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‘We will be able to think more clearly once we’ve had something to eat and drink,’ he said.
‘How do you know? Have you ever been drugged before?’
He quirked one eyebrow at her as he drew up a chair next to her. Then leaned in so that he could speak quietly. ‘So you do accept that is the case?’
She clasped her hands in her lap. ‘Couldn’t there have been some sort of mistake? Perhaps I stumbled into your room by accident?’
‘And tore off all your clothes and flung them about in some sort of mad fit before leaping into my bed? It isn’t likely. Unless you are in the habit of sleepwalking?’
She flushed as he described the very scenario she’d already dismissed as being completely impossible. Shook her head at his question about sleepwalking.
‘Then what other explanation can there be?’
‘What about this Hugo person you keep asking if I know?’
‘Yes,’ he said grimly. ‘I still wonder if he could somehow be at the back of it. He has good reason to meddle in the business that brought me up here, you see. Only...’
He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck, looking troubled. Then shook his head.
‘Only he isn’t a bad lad—not really. Only selfish and thoughtless. Or so I’ve always thought.’
‘Always? You have known him a long time?’
‘Since his birth,’ said Gregory. ‘He is my cousin. My nearest male relative, in point of fact. Ever since he left school I have been attempting to teach him all he needs to know should he ever have to step into my shoes. He couldn’t have thought it through. If it was him.’
‘But how on earth could he have persuaded my aunt to do such a thing? Let alone my uncle?’
‘He might have put the case in such a way that your aunt would have thought she was acting for your benefit.’
‘My benefit? How could it be of any benefit to...to humiliate me and abandon me? Anything could have happened. If you were not the kind of man who...that is if you were not a... I mean...although you don’t look it... I think you are a gentleman. You could easily have taken advantage of me. And you haven’t. Unless... Oh! Are you married?’
‘No. Not any more.’
‘I am so sorry. I did not mean to make you uncomfortable by mentioning a topic that must surely cause you sorrow.’
‘It doesn’t.’ He gave a sort of grimace. Then explained, ‘My wife has been dead these eight years.’
‘Oh, that’s good. I mean...not that she’s dead, but that it is long enough ago that you are past the worst of your grief. But anyway, what I was going to say was that perhaps you are simply not the sort. To break your marriage vows. I know that even the most unlikely-looking men can be doggedly faithful...’
His gaze turned so icy she shivered.
‘Not that you look like the unfaithful sort,’ she hastily amended. ‘Or the sort that... And anyway you have been married, so... That is... Oh, dear, I do not know what I mean, precisely.’
She could feel her cheeks growing hotter and hotter the longer she continued to babble at him. But to her relief his gaze suddenly thawed.
‘I think I detected a sort of compliment amongst all those observations,’ he said with a wry smile.
‘Thank goodness.’ She heaved a sigh of relief. ‘I mean, it is not that I intended to compliment you, but...’
He held up his hand. ‘Just stop right there, before you say anything else to embarrass yourself. And let me bring you back to the point in question. Which is this: perhaps your aunt thought to put you in a compromising position so that she could arrange an advantageous match for you.’
‘An advantageous match? Are you mad?’ She looked at his muddy coat, his blackened eye, the grazes on his knuckles.
And he pokered up.
‘Although,’ she said hastily, in an attempt to smooth down the feathers she’d ruffled by implying that someone would have to be mad to consider marrying the likes of him, ‘of late she has been growing increasingly annoyed by my refusal to get married. On account of her wanting a particular member of her husband’s family to benefit from my inheritance.’
‘Your inheritance?’
Oh, dear. She shouldn’t have blurted that out. So far he had been behaving rather well, all things considered. But once he knew she would come into a great deal of money upon making a good marriage it was bound to bring out the worst in him. He had told her he was no longer married. And, whatever line of business he was in, acquiring a rich wife would be a definite asset.
Why hadn’t she kept quiet about it? Why was she blurting out the answers to all his questions at all?
She rubbed at the spot between her brows where once she’d thought her brain resided.
‘You don’t think,’ he persisted, ‘that your aunt chose to put you into my bed, out of the beds of all the single men who were at that inn last night, for a particular reason? Or that she chose to stay at that particular inn knowing that I would be there?’
She kept on rubbing at her forehead, willing her brain to wake up and come to her rescue. But it was no use.
‘I don’t know what you mean!’ she eventually cried out in frustration. ‘We only stopped there because one of the horses went lame. We were supposed to be pushing on to Mexworth. Uncle Murgatroyd was livid when the postilions said we’d have to put up at the next place we came to. And Aunt Charity said it was a miserable little hovel and she’d never set foot in it. And then the postilion said she could sleep in the stable if she liked, but didn’t she think she’d prefer a bed with sheets? And then they had a rare old set-to, right in the middle of the road...’
‘I can just picture it,’ he put in dryly.
‘The upshot was that we didn’t have any choice. It was sheer coincidence that we were staying at the same inn as you last night. And I’m sure my aunt wouldn’t have wanted to compromise you into marriage with me anyway. She made some very derogatory remarks about you last night at supper. Said you looked exactly the sort of ruffian she would expect to find in a dingy little tavern in a town she’d never heard of.’
He sat back then, a thoughtful expression on his face.
‘How much money, exactly, will you receive when you marry?’
Or was it a calculating expression, that look she’d seen?
She lowered her eyes, feeling absurdly disappointed. If he suddenly started paying her compliments and...and making up to her, the way so many men did when they found out about her dowry, then she would...she would...
The way she felt today, she’d probably burst into tears.
