Chapter 12 #2
“Surely, you can part with a farthing or two for the luxury of a silk handkerchief,” the rascal said, leaning closer to one of the maids with a heated look.
So many emotions welled up in Greer simultaneously that he didn’t know which one to grasp hold of.
Disbelief that Penny had reached the castle before him and gained entrance.
Pride in Penny’s cheek and cleverness. Jealousy that the man was flirting with maids when he should have been on his knees, sucking Greer’s cock.
He shook all those things aside when Penny casually glanced right at him and subtly nodded. “Or perhaps one of these fine cigars to give to your sweetheart,” he went on, teasing the maids. “I bet you sneak out of the castle all the time of a night to kiss and cuddle under the moonlight.”
One of the maids elbowed the other, who squeaked. “I do not!” she protested, pink in the face.
“Yes, you do,” the other maid whispered.
“What’s this I hear?” Penny joined in the teasing.
“And how do you accomplish that, miss? A lovely maid like you must have a room high up in a castle like this. How do you climb down from your tower in the middle of the night to enjoy the moonlight with, what is his name? Arthur? Neville? Benjamin?”
“It’s Billy,” the maid whispered, then giggled.
Penny feigned amused shock. “And what do you do to throw yourself into Billy’s arms? Tie your bedsheets together to climb down?”
“I use the door,” the maid confessed, then covered her face as her friend poked and laughed at her.
That clever bastard. Greer watched, floored, as Penny pumped the two young women for information about how to sneak out of the castle in the middle of the night without being caught.
“Surely, lovely Mistress Anne would catch you on your way out the door,” he said, pretending he was merely flirting.
“Mistress Anne sleeps like the dead,” the maid told him in a whisper.
“Greer, a bit of help,” Bob called from the other end of the kitchen.
Greer swore under his breath, half through irritation that Penny had been right about his ploy to gain entrance into the castle and knowledge of it, and headed back to the kitchen courtyard to finish with the load.
He hated being wrong, and it was beginning to dawn on him that he’d been dead wrong to think he didn’t need Penny for this particular housebreak.
It stung to know he wasn’t as capable of breaching a castle to rescue a captive lord as singlehandedly as he’d thought, but seeing Penny well on his way to learning about the inside of the castle left him free to make more observations about the outside.
Trebarral Castle stood near but not directly on the edge of a cliff that looked out over the sea.
As Brutus and Titus had informed them, it was an ancient structure that had once had a moat, but that was little more than a divot in the ground now.
It had walls, but they were so ancient that they could not have held off a stray flock of sheep, let alone marauding hordes.
That actually made them more of an obstacle, as they were crumbling and looked to be filled with loose stones.
They would prove to be a challenge if he and Penny and Lord Fabian needed to climb over them in the dead of night.
Particularly if Lord Fabian was not a good climber.
Greer had another stroke of luck when he was asked to fetch a barrel of salted fish from one of the more remote storehouses around the corner from the kitchen. It gave him a chance to see another of the castle’s faces, the one that looked out over the sea.
He couldn’t say why, but Greer would have wagered everything he had that Lord Fabian was being kept on that side of the castle.
The walls were higher and sheerer on that side.
There didn’t seem to be any doors or exits.
Half the windows were narrow, as if archers might have fired at ships approaching the shore hundreds of years before, although some looked as though they had been installed more recently and were wider.
Most telling of all, high up on the wall, a window was open and soft, sheer curtains billowed out in the breeze.
Perhaps it was entirely false logic, but in Greer’s mind, whatever room an enslaved young nobleman would be kept in would be more finely decorated than the others.
Lord Fabian was undoubtedly in that tower room.
“Underhill can wait until I tell him to come.”
The low, peevish voice that sounded behind Greer as he and one of the castle’s footmen fetched the barrel of salted fish from the storeroom nearly had Greer jerking straight so fast he strained his back.
