Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Three hours later, when they descended at the Nag’s Head in Hounslow, Joseph’s back was stiff, his legs were sore, and his arse ached from jouncing along the road.
And this was the well-traveled Great Western Road, one of the busiest routes in England, with coaches flying past them at regular intervals and a steady flow of wheeled traffic keeping the road smooth.
He remembered what the roads were like in Cornwall and shuddered to think of his fate two days hence.
Hounslow, the first coaching stop out of London for those heading to any points west, was where the Bath Road and the Exeter Road parted ways, and so the inn was crowded.
Joseph stretched his aching shoulders and stomped his feet to get the blood flowing through his legs as he stepped inside the common room.
There wasn’t enough time to visit a real pub and have a decent meal; the coach would pause only long enough to change horses, and then it would be another rocky three hours to Staines.
And a full day of this, and then another, and then another.
His mind wandered, as it did every unguarded moment, to Inez. He wondered what she had felt when she woke in the morning to find him gone. Satisfaction? Freedom? Relief?
Would she miss him at all as she returned to her life?
She was a young and beautiful woman. She would be safe in his house.
If the incomes from Penwellen allowed, he would send money to support her so that she didn’t have to work.
She could be a lady of leisure, like Amaranthe was now, making calls and taking on causes and letting herself be seen in all the fashionable places.
Perhaps she would be courted. Perhaps she would find a husband—another husband—who would take her to his bed and worship her as she deserved.
He must not think of Inez’s mouth when she’d kissed him, the way she tasted of black currants.
He must not think about the softness of her breasts in his mouth, the ripe full curves and the way she gasped when he sucked and nibbled on her nipples.
He must not think of her hand on his cock, the way she’d grasped him with a touch delicate and firm at the same time, and stroked him to a pleasure that made his eyes roll back in his head and made his bones feel hollow.
No, he must not think of Inez’s hands on him, because he’d have a cockstand all the way to Basingstoke, and such things were difficult to overlook when eight adults were crammed into an interior designed for six.
At least he was indoors and protected from the rain, unlike the second-class passengers traveling in the basket with the luggage, or the poor souls on the roof.
He wondered how the chicken was faring when he saw its owner deposit the animal on a table, where it gave a bedraggled squawk.
His neck prickled. Someone was watching him.
Perhaps one of the infamous highwaymen who haunted Hounslow Heath, taking his next mark.
Though Joseph wasn’t the most well-heeled man in the room, nor the ripest plum for picking.
That designation went to the large gentleman in the expensive suit who was inserting himself among the passengers from the roof who were huddled near the fire.
One in particular had caught the large gentleman’s eye—the same lad that Joseph had spotted sitting next to the chicken.
The one who’d seemed to shrink from his gaze when Joseph scanned the passengers.
No doubt a boy running away from his tutor, or an apprentice running away from his master, or perhaps a boy with ambitions to travel all the way to Falmouth and take a ship for points west and find his fortune on the high seas.
Another prickle passed over Joseph’s neck.
The runaway wore a leather working man’s jacket that looked familiar.
A wool cap caught up his dark hair, but beneath the floppy brim showed glimpses of warm brown skin.
He had a delicate neck and smooth jaw, in the way of some boys who never did become rough-hewed men, and a furtive manner, in the way of boys hiding a secret.
He also trembled, as if afraid, or cold, or wary of the large gentleman, who insisted on buying the lad a pint of the horse piss the innkeeper was distributing for ale.
The large gentleman, sporting shiny rows of buttons on his velvet coat and stark white lace at his sleeves, said something in a deep growl to the boy, who shook his head and moved away.
He wouldn’t be able to do anything even if he did intervene, Joseph told himself. Any more than he’d been able to stop Reuben striking his hound all those years ago, or Reuben menacing his own housemaid and then his niece, or Amaranthe falling through the ice.
But he’d stopped Wigsby from tormenting Inez, he remembered with the twist in his gut that came with every thought of Inez.
The woman he’d rescued and then betrayed.
It wasn’t like he could rescue her again if he protected this boy.
It wasn’t like he, Joseph Illingworth, could stand alone against all the injustice in the world.
But as he worked his way down the bar he saw the large gentleman sidling his bulk toward the boy, who sidled away as far as he could go without tipping over the blacksmith on the stool beside him.