Fortunately he didn’t notice, since at that moment a serving girl came in with a tray bearing a teapot, a tankard and a jug. He was so keen on getting on the outside of his ale that she might have thrown a tantrum and she didn’t think he’d notice.
She snapped her cup onto its saucer and threw two sugar lumps into it before splashing a generous dollop of milk on top. She removed the lid from the teapot and stirred the brew vigorously.
‘What will happen,’ he asked, setting down his tankard once he’d drained it, ‘to the money if you don’t marry?’
‘I will gain control of it for myself when I am twenty-five,’ she replied dreamily as she poured out a stream of fragrant brown liquid. Oh, but she was counting the days until she need rely on nobody but herself.
She came back to the present with an unpleasant jerk the moment she noticed the pale, unappealing colour of the brew in her cup. She’d put far too much milk in first. Even once she stirred it it was going to be far too weak.
‘And in the meantime who manages it for you?’
‘My trustees. At least...’ She paused, the teaspoon poised in mid-air as yet another horrible thought popped into her head. ‘Oh. Oh, no.’
‘What? What is it you’ve thought of?’
‘Well, it is probably nothing. Only Aunt Charity remarried last year. Mr Murgatroyd.’
She couldn’t help saying the name with distaste. Nothing had been the same since he’d come into their lives. Well, he’d always been there—right from the first moment she’d gone to live with her aunt. But back then he’d just been one of the congregation into which her aunt had introduced her. She hadn’t disliked him any more than any other of the mealy-mouthed men who’d taken such delight in making her life as dreary as possible. It hadn’t been until he’d married her aunt that she’d discovered how nasty he really was.
‘He persuaded my trustees,’ she continued, ‘that he was a more proper person to take over the management of my money once he became the husband of my guardian.’
‘And they agreed?’
‘To be honest there was only one of them left. They were all older than my grandfather when he set up the trust in the first place. And the one who outlived him wasn’t all that...um...’
‘Capable?’
‘That’s a very good word for it.’
He looked into his tankard with a stunned expression. ‘I always thought drink addled a man’s brains. But this ale appears to have restored my intellect. That’s the first time since I awoke this morning that I have been able to come up with an appropriate word.’
‘Good for you,’ she said gloomily, then took a sip of the milky tea. Which wasn’t strong enough to produce any kind of restorative effect.
‘And your uncle—this man your aunt has married—is now in charge of handling your inheritance? Until such time as you marry? Do I have it correct?’
‘Yes.’
He set his tankard down on the table with a snap. ‘So when shall I expect him to come calling? Demanding I make an honest woman of you?’
She shrugged. ‘I would have thought he would have done so this morning, if he was going to do it at all. Instead of which he left the inn, taking all my luggage with him. You’d better pour yourself another tankard of ale and see if it will give you another brilliant idea, Mr—’ She stopped. ‘You never did tell me your name.’
‘You never asked me for it.’
‘I told you mine. It is only polite to reciprocate when a lady has introduced herself.’
He reared back, as though offended that she’d criticised his manners.
‘A lady,’ he replied cuttingly, ‘would never introduce herself.’
‘A gentleman,’ she snapped back, ‘would not make any kind of comment about any female’s station in life. And you still haven’t told me your name. I can only assume you must be ashamed of it.’
‘Ashamed of it? Never.’
‘Then why won’t you tell me what it is? Why are you being so evasive?’
He narrowed his eyes.
‘I am not being evasive. Last time we came to an introduction we veered off into a more pressing conversation about bread and butter I seem to recall. And this time I...’ He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘I became distracted again.’ He set down his tankard and pressed the heels of his hands against his temples, closing his eyes as though in pain.
‘Oh, does your head hurt? I do beg your pardon. I am not usually so snappish. Or so insensitive.’
‘And I am not usually so clumsy,’ he said, lowering his hands and opening his eyes to regard her ruefully. ‘I fear we are not seeing each other at our best.’
He’d opened his mouth to say something else when the door swung open again, this time to permit two serving girls to come in, each bearing a tray of food.
Prudence looked at his steak, which was smothered in a mountain of onions, and then down at her plate of bread and butter with a touch of disappointment.
‘Wishing you’d ordered more? I can order you some eggs to go with that, if you like?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t suppose I could eat them if you did order them, though it is very kind of you. It is just the smell of those onions...’ She half closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. ‘Ohhh...’ she couldn’t help moaning. ‘They are making my mouth water.’
He gave her a very strange look. Dropped his gaze as though he felt uncomfortable. Fumbled with his knife and fork.
‘Here,’ he said brusquely, cutting off a small piece of meat and depositing it on her plate. ‘Just a mouthful will do you no harm.’
And then he smiled at her. For the very first time. And something inside her sort of melted.
She’d never known a man with a black eye could smile with such charm.
Though was he deploying his charm on purpose? He certainly hadn’t bothered smiling at her before he’d heard she was an heiress.
‘Are you ever,’ she asked, reaching for a knife and fork, ‘going to tell me your name?’
His smile disappeared.
‘It is Willingale,’ he said quickly. Too quickly? ‘Gregory Willingale.’
Then he set about his steak with the air of a man who hadn’t eaten for a se’ennight.
Thank goodness she hadn’t been fooled by that charming smile into thinking he was a man she could trust. Which, she admitted, she had started to do. Why, she hadn’t talked to anyone so frankly and freely since her parents had died.
Which wouldn’t do. Because he had secrets, did her uncle Gregory. She’d seen a distinct flash of guilt when he’d spoken the name Willingale.
Which meant he was definitely hiding something.
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.’