Chapter 3
"Cheat! Cheat! Ye bloody English cheat!"
If Dominic hadn't been standing so close to the entrance of the basement, selecting one of the bottles of wine from the cellar, he might never have heard the shout.
But he was, and he did, and anger immediately flared through him.
Nay cheating in me pub, he thought angrily. Cheaters caused trouble. They robbed innocent, na?ve folk of their hard-earned money, and in his experience, the cheaters usually had enough money of his own.
Damn Brodie and his damn insistence on having card-tables in the basement, Dominic thought moodily, shoving a dusty bottle of wine back into its housing.
Breaking up another bar brawl was the last thing he wanted to do, but it wasn't as if there was anyone else to do it.
Brodie was soft, everyone knew that. He was the sort of person who'd rather sit and read a book than do anything practical.
Not that Dominic minded, of course. In his opinion, people ought to learn to read before they could even think of touching a sword. It just meant that Brodie was no good at breaking up fights, no matter how many tips and tricks Dominic showed him.
Dominic wasn't hurrying towards the basement. He was entirely happy to let the cheater receive a few good punches before he intervened. Maybe next time he'd think twice before...
A distinctly feminine shriek echoed from below, and Dominic froze.
There was a woman down there? In his experience, the card players were always men, but there was a first time for everything. Hurrying now, Dominic rushed down the uneven stone steps, nearly losing his footing and tumbling all the way down to the bottom.
"What's goin' on here, then?" he thundered, and everything around him froze. He paused for a moment, crossing his arms across his chest, and taking in the scene.
There were six people in the basement, five men and one woman. Women were unusual down here, and this one sat in the shadows, hunched over, so that Dominic couldn't make out her face.
Regardless of who she was, five men and one woman was never good odds.
There were usually three card-tables down in the basement, but only one seemed to have been in use, the other two shunted off to the side and left alone.
The third card table stood in the center of the room, tipped over onto its side.
Cards and coins were scattered everywhere.
The men were cornering the woman, who'd been backed into the corner furthest from the exit. She had a hatpin clutched in her hand, and was waving it threateningly at the tallest man, a bald man with gray eyebrows that Dominic recognized as a habitual troublemaker.
The man didn't seem very threatened by the hatpin, although Dominic guessed that it could deliver a nasty stab, if necessary.
Everyone glanced his way, but nobody moved an inch.
"I'll ask again," Dominic grated, the room completely silent. "What's happenin' here?"
The bald man found his voice. "She's a bloody cheat," he hissed, pointing at the woman.
The woman glowered at him. "I'm no cheat!"
Oh. She was English. That was unusual in these parts, but not unheard of. Dominic inspected the English girl more closely and found himself unable to breathe.
It was the ghost girl.
Well, not a ghost girl, obviously, but the mysterious veiled woman he'd seen sneaking around. That was her dress, all right, but he hadn't immediately put two and two together since she no longer wore her veil.
He could see the pathetic scrap of thin black material wadded up and discarded on the floor, and realized with a shock that it must have been torn from her.
There was no time to inspect her more closely – beside noticing that she had golden brown hair, half pulled down from a tight knot on top of her head – because the bald man lunged towards her again.
The woman gave a shriek, neatly sidestepping him, and stabbed him in the arm with her hatpin. The man bellowed in anger and pain, swiping at her. She ducked again, coming almost face to face with Dominic, who took the opportunity to step in front of her.
The bald man had the good sense to falter, backing away from the expression on Dominic's face.
"Did ye nae know that I don't permit violence towards women on me premises?" Dominic said tightly.
"She cheated!" the bald man insisted. "We all saw it. Didn't we?"
He glanced around at his friends for backup, but they all avoided his eyes.
Good, Dominic thought grimly. I'm not a good man to piss off.
"I didn't cheat," the English lass repeated, although her voice was wobbly. She was afraid, and he didn't blame her.
"She says nae," Dominic replied coolly. "What makes ye think she cheated?"
"How could she have won? I've never had a woman beat me at cards!"
He rolled his eyes. "What hand did she win with? Come on," Dominic snapped, when the men hesitated. "What hand did she have?"
"Two aces and two queens," the girl spoke up, her voice quiet. "He had an ace, a four, a five, and a ten, he had three nines and..."
