Chapter 13
The Doric. The name of the inn circled in Jules’s mind like a tiresome nursery rhyme as he stepped into the darkened interior of the building on Market Street.
Loud voices, smoke, the smell of bodies, whiskey.
And people. Too many people. The impressions came at him at once as he searched the dark interior for a hooded figure.
He hadn’t expected to find the person that night.
Jules frowned as he scanned the tables in the center of the room and the booths in the corners.
The person he sought could be anyone, anywhere in this room.
With a muttered curse, he made his way to the long wooden bar on the left-hand side of the room.
He pushed his way through the crowd to the man behind the bar.
“I need some information,” he shouted above the noise to the man a person’s length from him. When the innkeeper paid him no heed, Jules placed a gold coin on the bar.
The innkeeper narrowed his gaze and shifted to where Jules waited. “’Bout?” He scooped up the coin.
“A patron. A person in a dark-hooded cloak who comes here often to meet with James Grayson,” Jules said, lowering his voice slightly to keep the conversation between the two of them.
The innkeeper shook his head. “Ye don’t want tae tangle wit’ that one.”
“Why?”
“She’s nothin’ but trouble.” He said, wiping an imaginary spot on the bar with a ragged, brown towel.
“Does she have a name?” A female? An unsettling feeling lodged in Jules’s gut.
The innkeeper looked up and searched the room. “Don’t know it.”
“Is she here now?” Jules persisted.
“Haven’t seen her fer a week, maybe more.” The innkeeper’s expression turned pensive.
“She wouldn’t happen to have red hair?” he asked the question that lodged in his throat.
The man shook his head. “Nay, ’tis a dark color. Maybe black or dark brown. And the woman is older, maybe in her fifties? Hard tae tell beneath that cloak.”
A sense of relief washed over Jules. He hadn’t realized how much he hoped the mystery person was not Claire. “Why is she trouble?”
The innkeeper remained silent.
Jules waited for an answer.
“’Cuz people she talks tae end up dead. And people who ask lots of questions tend tae end up that way as well.” The innkeeper ducked his head and started scrubbing at the wood in front of him again.
“Anyone else know anything about her?” Jules pressed his luck, asking one last question.
“They are all dead.” The innkeeper stopped and met Jules’s gaze. “Watch yerself. Stay alert.”
Jules tossed down a second coin. “Thanks for the warning, but I’ll be fine.”
Disappointed that his questioning hadn’t brought him any answers, Jules headed out the door and continued down the cobbled street.
At least he knew the hooded figure was a female, and by the innkeeper’s account, deadly.
As that thought formed, so too did the suspicion that the woman might be responsible for Grayson’s death.
Frowning into the darkness, Jules walked back toward the main part of town, wishing now he’d thought to bring his horse rather than leave the beast stabled at the inn on Melbourne Street where he’d spent the last night.
The moon was only a sliver in the sky, and the silence of the night was palpable.
Through the darkened shadows, Jules kept his pace slow and deliberate as the sound of footsteps echoed behind him.
One set of footsteps was joined by a second, and then a third.
Jules reached for the sword at his side only to have his hand clutch air.
It was then he realized he had left his sword back at the inn with his saddle and his horse.
He quickened his pace and turned a corner. A small circle of light illuminated the street. Jules followed the source to a lantern hanging from the side of the hackney coach that waited near the curb.
Before he could take a step toward it, a hand gripped his shoulder and whipped him around. Three men stood before him, their faces twisted in a mask of hate, and death lived in their eyes. “Give us yer money.”
Jules had no intention of giving them the last of what he so desperately needed, but before he could so much as respond, the men were upon him.
Two gripped his arms. Jules wrenched his body left and right, forcing the men to stagger against the motion.
While off balance, Jules brought his knee up and caught one man in the groin.
The attacker howled and released Jules’s arm.
His breath ran harsh in his throat as he shot his fist forward, connecting with the face of one of his attackers.
But while his hand was extended, the third man clipped Jules on the side of the head, sending him staggering backward.
He did not fall, but the blow left him dizzy and disoriented.
