosalind would
let
him mind?”
“I don’t know. They’re married now, and, well…men tend to be tyrannical once they become husbands, no matter how lenient they seemed during the courtship.”
“Oh, they do, do they?” He finished the last of his meal and settled back against the chair. Tapping his fork on the plate with a faint pinging, he regarded her steadily. “Have you got a husband I don’t know about?”
“Of course not.”
“Then how can you know what one acts like?”
She drew her pelisse about her shoulders, the resultant pain in her back making her regret she had to mount a horse again. “One doesn’t need experience to know these things. I do read. And people do marry in Stratford-upon-Avon.”
“Ah, I see. From that, you’ve learnt exactly how every husband acts.” There went that maddening eyebrow again.
“Oh, don’t be so smug,” she grumbled. “You’ve been my ‘husband’ for all of one day, and you’ve already proven quite tyrannical.”
He leaned over the table with a wicked glint in his eyes. “That’s only because I’ve had all the responsibilities of marriage and none of the fun. Now if I had a bit of the good part to soften my temper, so to speak—”
“Not a chance,”
she enunciated, but her insides flipped over at the very thought.
“Then I s’pose you’ll just have to get used to my tyrannical ways, lass.” He grinned. “Speaking of which, if you’re done with your meal, we’d best be off.”
She agreed hastily. As sore as she was, she preferred riding horseback—where she could hardly converse at all—to spending one more minute having such outrageous discussions with Daniel.
Leaning forward in her chair, she started to place weight on her legs, then froze. They were weaker than before. She wasn’t even sure she could stand.
And the last thing she wanted was for Daniel to realize it.
She forced a smile to her lips. “You go on out and speak to the ostler. I…er…need to…make use of the necessary. I’ll join you outside when I’m done.”
“All right.” With a scrape of his chair, he stood and waited for her to rise, so she made a show of drawing on her gloves, then removing her packet of cloves from her pocket. He finally shrugged and headed out of the common room.
As soon as he had gone, she popped a clove in her mouth and glanced furtively around. The room was still virtually deserted, with only the innkeeper’s daughter cleaning tables. She scooted her chair back and reached for her cane. She could do this. What did it matter if her legs felt shaky? Or her joints throbbed? All she had to do was hobble to the horse. Then Daniel would lift her into the saddle and she’d be fine.
She chewed a moment longer on her clove, futilely hoping the bitter spice might steel her for the task at hand, then discarded it on her plate. Clasping her cane in one hand and the edge of the table in the other, she pushed herself to a stand. She managed to stay on her feet long enough to take one step away from the table.
Then her legs buckled and she collapsed.
And if you dare to kiss my lips
Sure of your body I will be.
“Thomas the Rhymer,”
anonymous ballad
D
aniel was talking to the ostler when the innkeeper’s daughter ran out of the Blue Boar. “Sir, sir!” she called out. “Come at once! Your wife has fallen!”
Daniel’s heart dropped into his stomach. “What happened?” he asked, immediately heading for the inn.
“I’m not sure, sir. I—I was cleaning the tables and then I heard a crash—”
“And you left her there?” he growled and stalked past her.
She hastened after him. “Mama is with her.”
When they entered the common room, her mother was grumbling and futilely trying to lift Helena under the arms. Daniel took one look at the crooked position of Helena’s legs on the polished oak floor and felt his insides lurch sickeningly.
“Let me be!” Helena protested to the other woman with a face flushed scarlet. “Truly, madam, if you will just leave me alone for a moment, I can—”
“I’ll take care of her,” Daniel told the blundering older woman, who was only too happy to relinquish her responsibility. Striding to Helena’s side, Daniel bent and scooped her up in his arms.
“No, you can’t…you must put me down…it’s not prop—”
“Stubble it,” he growled under his breath, “before you give everything away.”
Though her blush crept to her ears, she hooked her arms about his neck and clung to him as he stalked toward the door to the common room.
“Have you a parlor where my wife and I can be private?” he threw back over his shoulder at the innkeeper’s wife.
“Yes, sir. Second door to the right once you reach the hall.”
“There’s no need for this,” Helena whimpered as he headed that way. “If you will just set me on my feet—”
“So you can fall again?” he muttered. “Not bloody likely.”
He entered the parlor, kicked the door shut behind him, then strode to a settee and lowered her onto it. As soon as he released her, she tried to stand but couldn’t manage it, and her pathetic attempt made him furious, as much at himself as at her.
“Don’t you dare try to get up!” He glowered down at
her. “Tell me, Helena. When was the last time you rode a horse?”
“J-just a few weeks ago.”
“Don’t lie to me, or I swear to God I’ll take you over my knee. You haven’t yet seen me tyrannical. Now how long has it been? And this time try the truth!”
She blinked, then sank against the cushioned settee with a defeated sigh. “Eight years. Not since before my illness.”
