Chapter 11 #2
Knowing better than to argue, Angel exclaimed as she dipped her frozen toes in the water, giving a shiver of delight when she sat and allowed the heat to soothe her aching limbs.
“Here, this’ll warm the cockles,” Milly said with a grin, handing Angel a glass of brandy.
Angel took it, feeling rather decadent, and they chinked the glasses together. “To tomorrow,” she said, with a stab of apprehension.
“May you find what you’re looking for,” Milly added before taking a sip of her brandy. She shivered dramatically. “Oh, that’s splendid, that is. Just what the doctor ordered.”
Angel sipped from her own glass, glancing up at Milly uncertainly. “What if we can’t find her, Milly? What if there are acres and acres of heath, and no way of knowing—”
“Don’t borrow trouble, pet,” Milly advised her as she rummaged in Angel’s carpet bag. “We’re safe and warm and we’ve come this far.”
Angel nodded, but all the things she had not allowed herself to think about seemed to weigh heavy tonight, crushing her spirits. “Mama will be so worried. I ought to send word, but I don’t want to give any clue to where I am.”
“Did you leave her a note?” Milly asked, looking up as she found the bar of soap Angel had carefully wrapped in a clean handkerchief, and handed it over, exchanging it for Angel’s glass of brandy.
Angel nodded. “I did, but what could I say? I didn’t dare tell her the truth. Papa might be keen to track me down, but if he thought there was treasure, he’d be unstoppable.”
Milly nodded her understanding as she drew her chair closer and sat down. “What will you do if you find it?”
It was a fair question, and one Angel had not allowed herself to face full on. Anything she owned belonged to her father, unless she married, in which case it would belong to her husband. She had no rights, none at all.
“I shall go abroad,” she said with a shrug. “I’ll take a new name, start afresh. I’ll style myself as a merry widow. They get a deal more liberty than an unmarried lady. I speak French, you know. That dreadful finishing school had some uses, at least.”
Angel glanced up, noting the worried look in Milly’s eyes. “Don’t worry, love. I shall share my good fortune with you. If there’s enough, you shall have funds to buy a little cottage, or set up a flower shop, or do whatever it is pleases you.”
“Don’t you want me to come to France with you?” Milly looked affronted and Angel’s heart leapt with relief.
“Oh! Oh, yes, I do, ever so much. But I could never ask you to—”
“Ask me, indeed!” Milly tsked. “As if I’d let you go without me. Imagine the trouble you’d get into!”
Angel laughed, unable to refute that. “Bless you, Milly. I would have gone alone, but I should be so happy to have you with me. Whatever should I do without you?”
“I shouldn’t like to wager a guess,” Milly said tartly. She eyed Angel, her gaze shrewd and knowing. “And what about Mr Cleaver?”
Angel stiffened a little as she lathered the soap between her hands. “What about him?”
“Oh, don’t give me that. Any fool can see you’ve a fancy for the fellow. Not that I blame you. He’s a handful, I’ll grant you, but a fine, lusty one.”
“Milly!” Angel said on a choked laugh.
“Well, I got eyes, don’t I?”
Angel returned a rueful smile. “Oh, I don’t know, Milly.
I like him dreadfully. But I don’t really know him, do I?
I don’t know if I can really trust him. He doesn’t even know who I am.
I suspect he’s rather a fine gentleman. What if his father is well–to-do?
A nobleman, even? I doubt he’ll want his son to marry a girl whose grandfather was a notorious pirate. ”
“No one knows that,” Milly chided. “And your papa’s a gentleman, ain’t he?”
Angel shrugged, sluicing the soap from her body with the bathwater. “Yes. For what that’s worth. Oh, I don’t know. There’s no point in even discussing it. Mr Cleaver is just looking for a good time, a pretty girl to warm his bed before he goes on his merry way, that’s all.”
Yet she remembered the look in his eyes. I’m not that sort of fellow.
Ah, well. What would be, would be.
“We can’t keep him around, Milly. Not once we get to the heath. It’s too dangerous.”
Milly nodded, but Angel could see the idea troubled her. It troubled Angel too, but there was no help for it. The treasure was hers, she’d promised Pops, and she could risk no one taking it from her. Not even the handsome fellow who had become so dear to her over the past days.
Pushing away the strange ache that had settled in her heart, Angel reached for her towel.
“Come on, then. Your turn. Before the water gets cold.”
The George, Wrotham, Kent, 9th April 1816
Hart went down to check on Toby before dinner and found the lad playing dice with his new friends.
“Where have they berthed you?” he asked, uneasy about him sleeping in the stables in case the two ruffians were still on their tail.
