A shadow fell over the table. “What are you doing here?”
Eliza caught her breath and schooled her features, sliding her hand under the table to reach unobtrusively for the dagger in her boot. Slowly, she lowered her gaze from the mistletoe.
“What are you doing here?” she sputtered.
She barely recognized the skittish clerk he’d been when she’d last seen him in London. He had the same lean form, the same rigid posture, the same stiff neckcloth, but his usually soft brown eyes were hard.
Moneypence folded his arms. He probably thought it made him look gruff and foreboding. He probably thought it made him look intimidating. And he would have been right. That and the day’s worth of stubble added a touch of the ruffian.
What would that stubble feel like under her fingertips...or against her lips?
Banish that thought. She’d never touch Pierce Moneypence again.
Moneypence used the toe of a scuffed boot to push her valise aside. “We can’t talk here. Would you step outside with me for a moment, Miss Qwillen?” He held out a hand sporting more calluses than any clerk’s should and beckoned her impatiently.
Miss Qwillen. All that had happened between them, and he still called her Miss Qwillen.
“I most certainly will not,” she said, annoyed at him for no reason she could put a finger on. She had the urge to pull down the mistletoe and throw it at him. “I have just come in from the cold.” She gestured to the window, which framed an ominous-looking sky. “It’s snowing.”
“But you agree we must speak privately?”
Moneypence would be here only because of the mission. But why would Baron send both of them? And why not tell her he’d already sent Moneypence? “I agree. Perhaps—” She was prevented from suggesting an alternate meeting place when a large, red-faced man in his middle years approached.
“Welcome to The Duke’s Arms, missus. I’m Wattles. Mrs. Wattles and I own this fine establishment. Mrs. Wattles does all the cooking, and she is the finest cook in the county.” He caressed his expansive girth. “Pretty as the day we married too and doesn’t look a day older. My daughter Peg tells me you want a room.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Wattles,” Eliza said, rising and giving a perfunctory curtsey. “I am Miss Qwillen.” With a glance at Moneypence, she dredged up the story she’d invented. “My sister is traveling to London from Scotland. She’s never been to Town before, and I promised to meet her here and travel the last leg of the trip with her. I am not certain when she will arrive. She might be another day or two, depending on the weather north of here.”
Wattles squeezed a towel, wringing it this way and that. “I’m afraid, Miss Qwillen, that I’ve let the last room.”
Eliza hadn’t considered this possibility. With the holidays upon them, many travelers were on the roads. In any other case, she might have simply inquired at another inn, but she’d studied a road guide before leaving home. This was the only inn for miles. Above her, the mistletoe swung merrily. She needed a pistol. “I see.”
“If only you’d arrived a little earlier,” Wattles said, darting a look at Moneypence. “This man took possession of my last available room.”
Moneypence grinned. If she’d had that pistol she could have rid herself of the mistletoe and Moneypence’s smirk.
“That is unfortunate,” she said. “What’s more, I have no option but to stay here and wait for my sister. If you will pardon the reference to Mary and Joseph, is there a stable where I might spend the night?”
Wattles’s hands ceased torturing the towel, and he pulled his stained apron over a prodigious belly. “I can’t allow you to sleep in the stable, missus!”
“I assure you, Mr. Wattles, I will be fine.”
She was slim and small, but she was no milksop miss. Mr. Wattles began to wring the towel between his hands again. “Begging your pardon, Miss Qwillen, but I can’t allow it. The grooms bed there. I’m sure they’re good fellows, but it wouldn’t be appropriate.”
Of course he was correct. She couldn’t sleep in the stable with a half-dozen men. Just then the driver of the mail coach pulled the inn door open, and a burst of cold air fanned her overheated face. “Last call for the mail coach. Last call!” He announced the next stop, but Eliza didn’t listen. She wasn’t going to the next village.
She was looking at Moneypence.
And then Mr. Wattles looked at him too. Wattles took a bit longer than Eliza would have liked, but he finally released the twisted towel and said, “Of course, if this gentleman were willing to give up his room, that would solve your problem.”
It would indeed. The mail coach passengers were filing out, and the inn felt suddenly empty. A half-dozen men still occupied the seats around the room, but a hush had descended. Or perhaps Eliza simply imagined it because Moneypence was looking at her with daggers in his deep-brown eyes. “It would be my pleasure to give up my room to this lady,” Moneypence said. He did not sound as though he were filled with pleasure.
“Of course, there’s no charge to sleep in the stable,” the innkeeper assured him. He wrung his towel again. “For a small fee, I can provide blankets and other essentials.”
Moneypence’s expression turned even more poisonous, if that were possible. “A small fee. Of course. I’ll collect my things, and Miss Qwillen may have possession of the room in order to refresh herself.”
“Thank you, kind sir,” she said with a smile.
“Please do not mention it, Miss Qwillen.”
Oh, she wouldn’t. Easier that way to ignore the fact that a traitorous part of herself was glad he was here.
One moment,
