Chapter Six
“I need to return to my family,” Liberty said when Toby walked back into the parlor. “My head is steadier, and there is no need—”
“The wheel will not be fixed until the morning, and you are not fit to travel for another four hours to London, my lady,” Toby said wishing it were different. Wishing he could put her into her carriage and send her on her way, so he could do the same.
“I have secured rooms for you and Helen, and your driver and footman will have lodgings in the stables. I have also sent word to your family that you are safe, and what has happened.”
“How dare you make decisions on my behalf without consulting me,” she said, every inch her father’s daughter in that moment, even if she looked like a stiff wind would blow her over. “I don’t need you looking out for me. I am more than capable of doing that.”
“Yes, I can see how strong you are,” he drawled. Exhaustion was in every line of her face. “Come, I will show you to your room.”
“I will hire a carriage, Lord Corbyn.”
“There are none for hire. I asked,” he lied.
“Then you leave and I will stay, my lord.”
“If I leave now, I will not return until late, and have no wish to rouse my staff from their warm beds. Therefore, I will do so in the morning,” Toby said.
She couldn’t fight him over that. Liberty was always championing the staff in her father’s houses, or had once. He watched as she rubbed her temples.
“I will ask if the proprietor has a powder for your head.”
“Thank you, that is unnecessary, as not much will help it, and my medicine is in London.”
“Medicine?”
She waved his words away and rose. He steadied her as she wobbled, and that she let him told Toby just how tired she was.
“What if someone were to see us?” Liberty said as they climbed to their rooms.
“I have checked who is here and recognize no one.”
She nodded.
“Your reputation is safe, my lady.” He’d said the words to reassure her.
She muttered something he didn’t hear but Toby left that alone and walked her to the room the innkeeper had shown him earlier. It was small, yet clean, because he’d checked that too.
“I know your things are with the carriage, but a nightgown was found for you to sleep in.”
She turned in the doorway to look at him. “Thank you for all of this. I’m not sure considering… well, thank you.” She then closed the door in his face.
Considering the bastard you were to me, he finished off her words.
Toby went back down the stairs to the bar and ordered a whiskey. Sleep would not come tonight after the day he’d had, and being this close to Liberty again. Sipping the drink, he let the liquid roll around inside his mouth.
“Where is this whiskey from?” Toby asked after he’d swallowed. “It’s good.” He knew whiskey and would bet a great deal of money it was the same as the one he’d tasted in the Gill.
“We have a new supplier. Plentiful and a good price, too.” The barman tapped his nose. “But I’ll not say more.”
“Irish or Scottish?” Toby asked after another sip.
The man didn’t answer as he was called away, and Toby was left mulling over what he’d learned today in Bidham, which wasn’t a great deal, but when you added what Liberty and Helen had said, it was something.
He thought about the barrels he’d seen on the back of that cart in the village, and how Liam had been nervous when he’d asked about the whiskey.
“Evening.”
Toby nodded to the man who took the stool beside him. Large and menacing were his initial thoughts.
“I overheard you asking about the whiskey,” the man then said.
Toby had spent a lot of time in his life watching people, and this man had thug written all over him right down to the sneer on his face. But there was also something familiar about him, he couldn’t put his finger on.
“It’s very good. I would like to procure some for my private cellars,” Toby said taking another sip.
“Don’t believe that would be possible, Lord Corbyn.”
Studying him more closely, Toby realized then where he’d seen the man before. He’d been in the Gill earlier today, and one of the men Liam had been looking at nervously.
“I am happy to pay, of course. Are you the supplier?” He didn’t ask how it was this man knew his name. Everyone in Bidham knew Toby, even if they didn’t like him.
“You’re best to mind your business, my lord. Safer for everyone.”
The words were a threat, and there was no other way to take them.
“Mind my business?” Toby asked, swallowing the last of his whiskey. He’d never taken well to threats, and especially not after his time at Blackwood House, as they’d been constant there.
The man smiled, but it held no humor.
“A word of advice, my lord. Don’t meddle in what doesn’t concern you.”
“I’m a viscount. What is it you think you can do to me, and I’ll add why to that? I don’t know you, or what it is you allude to, but I know I don’t like the threat in your voice, especially as I asked a simple question about the supply of whiskey.”
“All is well, my lord?”
Rory, his driver, and Liberty’s footman, Jasper, were now standing beside Toby’s stool.
“All is well,” he said, holding the man’s gaze. “Two of your whiskeys for my men, if you please,” he said to the barman.
Toby watched two others rise from the table near the bar.
“I’ve always found that if someone is guilty of something, they are likely to be aggressive for no apparent reason. You were that from the moment you sat next to me, sir, but what I don’t know is why?” Toby said.
The man leaned in, and his foul breath washed over Toby. He never moved, just held his gaze.
“My boss doesn’t like people asking questions about things that don’t concern him.”
“You’ll want to back away from Lord Corbyn now,” Rory said.
The man grinned as he straightened.
“Why do my questions about whiskey in both Bidham and here bother you, sir? Perhaps because you are obtaining it through nefarious means?” The man frowned. “Nefarious means criminal or wicked,” he added to annoy him.
“You’ll want to be careful how you speak to me.” The man’s words came out a growl now.
“And you’ll want to be careful how you speak to me,” Toby repeated. “Where before I wasn’t curious about the whiskey and its origins, I am now more than that, and what you should know about me is I can be tenacious when my curiosity is roused.”