“Bloody hell.” He should’ve known. He’d seen all the signs, but he’d ignored them. He should’ve realized that if he’d never seen her ride at Swan Park, and her own father said she didn’t, then she couldn’t. How could he have let it go this far?
Anger drove him to pace before the cold hearth. “I can guess why you lied to me in the first place, but once you were having difficulty, why didn’t you say something? Why did you let me think you were managing all right?”
“Because I
was
managing all right.”
He snorted. “I can see how well you managed.” He stopped short in front of her. “Must you be so bloody proud about everything? Why not admit you can’t ride?” He dragged his fingers through his hair in utter distraction. “You could’ve hurt yourself badly, y’know. You could’ve broken something when you fell. We don’t know for sure that you didn’t!” The very thought made him ill.
“I-I would have felt it—”
“The way you felt that you couldn’t stand? You should have told me!”
“If I had, you would have sent me back!”
Her cry echoed stark and painfully simple in the cramped room.
Of course. Bloody stubborn woman. It was one thing
to be plucky; it was quite another to recklessly risk her own health.
“I still will,” he said softly. “So your lack of regard for your own safety has gained you naught, d’you hear? When I think of how you looked—”
With a curse, he turned away before she could see his face. It made his gut knot to remember her crumpled on the floor, her legs twisted under her, her cane tangled in her skirts. “What the devil am I to do with you now? Going on by horseback is out of the question for you.”
“If…if you’d just set me on the horse, I could probably manage to ride.”
“You’re either stupid or daft as a bedlamite! The only thing you’ll be riding is a coach seat back to London, damn you!” He whirled back around. “And I swear—”
He halted at the sight of her face. She was crying, with delicate little tears that trembled on the tips of her eyelashes before falling oh so softly onto her cheeks. Like a swan, she made no sound. He wouldn’t even have noticed if he hadn’t looked at her, she was trying that hard to hold them back.
Bloody hell, he’d made her cry, and he’d never made a woman cry in his life, except to cry out during lovemaking. That showed how badly she’d shaken him, for he’d always been careful of women’s feelings. Not to mention that bringing a lady as proud as her to tears took real effort.
When she caught him staring at her she ducked her head, but that only made it worse, for now he noticed her trembling shoulders, which rose and fell with her tears. Now he could hear her, too, the tiny gasps and starts of a woman weeping.
It tore him straight to the heart. “Christ, don’t cry,” he grumbled as he dropped his big frame onto the settee. “I didn’t mean it. You’re not stupid or daft. I…” He trailed
off, helpless in the face of such pitiful female misery. “Shhh, lass, don’t go on so.” For lack of any better way to soothe her, he laid his hand on her shoulder.
She lifted her head to reveal red-rimmed eyes and a rosy nose. “You can’t send me back. Please, Daniel, I promise not to make any more trouble. I’ll hire a gig or something fast that I can drive myself.”
“Helena—” he began, meaning to reason with her.
“I-I realize I should have told you about the riding, but I knew you wouldn’t let me go if I did, and I truly thought I could manage it. It’s only that my bad leg is so very weak and my good one was overtaxed and…” She trailed off with a choked sound, then mastered herself enough to mutter through gritted teeth, “I hate my leg! It won’t do
anything
I need it to do!”
He squeezed her shoulder. “That’s not true. But you can’t expect it to get used to riding again all at once. Give it a chance.”
“We don’t have time for that.” Her teary gaze fixed on him. “But I can go with you if we just make other arrangements.”
He sighed, glancing beyond her to the whitewashed wall punctuated by oak beams. “Don’t you trust me to find her?”
“It’s not that. I
have
to go with you.”
His gaze swung back to her. “Why, for God’s sake?”
“Because it’s my fault she’s in this fix,” she wailed as fresh tears coursed down her cheeks. “If I’d been more careful, if I’d only noticed how she—”
“Hush, lass, it’s nobody’s fault, and it’s sure as hell not yours.”
Settling against the hard-backed settee, he tugged her into his arms, wanting to comfort her. To his surprise, she accepted his embrace as if it were the most natural thing
in the world. It felt natural, too, and sweet, making him want to hold her even closer.
She laid her cheek against his chest, her tears flowing like a damned spigot, dampening his coat, his shirt, his cravat. When he took out his handkerchief and handed it to her, she soaked that, too.
“I saw the way…he looked at her,” she stammered through her sobs. “I even knew…Mr. Morgan…Mr. Pryce…was…up to no good. I should have…watched her more…carefully.”
“You can’t stop a grown woman from doing what she wants,” he murmured. If he’d learned anything from this escapade, it was that. He pulled her closer, cursing himself for making her cry. Her bonnet poked him in the nose, so he tugged it off and tossed it to the floor. “Short of locking Juliet in her room, you couldn’t have stopped her, even if you had guessed what she was planning.”
Her sobs were petering out, but she still shook like a buffeted willow. He cradled her head against his chest just beneath his chin, trying to ignore the delicious scent of honey water in her hair as he crooned reassurances to settle her down.