Chapter 9
Mr Cleaver’s Excellent Adventure
Milly pursed her lips, looking about the pokey room with an obvious lack of enthusiasm. Lifting a corner of the bedsheet, she peered beneath.
“Well, it ain’t The Rose and Crown,” she said with a sniff.
Angel untied her bonnet and cast it aside, quirking an eyebrow at Milly. “You’re becoming as expensive as Mr Cleaver,” she remarked, smiling ruefully.
Milly shrugged and walked to the window that looked out over the yard. It was north facing, which made it colder and darker too, though the light had long since faded from the skies. “We’ll be woken at some ungodly hour. We’re right over the stables.”
“Then we had best get ourselves to sleep,” Angel remarked briskly, though she doubted she would sleep any better than the previous night despite being bone weary.
The indifferent meal she had eaten sat heavily in her gut, and not only because the meat had been as chewy as boot leather.
Mr Cleaver’s insistence that they should trust him, and the knowledge that Toby had told him they were searching for a dead woman, had set her all on edge.
For all she knew, he might be in league with whoever had ransacked their room, though she could not believe it of him.
No, he would never be involved in anything so nefarious, she was certain, and there was a part of her that badly wanted to trust him.
How comforting it would be to have such a man on her side, to help her find her inheritance.
She told herself she was a fool for even considering it. If she had told Black Jack that she was on the way to find his treasure and some handsome fellow had joined her, flirting with her and trying to pay her way, and asked him if she ought to trust the man—Good Lord!
Angel flushed hot and cold as she imagined his none too polite response. Shaking her head to rid herself of the scalding words still ringing in her ears, she opened her bag and searched for her night things.
“Miss?”
Angel looked up to see Milly peering down at the yard with a frown.
“What is it?”
“I dunno. But Mr Cleaver is down there, having a smoke, I think, and—look.”
Angel hurried to the window, hearing the note of anxiety in Milly’s voice.
Looking through the grubby glass, she saw Mr Cleaver on the far side of the rectangular yard, leaning over the stable door, talking to the huge gelding he rode, by the look of things.
The yard was mostly dark, diffuse light spilling from the taproom windows and from a lantern by the back door, but his height and breadth were unmistakable.
The cigar glowed in the dim light, the ember burning brighter as he drew upon it.
Two shadows moved in the dark, one on either side of the yard. They moved with stealth and purpose, their attention fixed upon Mr Cleaver. A flash of metal caught her eye and Angel’s heart skipped as she saw the man on the left was carrying a knife. He gestured to his companion, telling him to go.
“My God,” Angel breathed. They meant to kill him! “Open the window and shout,” she told Milly, lunging for her bag and turning it out on the bed.
The pistol and the dagger landed with a thud, and she snatched up the gun, running from the room.
“I know, it’s not a patch on last night’s comfortable berth,” Hart said with a sigh.
The horse huffed and stamped one foot, apparently in agreement.
Hart chuckled and patted the big gelding’s sleek neck.
He’d sent Toby to sleep before the fire in his own room.
The only alternative was to let the lad sleep in the stables.
Nothing Toby wasn’t used to, but for some reason it sat ill with Hart to leave him alone in this place.
He lifted the cigar to his lips and drew in, allowing the smoke to sit warm in his chest before blowing a lazy cloud that vanished into the damp night sky.
The feminine shout of warning lifted the hairs on the back of his neck.
Hart’s hand jerked. The cigar fell, sparks scattering as it hit the ground. The gelding threw up his head, a sharp, frightened whinny echoing the shout that lingered still, tangible in the too still darkness.
“Look out!”
A great dark shape launched itself at him, all muscle and malice, and he caught the glint of teeth drawn back in a vicious grin. Surprised, he went down hard, slamming into the cobblestones. Hart grunted as the fellow’s fist drove into his gut, knocking the breath clean out of him.
Excellent. A fight.
Not slow on the uptake when a proper mill was on offer, Hart allowed the lumbering brute to believe he was out cold, giving him a moment to adjust his weight, heavy as a sack of flour, settling in to deliver a proper pummelling.
Then Hart shifted his hips and hooked the brute’s heavy leg with his arm.
The fellow went sprawling and Hart threw himself atop, driving his fist into the man’s ribs—once, twice—hard enough to hear him grunt.