She proceeded to list off the hand that every man had produced in the final round, never missing a beat. Dominic had little experience with that particular card game, but that sounded right.
"Well?" he said when she had finished.
The men glanced at each other uncertainly, mumbling. Dominic was fast losing patience.
"All right, so none of ye remember. Well, I'm going to assume she won fair and square, then. And none of this nonsense about her being a woman. Get out of me pub, all of ye. Go!"
They scattered, glancing viciously towards the woman. She hung back, her breathing starting to return to normal again.
"If I find that ye were cheatin'," Dominic said conversationally, not turning around to face her, "ye will be sorry."
"I was not cheating," the woman replied simply. The last of the men disappeared up the stairs, grumbling among themselves, and Dominic turned to right the table which had been tipped over.
The woman snatched up her hat from the ground, jamming it on her head, and picked up the veil next. It was visibly torn, and she sighed, slipping it into a deep pocket.
This gave Dominic the chance to look at her properly, and he found himself staring.
He would guess that she was around twenty-five, tall enough to almost look him in the eye, and slim. Her clothes were nicely made, and were probably expensive, but hung strangely on her, as if she'd lost weight recently.
She still had a marvelous bosom, though.
Stop it, Dominic! Get yourself a woman to join ye in bed and stop this nonsense!
"I suppose I should thank you," she said, her voice cultured, soft, and above all, English. Not something that would make her popular in these parts.
She had eyes which might have been blue or green, it was hard to tell, and a well-featured face.
Her nose was just a fraction too long and pointed, giving her a pixie-like look.
Her hair was falling around her face in disheveled strands, and she pushed self-consciously at them, trying to tuck her hair behind her ears.
"Nae really," Dominic found himself saying. "I only wanted to stop a fight breakin' out in me pub. Nae good for business to have people murdered here."
The woman snorted. "I should have known."
She turned to go, and he heard something clinking. Coins, probably. She'd obviously got her earnings, then.
"What's yer name, then?"
She paused, glancing back over her shoulder. "Why do you want to know?"
"Nae a lot of English lassies around here."
"You'll remember me well enough, then. You don't need my name."
She hurried up the stairs without waiting for a reply.
Dominic found himself standing in the basement, listening to her retreating footsteps.
It was entirely possible that the men might be lying in wait for her, but if she regularly came to places like this, maybe she was prepared for something like that.
Why the veil? Why all the secrecy? he wondered, scratching the back of his head.
It would have been better if she'd turned out to be ugly, then he could stop thinking about her. He was a grown man, for God's sake, not a teenage boy to flutter and fawn over a pretty face.
Dominic's eye fell on a scrap of dark fabric by his feet. Her gloves lay there, and he picked them up. It was good material. Kid gloves, if he wasn't mistaken. Expensive.
I'd better give them back, he thought, not sure if he was annoyed or thrilled at the prospect. Dominic mounted the stairs two at a time, and stepped out into the crowded pub.
There was no sign of her. He spotted the card players clustered in the corner, drinking tankards of ale and grousing about their bad luck. So, they hadn't pursued her, then. That was something. But she was gone.
She cannae have gone far, though, Dominic thought, and bit his lip. Ah, damn it all.
"Brodie," Dominic said, slapping the counter loudly enough to make the poor man jump. "Watch the bar for me, will ye?"
"Where are ye going?" Brodie asked, blinking.
"None of your business. I probably willnae be long."
And then Dominic darted out into the cold night, in pursuit of a woman whose face he'd only seen once.
Marvelous.
She hadn't gone far. The area around The Sinner was well lit – it was bad for business to have patrons wandering home drunk and falling into the river – and he could see her just up ahead, hurrying down the forest path.
Dominic didn't run to catch up with her. She was running, but not fast, and he could easily maintain the distance between them. There were several paths to take around the pub.
The most commonly used path wound around the forest and headed back into town. It was wide and well-used, and in dry weather torches flickered at intervals to light the way. The path that the English girl had chosen went into the depths of the forest.
There were no torches here, with only the fickle, silvery moonlight to illuminate the uneven path. It was a narrow track, with trees and undergrowth encroaching on either side.