Chapter Three
“P ardon me, lass, but are you quite all right?” Finn asked the woman, hoping for all he was worth that she would simply tell him she had everything under control and he could be on his way without guilt haunting him.
If luck were on his side, she would thank him for his concern and he would offer a nod and make haste for home to never think again of the woman’s sable curls adorned with wilted primroses.
“I’m… I…” She blinked her large gray eyes at him as if she didn’t know how to answer. Which seemed to be an answer in itself. He cast a longing glance at his carriage but turned back to the woman.
“I couldn’t help but overhear the local men in the tavern speaking of your unfortunate situation.”
She let out a mirthless laugh at that, which seemed to shake her out of her daze.
“Unfortunate situation?” She shook her head. “I’m afraid it’s actually unfortunate situations ,” she said, enunciating the plural. “For the list grows on and on. The complete and utter destruction of my reputation is just one unfortunate situation. But so is the way I overestimated my ability to distinguish between an honorable gentleman and a lying, scheming, weasel of an arse. Definitely an unfortunate situation, that. But wait… there’s also the matter of being abandoned in another country days from home without a bloody pence to my name. Which is perhaps the most unfortunate of all the many, many unfortunate situations.”
It appeared the poor woman had gone mad. Perhaps from the shock, or maybe sitting out in the sun all day, as evident by her pink face and chapped lips.
Despite her discomfort, Finn noticed something interesting about the woman. Yes, she was quite lovely, as the bounders in the tavern had already noted, but while many damsels would be weeping mercilessly, in the face of these many unfortunate situations, this woman—clearly a lady, given her speech—was… cursing. She hadn’t melted into a puddle of tears and hysteria. Or perhaps she had earlier in the day and he’d missed it.
Maybe his luck was intact after all.
Her stomach growled viciously and she pointed to her midsection.
“You see! Yet another unfortunate situation to heap on with the rest. As I’ve not had anything to eat all day. When I get back to London, I shall have the blighter’s heart served on a platter and feast upon it while laughing.”
She was most definitely past any tears on the matter.
Despite her formidable imaginations, he didn’t have the nerve to tell her that the unfortunate situations would become tenfold if she continued to sit outside a tavern filled with drinking men set on offering her a place to sleep.
“Help her,” Juniper’s voice came to him again. If his sister was really there, he would have had a stern word to say about getting involved in such delicate matters, as well as her bossing him around.
Instead, he just hissed in reply, “I am trying.”
It was clear that his conscience wanted him to help this woman for he didn’t believe in specters or visions. Especially ones that were not visions as much as hearings. There was no such thing.
“Blast and damn,” he said under his breath for allowing himself to get caught up in an argument with…himself. What right did he have to think this woman mad when he was trying to puzzle out how to tell his dead sister to leave him be?
Without another word to her, he gestured for his coachman to wait while Finn went inside and requested provisions.
Back on the steps, he stopped and gestured toward the elaborate traveling coach with four fresh horses ready to finish his journey.
“Please allow me to assist.” He stood at the open door with a flourish and waited.
She was back to blinking at him owlishly.
“I have food and we will arrive at my home in only a few hours where I will see you settled for the night. We can better determine our next steps in the morning in regards to your safe return to London, and the matter of the heart and platters and whatnot.”
“I can’t go with you,” she said as if shocked he would even offer.
“Why not? You said yourself your reputation is already in ruin. You canna un-ring a bell.” He wrongly assumed this logic would be enough to move her into the carriage so he could return to his home. For she didn’t move, except for the crinkle of her forehead.
“But I don’t even know you,” she stated as if this explained everything. In certain circumstances it would have suited, but not in this dire situation.
He was unsuccessful at hiding his irritated sigh, as he looked up at the darkening sky. If his sister was anywhere, he imagined her being up in the heavens, so that is where he focused his look of displeasure before he continued on.
“One might argue that it doesn’t matter if you know me or not since you’ve already admitted to your lack of distinguishing friend from foe. How long did you know the lying, scheming…er…”
“Weasel of an arse,” she supplied helpfully.
“Ah yes, him. How long did you know the weasel before deciding it was safe to travel hundreds of miles away with him, only to realize you were wrong?”
Again, this logic didn’t seem to meet her approval either if her drawn brows were any indication.
Rather than continue to wade through nonsense when he only wanted to get home, he cut to the heart of the matter.
“In another two hours, mayhap three, the men inside that tavern will be full of drink and feeling lusty. And they are going to come through that door on their way back to whatever hovel they crawled out of, and what will they find waiting for them, but a slightly sun-singed lady all but served up to them. I am a gentleman, and while not all gentlemen are honorable, I am one that is. So, will you please get your arse in the coach so we may be on our way?”
She stood and picked up her small bag and reticule, but before she allowed him to help her into the conveyance, she paused.
“Just one thing, if you wouldn’t mind. I need to leave a coin for the maid who helped me dress this morning.”
“No. Get in.”
“Well, it surely isn’t her fault I made a most hideous mistake by trusting the wrong man and might, at this very moment, be making an even more hideous mistake to leave with you. If it’s the last thing I have any control over, I’d prefer to see her settled for her service as is only right.”
He pressed his lips together tightly as he reached into his waistcoat, pulled out a guinea and held it out, pinched between his thumb and forefinger.
“Hurry.”
She tossed her bag in the coach before snatching the coin and running back into the tavern.
“I hope you are happy, Juniper. Not another word. Do you hear me?”
“Who are you speaking to?” his most recent annoyance asked as she returned from her business inside.
“No one.”
“Are you mad? I don’t have the strength to deal with yet another unfortunate situation today, sir.”
“I’m not mad,” he assured her, though he didn’t feel quite sane about this undertaking either.
He helped her into the carriage and got in across from her, handing over the food and drink he’d purchased as the coach began to move.
She took it and then proceeded to burst into tears.
“Bloody hell.”