Saw the gentleman reach toward the boy’s waist and, when the boy moved his hand between them, saw the fat fingers in their expensive gloves wrap around the boy’s slender wrist.
The boy’s ineffectual push said everything, as did the large man’s leer.
“Is this yours?” Joseph tapped the larger man on the shoulder.
“Ey?” The other had an overfed, jowly look to him, narrow eyes blinking as he swung his gaze around. “Wot’s that?”
“This yours.” Joseph pointed his thumb in the direction of the boy.
“No,” the boy said quickly, his voice a high yelp. He quickly adjusted his tone to a lower register. “No.”
“Then he’d best let you go,” Joseph advised.
Like most bullies, the gentleman looked frankly surprised to be challenged. Then, after a slow interval, annoyance registered. He shook the boy—who wasn’t a boy—with his meaty hand. “I’ll do what I like.”
“Oh, for the love of St. Agnes.” Joseph drew back his fist, giving the man plenty of time to correct his error. The other only blinked, slow rage suffusing his face. He’d barely begun the snarl when Joseph’s fist crashed into it.
“Hell in a hand basket,” Joseph swore, shaking out his hand. His knuckles were still bruised from Wigsby’s face.
The giant crashed into the bar and flailed like a beached whale, sending tankards and glasses crashing and ale spilling every which way. Joseph turned to the freed captive.
“This is getting tiresome,” he said. “Having to rescue you.”
Her eyes flared wide with surprise, and she clapped both hands to the brim of her hat. “How did you know?”
He put a hand on her upper arm and drew her away from where the giant was slowly lumbering to his feet.
“Because that is a terrible disguise,” he said. “How long did you think you could keep it up?”
His voice was harsher than he intended, temper getting the best of him as it always seemed to do around her.
He wasn’t about to tell her he knew when she was in a room because the very air changed.
He knew her tread on the wooden floor of his house and could tell if her tray held a full pot of coffee or bread and butter for tea.
He knew her scent because it had been branded on his senses. He’d known her by her intake of breath when the brute grabbed her, that little gasp she made when she was surprised.
By now the gentleman had recovered command of himself and arranged his bulk on his feet. His piggy face screwed into the rage of vengeance. “I’ll have you arrested,” he shouted. Spittle flew from his mouth. “I’ll have you hung! Who do you think you are?”
A silence prevailed, since every gaze in the room was fixed on the altercation, including that of the innkeep, who clutched a wad of wet cloth against his apron. A new voice carried across the room.
“Sir Joseph Illingworth,” the voice said with command. “I’m looking for the baronet.”
“Yes.” Joseph turned with a sigh. “Can it wait?” He swung a hand in the air between him and the man who had assailed Inez, who was seemingly choking for air. “We’re just finishing up here.”
“Don’t think a title can protect you,” his opponent whined. “I’ll call the constable. I’ll have the watch—”
“You’re the baronet?” said the man at the door. “The one as is brother to the Duchess of Hunsdon?”
The piggy face of his opponent paled to pink. He held out his hands.
“I didn’t touch ’im. I didn’t say nuthin’ to ’im. It was an accident. A misunderstanding.”
“Her,” Joseph snapped. “Did you even know you were propositioning a woman?”
The florid face of his opponent paled further. “I—what? Your woman, see? Swear to me mother’s rib I didn’t touch ’er. Now, no ’arm done, is there?”
“If you pay for the broken glassware, there won’t be,” Joseph said pleasantly, flexing his bruised hand. The man complied, all too aware that if Joseph made accusations that he had propositioned a boy, the tone of the quarrel would go in a far different direction.
Joseph recognized the man at the door. He was small in stature, the wiry stretch of his upper body out of proportion to the crooked legs propped between two wooden crutches.
He wore the saffron breeches and brick-red coat of the Hunsdon livery with, incongruously, a pair of well-worn leather gloves.
“I thought you were in the service of the Earl of Renwick,” Joseph said as he neared the newcomer.
He’d seen this groom many times accompanying the Earl’s wife, who was the duchess of some obscure Continental duchy and also a school chum of Amaranthe’s.
Apparently the two duchesses had wed and birthed babies around the same time, and this, along with the sudden social elevation experienced by both, had cemented their reliance on one another.