“You know the man is growing impatient, Dalhurst,” another voice said. “He’s already paid Hammond for the boy.”
Greer noted the footman’s face turning suddenly stoney as he handed the barrel into Greer’s arms.
“I’m not through with him yet,” Dalhurst replied.
He and the other man walked beyond Greer’s ability to hear their conversation, but Greer remained with his nerves bristling.
“You didn’t hear that,” the footman said. It was more of a warning than a question.
“Hear what?” Greer replied, feigning innocence.
The footman relaxed, but only by a hair. “He’s ill,” the young man said. “That’s all. Lord Dalhurst is kindly caring for his ill friend.”
“He’s a generous man indeed, then,” Greer said with a smile, pretending to believe the story.
“We’d better hurry,” the footman said, ushering Greer out of the small building. “The master doesn’t like us to dawdle.”
They headed back to the kitchen courtyard, where the farmers seemed prepared to depart. Greer was as far from ready to leave as could be.
“I didn’t realize anyone lived in this castle,” he said to the footman, slowing his steps and adjusting the barrel in his arms, like he needed to stretch his back. “It’s not an abandoned relic?”
“Not at all,” the footman said, glancing around anxiously. “Mr. Dalhurst resides in London most of the year, but we always have guests to serve and entertain. The sea air is especially good for anyone ill, although….”
Greer kept staring at the man, waiting for him to go on.
He didn’t. The footman pressed his lips tightly shut and rushed Greer along, back to where the farmers were now certainly ready to depart.
“Just one stroll, Anne,” Bob smiled, still attempting to charm the housekeeper. “The weather is fine for it.”
“You want more than a stroll,” Anne smirked back at him. “You know you do. I doubt your wife—”
She might have said more, but just as Greer hefted the barrel of fish into the back of the wagon, Penny stepped out of the kitchen. Or rather, he was rushed out, case in hand, by a severe-looking man who must have been the butler.
“I told you, no damnable tinkers or charlatan salesmen in the castle,” the butler huffed. Greer wasn’t certain who the man was speaking to.
“Alright, alright, guv’nor,” Penny said, still trying to smile at the man, even as he was marched out into the courtyard. “Though you might want to take a look at this lovely pocket watch I have. It’s only a shilling, and I can already see your name inscribed on the cover.”
The butler made an impatient sound. “Who let this man into the castle?” he demanded, looking straight at Mistress Anne.
“Sorry, Mr. Corrigan,” Anne said, ducking away from Bob and the wagon and scurrying back toward the house. “I didn’t see how it could do any harm to let the young ones have a look at his wares.”
“It could do a great deal of harm if those wares are stolen,” Corrigan said, narrowing his eyes at Penny.
“Why, I never!” Penny pretended offence, making his way over to the wagon. He looked right at Greer with a smug look that said he’d learned a great deal through his tinker farce.
“Be gone with you,” Corrigan called out from the doorway to the kitchen. “And you lot, get back to work. Mr. Hammond will be coming to inspect us soon, and we will not disappoint.”
Greer had started to climb into the back of the wagon as Bob and Michael mounted the driver’s seat, but he nearly stumbled at those words. He stared right at Penny, who looked back at him with equally wide eyes.
“Gentleman, might I have a ride to the village, or as far as you’re going?” Penny asked, approaching the back of the wagon.
“We don’t give rides to tinkers,” Bob said coldly, then tapped the reins over his horse’s back.
Greer clenched his teeth, trying to tell Penny with a look only that they needed to reunite and discuss what they’d seen as quickly as possible.
He couldn’t do anything but watch Penny grow smaller and smaller as the wagon rattled its way out through the crumbling castle wall and onto the road that would take them back to the farm.
Penny followed on foot. Greer caught sight of him again as he left the castle and started down the road.
He hated the feeling of his companion growing painfully distant from him, even though they were both making forward progress.
All he could do was sit there, wait, and trust that Penny would catch up to him in a few hours.