Chapter 2 #2
“So, now that your threat flopped, how do you plan to make this little tantrum up to me?” His eyes dipped down to her chest now, lingering for a moment before settling on her lips. He licked his own, his slimy tongue darting out like a lizard. “That cigar was Davell-made. Pricey.”
Audra ignored the shooting pain in her wrist and, to avoid using her free hand to wrench free from his greasy fingers, clutched the folds of her apron instead.
She was familiar with his type. The despicable brand of man who wanted her to squirm, to attempt pulling free from him. Any attempt at an escape would only entice him to further constrict his already bruising grip.
“Frog Head Whiskey,” Audra gritted out between clenched teeth.
“What did you say?” he asked, his tone sharp as he met her fiery gaze.
Bless. His fingers loosened all at once as if her flesh were hot to the touch.
She resisted the urge to cradle her wrist or examine her warm brown skin for signs of bruising. Instead, she cocked her head to the side, eyeing all three brothers in turn.
“How many shattered bottles of whiskey swept into my dustpan did you think it would take before I recognized the label? I’m assuming you have so many bottles because your scheme to fence them failed?
” She feigned innocent curiosity, blinking her round brown eyes.
“Tell me, how long was it before you realized no one would touch the stuff with a barge pole? Not because the whiskey is stolen, but because it tastes like lamp oil. Frog Head label is bottom-of-the-barrel swill, and everyone—apart from you three, apparently—knows it.”
“What do you mean by ‘stolen’?” squawked Squeaker Boar. Audra startled. His voice had somehow managed to leap an entire octave. It was remarkable. Somewhere, there were probably dogs barking at the shrill pitch of his voice.
The absurdity of it all broke the last of her composure, and Audra couldn’t resist the urge to laugh at them any longer.
Useless. They were useless bandits, all three of them.
If they had wanted to remain undiscovered, perhaps they should’ve considered scraping the label from not just their personal bottles but also the poorly concealed stash of them currently stored in the damned stable.
Not to mention, they’d better hope any potential buyer was born without taste buds.
“It’s common knowledge that Gabby’s distillery in Effinam was robbed last week.
Besides”—Audra took a moment to check her nails before glancing up through her lashes at Big Boar—“your faces are plastered all over the wharf. What was it the posters said … Wanted by the Coastal Watch for that exact theft? Not to mention the string of other crimes listed at the bottom of the page.” She whistled.
“Quite a compendium among the three of you.”
Typically, Big Boar’s earlier remark would’ve been correct; the Coastal Watch wouldn’t give a puffin’s fluffy ass that Gabby Head had been fleeced out of seventeen cases of their cheapest whiskey.
The Coastals weren’t paid enough by the township to care, and Gabby Head, a newly established distillery that hadn’t won the hearts of their own township yet, let alone those of Salt Hollow, wasn’t profitable enough to subsidize the Coastals’ bribery cost to actually do their job and catch criminals.
When Audra had been heading home after the failed protest at the square, she’d spied the wanted posters.
Naturally, she’d paused to etch some demon horns on Big Boar, maybe mark out a tooth or two on Mustache/Squeaker, when she noticed that among the three of them, they had a paragraph of alleged crimes carefully inked at the bottom of each poster.
And that was what had given her an edge.
Squeaker protested, “But we were told Fernwell Inn offers sanctuary—”
“You heard correctly. We don’t give a shit if our patrons are wanted by the local Coastals or King Tariq himself.
Thieve, burgle, what have you, so long as you don’t rob or disrespect us.
” She raised her voice to speak over their protests.
“Consider yourselves fortunate that we are allowing you to remain another night. The remainder of your payment will go toward replacing the wallpaper and purchasing a rug to cover that stain.”
And reimbursing her for the pain and suffering of having to deal with them.
She crossed her arms over her chest, the men having fallen quiet.
“Now, I don’t care if you smoke on the balcony, but you will use this lovely tray for your ashes from now on.
And if I come in tomorrow at midmorning to find you all still here, or that one more thing is broken?
Well, I have a close friend who was foolish enough to join the Coastals.
His hounds are trained to find anyone using their scent, and your funk is all over this room. ”
Audra hid a smile as all three brothers’ faces twisted with unconcealed rage at being bested by a common “wench” working in a “swamp-hole” inn, but they’d ceased their protests, and that was good enough for her.
With her threat and ashtray now successfully delivered, and without shoving one of them off the balcony, Audra spun on her heel, more than satisfied. Three pairs of beady gazes flared hot across her back as she strode back into the room.
“Forgotten gods, I’ll be airing this room out for at least a week before I get their stench out,” she muttered under her breath as she gathered the rest of her cleaning supplies.
In truth, she’d dealt with worse patrons, ones who had truly frightened her.
But there was something about the brothers in room seven that made her want to commit murder.
She wasn’t quite sure what it was—they were the quintessence of the kind of traveler that took their lodging at Fernwell Inn and, as such, weren’t out of the ordinary at all.
Though most guests managed to keep porridge off the damned walls.
In the two decades Audra had lived and worked in the inn, she had noticed a pattern in their patrons. Almost every patron fit into a specific category of travelers.
These brothers, with their faces plastered on Wanted posters in every other town square this side of Snake River for thievery, banditry, robbery, and other petty crimes-ery, fit snugly into the category of Wanted by no one …
but the Watch. More specifically, they were of the “petty criminals and bandit” ilk.
They were, like most of Fernwell Inn’s clientele, too reprehensible to use the more respectable, expensive, and guarded inns peppered along the King’s Road.
As she left room seven, she checked that the skeleton key was securely hooked onto her belt.
The wide corridor was drafty, and she followed the gentle breeze around a corner toward a stairwell, which led to the ground floor, housing Fernwell Inn’s kitchen, tap room, and the largest of the storage closets.
Removing her cleaning apron, she stored it with the other supplies in the closet off the kitchen.
She plunged her hands in the waiting bucket of cold water and scrubbed them, wishing that there was a way to keep the water warm.
She thought of the mystery stain and the lingering feel of Big Boar’s hand on her wrist. She scrubbed them once more, then dumped the water down the drain, just to be safe.
Who knew what that mystery stain in room seven could have been? She shuddered to think.