The devil was solid though, and he cursed, trying to throw Hart off him and swearing when he received another blow—to the jaw this time—for his trouble.
He cursed, and this time unseated Hart, who rolled away and surged to his feet in the same breath.
Blood pumping, primed for the next round, he caught the bastard by the front of his coat, yanked him in, and brought his forehead down in a short, vicious butt.
Bone met bone. Hart, too wrought up to feel a thing, watched as the man reeled, stunned. Not shy about taking advantage, Hart shoved him hard, following the move with a stunning right hook to the jaw.
Whoever the oaf was, he went down like a felled ox, crashing onto his side.
Well. That was all right, then. Big, lumbering fellows tended to go down easily. It was the sly, quiet ones that would put you in the ground.
Hart shook his right hand, clenching and unclenching the fingers. The brute had a jaw like an iron bar.
Letting out a ragged breath, he heard his horse, an agitated sound, then—a soft footfall behind him—and turned too late.
A blade sliced through the darkness, straight at him.
Hart raised his arm to protect his face, steeling himself for the slash of metal.
A gunshot exploded in the darkness, and the hand jerked away.
A curse of pain was followed instantly by the skitter of metal upon cobbles and the sickening, coppery stench of blood—everything happened in an instant.
Startled, Hart staggered back, looking towards the inn where a shapely form stood silhouetted in the doorway. He blinked, hardly able to believe his eyes, and yet—of course it was.
“Miss Baxter?”
His voice sounded odd, breathless, unlike his own. He was so stunned he did not hear heavy footsteps running into the darkness.
Hart stared at her in bewilderment, but she began gesticulating, her voice taut with frustration. “Don’t just stand there, he’s getting away!”
“Oh. Right,” he said stupidly before setting off in pursuit.
Angel stood in the doorway, trembling.
It turned out there was a great deal of difference between shooting a target and shooting a man.
Behind her, the sound of the clientele of the taproom heading her way to investigate shook her out of her stupor. She did not wish to be involved in a scene that would call in the local magistrate and heaven alone knew who else.
Slipping into the darkness, she made her way across the yard, hugging the back of the building.
The felled assailant moved, groaning softly, and Angel hesitated, biting her lip.
She wanted to know who the hell he was, why he and his confederate had attacked Mr Cleaver, but it wasn’t as if she could interrogate the brute.
The uneasy feeling that she was responsible made her stomach curdle, but there was nothing she could do at present.
Moving swiftly, she turned the corner just as those inside surged out into the yard. Hurrying around to the front of the inn, she let herself in by the front door.
Milly was halfway down the stairs as Angel came in. Her face was stark white with fear, and she gave a little cry upon seeing Angel.
“Hush,” Angel said, pressing her finger to her lips.
Running up to join Milly, she urged her to turn and go back to their room.
Closing the door, she ran to the bed, snatched up the dagger and wrapped it and the gun together again. She gazed about the room, searching for a hiding place.
“Up the chimney,” Milly suggested, her voice a harsh whisper as she reached out to take the bundle.
Angel nodded, distantly aware her hands were shaking as she handed it over. Wrapping her arms about her middle, she watched as Milly got to her knees, feeling about for a ledge or indent in the brickwork before pushing the bundle into it.
A moment later, there was a sharp knock at the door.
Milly gasped, her hand going to her mouth. Angel, who had been expecting it, took a deep breath and smoothed her skirts with a hand that was none too steady.
“I’ll deal with this,” she told Milly, hoping she sounded more confident that she felt.
She walked to the door and pulled it open.
The proprietor, a greasy little man by the name of Dawkins, gazed at her.
“Apologies for the disturbance, ladies, but as your room looks down on the yard, we wondered if p’rhaps you saw what happened down there. We heard a gunshot, but the only fellow we saw ran away before we could speak to him, and there’s no sign of anyone else.”
“No,” Angel replied stiffly, trying to capture Lady Della at her most imperious.
She was a decent mimic and could copy accents and mannerisms rather well.
Still, it must be a good deal easier when one really was the daughter of a duke, but she gave it her best. She drew herself up, glaring at the fellow.
“I had thought this a respectable establishment. I did not realise I was likely to be murdered in my bed. My sister-in-law is nigh on hysterical.”
On cue, Milly began whimpering and wailing, sounds of a kind that made the fellow’s eyes widen with alarm.