Chapter 102

The door to their room at the inn shook as if there were Huns outside knocking with a battering ram. Unless Splendor was mistaken, the entire panel shook.
Topaz clutched her wrist with icy fingers. "Whot if it's the earl come back?" What indeed? And her needing to get out of these sodden clothes, dry her hair, stop her teeth chattering. Topaz was huddling in the bed for God's sake. Anyway, Stillmore had made his position crystal clear. Why would it change? What was wrong with her that she found it offensive?
"Me lady," a voice said from the other side of the door. "Are you in there?"
She almost jumped out of her skin. Whoever was on the other side of the door included a woman.
"Only ... Only ...His Grace wants to see you."
Topaz's fingers tightened on Splendor's wrist. "Splen ... "
"Shh."
The serving woman's question was stupid. Where else would Splendor be in the middle of a rampaging thunderstorm rattling the windows but in here? Why hadn't the earl asked to see her when he left this room not ten minutes ago though?
She set the glass of brandy carefully down on the bedside table. "I ... I am afraid I am asleep." Over her dead body would she go down there to have her nose rubbed in her stupidity by a man who didn't want her. Anyway, it would be suicide when Stillmore had gone to such lengths to help her, and Gabe hadn't, when she'd known Gabe so long that despite everything, his absence was a hungry ache. One she could not feed. "Kindly tell him."
Topaz's eyes were bigger than dinner plates. "Splen, yer can't when he's been kind. So very kind. And is a fine gentleman. A proper toff. Nothin' like Gabe said."
"Yes. I can." She dropped her voice to a whisper, pulled the cover up to Topaz's chin. Even though a fire burned in the grate, she was shivering like a paper cutout dangling in the wind. "And nothing will make me change my mind. Now go to sleep."
"I mean yer can't go down there."
"Thank you for telling me something I already know. Don't worry I'm not going anywhere."
"Or maybe yer should?"
"I'm sorry. And why is that?"
Topaz edged her hand out from the blanket. "Cos, I got this. I'm so sorry. It were pretty, and I got so excited knowin' it were there, I couldn't 'elp it."


***
His heart was of stone and yet it had melted? Removing his boots from the bench
opposite, Kendall eased further back into the armchair before the flickering fire. It was time to remember gloom was what he preferred.
For example, how to get this fat-skirted woman skulking beneath her mobcap at the next table to come over here and replenish his empty glass? Simple. Glower.
Not sit here thinking his heart had melted when what he plainly had was a bad case of indigestion. As he would soon demonstrate to the world when he left this ... place ... his good deeds done for the year. The next ten too. Already there were sufficient drips on the scuffed floorboards.
Although there was a clock on the mantelpiece, he reached in his waistcoat pocket for his watch. Whatever hour it was, it was time to go home to London before he wrapped that Splendor woman in blankets and started feeding her chicken soup. Not that it was any concern of his particularly, but where exactly was the runt she was to marry in all this?
He dug his fingers further into his pocket where he kept his watch. Then further still. Forget the runt. Where the hell was his bloody pocket watch? It always sat snug on its chain, but the chain ... the chain appeared to have disengaged itself from his buttonhole. How was that?
The door creaked open, and he fumbled in his other pockets. Of course, he should have leaped to his feet to make sure Splendor wasn't left standing alone. But his watch was more important. Besides, the Hag and Horse wasn't just decent enough for Lady Kertouche and all her type to frequent it, it was as empty as that Hanney woman had left his wallet. Jesus Christ on his suffering cross, had that harridan also taken his father's watch? No. Because he'd checked it twice after leaving the Stag and Maiden.
"You ... you desired to see me, Your Grace?"
"I wouldn't put it that strongly. Sit there, will you?"
He indicated the bench opposite, striving not to let his own gaze linger on her loose, damp, hair, as brightly burnished by the firelight as the brass plate above the mantelpiece, when what he needed, was to find his watch. He dug in his trouser pocket. Empty. Except for a few half-guinea coins.Dug in his other one. Even emptier. Where the hell was it?
"Yes ... Yes, of--of course. Is ... is something wrong?"
Yes. Her. Anyone would think she knew something about the watch. Contrite wasn't exactly a word in her vocabulary, any more than soft was one he could allow in his, after all.
For that reason it was vital he stopped letting his gaze cling like a vine to her in the green Brunswick gown, even if the alternative-the barmaid-was as appetizing as a dish of cold tripe topped by a hog's head. Here was to hoping that the food tasted nothing like she looked.
"Here. Yes. You. Get this lady here a drink." He set the coins down on the table top. It was what he'd intended, wasn't it? Maybe his watch had fallen down into his boot for that matter? He reached down. "Oh, and a plate of whatever's roasting in the kitchen."
"Pig, sir."
Was this piece of lard referring to what was cooking? Or to him? Whatever it was and whatever was cooking in the kitchen, he wasn't going to argue. Not when he couldn't find his watch. "Fine." He threw another coin onto the table. "And leave the damn bottle where it is."
He was going home. Soon as. He'd something to do first though.
"Very good, sir."
"Your Grace, this is very kind of you although I must add, I really don't need any-" She broke off, her gaze colliding with the wall behind him. He slouched lower, fury burning in his gut that she'd not only do anything rather than look at him or accept his offer of food, but she'd offer the wall the look of bug-eyed alarm she plainly wanted to give him. She flicked her gaze back.
"I ... I mean you've done so much me already, this evening. Yes. You don't have to-if you want to get on your way, I mean ... I will understand ..."
"One of your friends is a thief. I thought you should know that."
"My ... f--riends?"
He frowned, reached for the bottle. "Yes. I assume they are your friends. Or don't you have any?"
"Oh ...I probably have more than you. I mean--"
"One to my none? Hardly difficult." He set the bottle back down. "O'Taggart-"
"O'Tagg -"
"Or whatever the hell he calls himself, is a thief. I mean the man's a drunk, isn't he?" He lifted the glass to his lips. The amber liquid was just what he needed.
"Well, yes. Yes, he is. Although I don't see how that necessarily follows. Indeed, if that is the case, when you consider yourself, we might be looking at ... well ... I don't know I like to say when you have been so good, so kind to us, Your Grace."
Consider himself? What? A thief?
"My watch has gone," he snarled. "Do you understand? All I have left of my father."
"Your father?" Her gaze achieved the remarkable feat of freezing and scuttling sideways like a spider. Please don't tell him that word, father, affected her as much as it did him.
"Yes. God rot his stinking soul to hell. You should be very, very careful just who you associate with."
"Well, I am. I do. You ... you don't think that just maybe it fell out a hole in your pocket onto the ground?"
"My pockets don't have holes."
"Back there where we left the cart for example? I mean it's a possibility. I could look in the morning and see if it is on the ground, in the ditch and bring it to you in-"
"And it was secured to my buttonhole on a chain. Also gone."
"Yes. But even so, we have all seen how very easy it is to lose something."
"Well, you would know," he said. "But despite me being wetter than a shark's fin and having tried to lug that cart out of the ditch it was welded to, are you too busy laboring under the misapprehension that I am Hercules Casanova to let the fact that I have been robbed trouble you?" He sat back. Well? Why the hell was she taking their parts? "The damn blackguard should just be glad I'm not setting the law on him."