Toby got to his feet, brushing straw from his breeches. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at a young man, perhaps a year or two older than he.
“Jerry is groom here, and he said I could stay above the stables with him and the other groomsmen.”
Hart nodded, relieved the lad had company.
“Right you are, but remember what I told you,” he said sternly.
Toby nodded. “I remember, and I’ll keep me eyes peeled. No villains will get past me, Mr Cleaver.”
Hart patted the lad’s shoulder. “Good man. Enjoy your evening, then, but don’t stay up all night playing dice. We’ve a long day ahead of us tomorrow, if I know anything.”
“You reckon we’ll find her? Jenny, I mean,” Toby asked, dropping his voice to a whisper.
“I hope so,” Hart replied, unable to suppress his nagging anxiety. “For your mistress’s sake.”
Hart made his way across the yard, scanning the darkness for trouble that never came.
The inn was a bustling place, and the scent of wood smoke and roast meat was welcome indeed. As he made his way back to the bar, he passed the staircase just as the ladies appeared.
“Ah, excellent timing. Good evening, Miss Baxter, Mrs Pettigrew. I thought you’d be an age yet, but I’m famished. Shall we go through?”
The ladies did not need asking twice, and they were shown to the private parlour Hart had secured and provided with a very decent meal.
Thick slices of roast pork with golden crackling, served with a dish of stewed apples, potatoes roasted in dripping, boiled cabbage and carrots, and a thick, rich gravy.
“Oh, I ain’t never ate so fine in all my days,” Mrs Pettigrew said with a sigh of pleasure, pushing away her empty plate as she sat back in her chair. Though she tried her best to stifle it, she could not help but yawn, blushing as she covered her mouth with her hand.
“It was wonderful, and all the more welcome for being well earned,” Miss Baxter said with a smile, before thanking the maid who gathered up her plate and cleared the table.
The door closed as the serving maid took away the last of the dirty dishes and Hart fished in his pocket for the cards he’d brought. It seemed a safe way to pass a couple of hours and to keep his mind off getting Miss Baxter naked… as if such a thing were possible.
Miss Baxter, who had been quiet this evening and, to Hart’s mind, a little out of sorts, perked up at the sight of them.
“Oh, a splendid idea. What are we playing for?”
Hart, who had not expected to play for anything except fun, regarded her with amusement. “What do you wish to lose?”
Oh, that got her lovely eyes flashing, he noted with delight.
“I don’t lose,” she retorted, the words crisp and so wonderfully arrogant he could only gaze at her, heart thudding. Lord, he was a sorry case, but she was so utterly delicious.
“Is that right?”
Across the table, Mrs Pettigrew smothered a wide yawn, and Miss Baxter’s face fell.
“Oh, but Milly is worn to a thread. I had best not,” she said, though her regret was palpable.
“No, no,” Milly said, though she fought another yawn as she spoke. “I’ll go up, but you two can play cards.”
Hart nodded his agreement to this as Miss Baxter followed her maid to the door.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, but just cards, mind,” the woman hissed at her. She turned back, eyeing him. “I trust you to act like a gentleman, Mr Cleaver, else I’ll be using your namesake in ways you won’t be enjoying much.”
Hart suppressed a snort as she sashayed out of the room.
He ought to insist Miss Baxter went with her.
If he was any kind of gentleman, he would.
But he had the depressing notion that their adventure might soon be over, and that Miss Baxter would never confide in him.
Not unless he pushed… just a little. He could be charming, he knew.
Certainly, the ladies had always fallen into his lap easily enough, but then he’d been a marquess, and the heir to a dukedom didn’t have to exert himself.
He wondered if Miss Baxter would fall into his lap if she knew and felt a surge of relief that she did not. If she liked him, she liked him, not his title, not the land and the property, and the fortune, and all the rest that went with it.
What if she doesn’t like you? whispered an unpleasant voice at the back of his mind.
Hart pushed it away. She did like him. Just not enough. Not yet. He must win her over. Somehow.
He watched as Miss Baxter returned to the table, his gaze falling to the way her hips moved beneath the green gown. She sat, eyeing him from beneath sooty lashes.
“What shall we play?” she asked, and he did not miss her provocative little smile. He had kissed that mouth. The thought was like a flaming dart, arrowing straight to his groin.
Hart cleared his throat, sitting up a little straighter and reminding himself the cards were supposed to distract him from the urge to indulge in lustful behaviour. Sadly, no one had told Miss Baxter that.
“Whist?”
She pulled a face, shaking her head. “Piquet.”