Yet knowing he could not hesitate or he would be overpowered, Jules brought his leg up and kicked the second attacker in the gut, sending him backward like a rag doll.
The dizziness combined with the motion sent Jules to the ground. The first attacker charged, coming at Jules with a kick. He clenched his jaw as a stab of pain shot through his side. Recovering quickly, he grasped the man’s foot, taking him to the ground.
They wrestled there with the cobbled street biting into his side, his back, until Jules freed his arm and with all his strength let his fist fly into the man’s face. A moment later, his opponent went limp.
Jules rolled, came up instantly, his coat a-tumble, his feet planted against the cobbles. He staggered across the street to the hackney, leaving his assailants behind.
“Sweet merciful heavens, what has happened?” For a heartbeat Claire couldn’t catch a breath.
She hurried into the late afternoon sunshine to greet her husband as he rode his horse up the drive to Kildare Manor.
His face was bruised and pale. He alighted from his horse, unfastened his saddlebag, then handed the tired animal over to Joseph, who had stayed on with them, overseeing the stable.
“I found the truth.” He set down his saddlebag and waited for her to join him in the graveled courtyard. A smile crooked one corner of his mouth.
Instinctively she reached out for him, and he took both of her hands in his. She looked up into his battered face. “Did you have to beat it out of someone?”
He shook his head. “Thugs in the street tried to rob me.”
Claire tightened her grip on his hands as she looked past the black-and-blue welt on the side of his cheek and beneath his right eye. “We need the physician.”
“No,” he said, looking at her, really looking at her as though he had never seen her before. “You are really quite lovely,” he said in a husky voice, and his eyes filled with the same sense of wonder she felt.
“Thank you.” Tears stung her eyes, but she didn’t care. “Does that mean . . . ?”
He released one hand and brought his fingers up to brush a tear from her cheek. “I . . . I don’t know anything about being a husband.”
“And despite my name, I am most likely not the wife you intended.”
“We could take this slow, just start out by being friends?” Despite the words, he pulled her close. His gaze moved down her body, his smile purely sensual.
Claire laughed. “We bypassed friends a long time ago,” she said in a dizzying rush of excitement. In that moment all the pain and fear and grief of her lifetime melted away. He believed her. Believed in them.
A nagging truth threatened to ruin the moment, but she forced it away.
She wanted this moment so badly. Just once in her life she wanted to feel as though she controlled her destiny.
Today she could pretend and forget all else.
Today she would indulge herself in fantasy and give herself something to remember for when she was gone.
She stared up into his face, memorizing everything about him, about this moment, how it felt to be accepted.
And perhaps, if she were truly fortunate . . . to be loved.
“Are you certain you do not need a physician?” she asked as they turned to go into the house.
He shook his head, then stopped and stared at the house. His body tensed as his gaze moved along the exterior walls, now free from the brambles and grass that had engulfed the manor before he’d left. “I was only gone for five days. What in heaven’s name happened to Kildare Manor?”
Silence stretched between them as Claire listened to the gentle rush of the breeze and the soft lapping of the water against the shore of the loch in the distance. He released her hand and turned to face her. “Was this your doing?” He wasn’t angry, only surprised.
“All of us pitched in. The manor . . .” she hesitated trying to find the right words. “Kildare Manor has come back to life.”
The tension in his body eased. He reached for her hand once more.
“More than the house has changed, Claire, and hopefully for the better.” The smile he offered her was filled with hope.
He retrieved his saddlebag from the ground, hooked it over his shoulder, then took a step forward.
She remained where she stood, suddenly feeling the weight of her lies crash around her feet.
“There is something else you should know before we go inside,” she said, her voice raw.
“What is that?” She saw the uncertainty in his eyes. “Some deep dark secret you’ve been keeping from me?”
Her stomach plummeted.
She must have turned ghostly white, because a quick smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I was joking.”
Claire found her voice. “The others—Jane, Nicholas, and all—have invited several people to the manor. They have planned a wedding feast and celebration of you being the new earl . . . tonight.”