“Another big word I don’t think he’s grasped, my lord,” Jasper said.
“Tenacious, in this instance, sir, means I will not give up until I have the answers I now seek.” Toby said the words as he rose to his feet. “I’m a nobleman with a lot of connections and power. Perhaps you should remember that?”
He saw the moment the man’s weight shifted. It was a subtle movement, but Toby was ready when the fist swung his way. He ducked and punched him hard in the jaw.
In seconds, the man’s friends and Jasper and Rory were involved in a fight. Toby heard the barman curse, but he had no time to apologize, and he was soon engaged in a wrestling match.
People yelled their encouragement as the men grappled, punched, and tried to beat the other. Toby took a blow to his jaw, and one to the ribs he knew would hurt tomorrow. Throwing a hard right at the man’s face, he sent him stumbling backward.
“Enough!” the innkeeper roared, having just arrived.
The man Toby had thrown to the floor regained his feet. He then glared at him, and along with his men, fled outside, and into the night.
“Are you both all right?” Toby wheezed as he looked at Rory and Jasper. They nodded. Locating the innkeeper picking up a chair, he headed for him.
“When those three come to drop off a delivery, there’s always trouble,” the man said running a hand over his bald head. “I’m right sorry, my lord.”
“No need, and I will pay for the damages,” Toby said. “Tell me, how long have you been receiving your whiskey from these men, sir?”
“Coming up two years now. Good stuff too, and a good price. Patrick,” he waved a hand to where the barman was sweeping up broken glass, “he was the one who contacted the supplier.”
After handing the innkeeper some money, he told his men to seek their beds and then climbed the stairs. His face and ribs ached, but at least now it was likely exhaustion would allow him some sleep.
The door to Liberty’s room opened as he passed. She stood there in a white nightdress that was too big, with a blanket around her shoulders. Her hair was loose, and she still looked pale and vulnerable. Something inside Toby’s chest squeezed, but he ignored it.
“What was all that noise?” She raised the candle she was carrying and studied him. “What happened to your face?”
“Nothing. Go to bed, Liberty.”
He walked by her to his room. Opening the door, he closed it behind him. Toby shrugged out of his jacket and waistcoat and then fell into the seat before the fire.
“Hell of a day,” he muttered. He could still hardly believe that Liberty was in the room next door.
The woman who had not been part of his life since he’d sent her out of it many years ago.
A tap on the door had him rising with the hope it was another glass of whiskey and something to put on his throbbing jaw.
“Go back to bed,” he said when he saw Liberty standing there. “You can’t be seen in the hall in your nightdress, near me.”
“A maid brought me some salve. It might help.”
“I don’t need your help.” His well of politeness had run dry. Toby wanted to be alone with his thoughts, not be tended by sweet, innocent Liberty Talbot.
“And yet I had to take yours?” She placed a hand on his shoulder and pushed. Toby didn’t move.
“You abhor me, and we’re not friends. You’re here because you had no other option but to take up my offer of help. So don’t make more of this than it is, my lady.”
She sighed. “All true, but I had the supplies, and saw you were hurt, so here,” she thrust them at him.
Toby had no right to feel that deep ache of need when he looked at her.
“What happened?” she asked as he took what she held out to him.
He struggled with what to do for a few seconds, and then opened his door wider, and waved her inside, as clearly she wasn’t about to leave.
“No.”
“No?”
“I’m not coming in there. I know your reputation.”
He snorted. “In my current state, and because you hate me, I’m thinking you’re safe.”
She just stood there looking at him out of those cool blue eyes.
“I think that whoever is supplying the whiskey for the Gill is supplying this inn,” Toby said. “And if you want to know more than that you have to come inside, because I need to sit down.”
Toby walked away from her and fell into the seat he’d recently left. He heard her move, and then she was standing a few feet to his right.
“A man approached me downstairs wanting to know why I was enquiring about the whiskey, and I recognized him as he’d been in the Gill earlier and made Liam uncomfortable. He wasn’t happy that I was asking questions and threatened me.”
“He threatened a viscount?”
Toby nodded. “He took exception to something I said, and we fought. Jasper and Rory were there too.”
“Are they all right?” Concern was clear on her face.
Her worry was for them, not him.
“They are. I think whatever this business with Bidham is, it’s dangerous and concerns the whiskey in some way, my lady. I think you should—”
“I know what you think, and I’m not interested.” She gripped the blanket tighter. “Bidham is my village too, and I will not shy away from helping the people who live in it, as you have.”
He ignored that comment as it was true and instead said, “This is not a game, Lady Liberty.”
“Oh, because I thought it was, clearly,” she said in a mocking tone, which made him grit his teeth. She’d always been able to annoy him into a response, but he was no longer that boy.
“Anything you hear, you must tell me,” Toby said deliberately making his words sound threatening. “Take no risks.”
“I am nobody’s fool, my lord.” She then walked out of his room slowly, closing the door softly behind her.
“When did my life become so complicated?” He knew the answer to that question. This morning, when he’d seen Liberty walk out of that bakery.
Deciding that tomorrow was soon enough to think more about what he’d learned regarding Bidham, Toby stripped off his clothes, washed, and fell into bed.
Tomorrow he would reiterate once more that Liberty was to take no risks.
For now, he needed sleep, and he would get it with his old friend in the room next door.
He woke six hours later, to be told by Rory that Lady Liberty had left for London as the sun rose. Ignoring the anger he had no right to feel, he was soon following.