Harley. She found him in the dining-room, looking in a jug on top of the china cupboard.
‘My lord,’ said Hannah. ‘I cannot leave the kitchen for long, for I have some cakes and bread in the oven. Would you be so good as to fetch me my reticule from the Blue Room? It is lying on the armchair by the fireplace.’
‘Certainly, ma’am,’ he said, looking at her thoughtfully. He wondered what she was about. Miss Pym, he knew, was still servant enough to fetch her own reticule. Still, he made his way up to the Blue Room and then stood, as Hannah had recently done, surveying the sleeping Emily.
So that was it. He grinned. There was no more determined matchmaker than a spinster. He would not play her game, although young Miss Freemantle looked very beautiful and appealing. He walked to the armchair and picked up Hannah’s reticule.
She sighed a little and smiled in her sleep. He went to the bed and looked down at her. Her bosom was rising and falling gently. Her skin was very fair, and dark lashes with auburn tips were fanned out on her cheeks.
On a sudden impulse, he sat down on the edge of the bed, leaned down, and kissed her gently on the lips.
Emily was dreaming that Lord Ranger Harley was kissing her. She moved her body sinuously in her sleep and wound her arms around his neck. Startled, Lord Harley kissed her more deeply, pressing his hard lips into her soft beguiling pink ones, feeling her small hands caressing the nape of his neck under his long black hair.
Then her body went rigid and her eyes flew open. He immediately released her. She sat up with her face flaming and dealt him a resounding slap across the cheek.
‘How
‘If you were not enjoying my kiss,’ he said furiously, ‘why did you wind your arms around my neck and kiss me back?’
‘I was dreaming,’ said Emily. ‘I was dreaming of Mr Williams.’
‘If you are in the habit of kissing him like that,’ said Lord Harley, suddenly as furious as she, ‘then I suggest you marry him as soon as possible.’
He turned and strode from the room, carrying Hannah’s reticule. He went straight down to the kitchen. Hannah was bent over the fire, stirring something in a pot.
‘Miss Pym,’ said Lord Harley, handing her the reticule, ‘do not try to arrange a match for me with Miss Freemantle.’
‘I?’ exclaimed Hannah.
‘Yes, you. She made an enchanting picture, lying there like that, as you very well knew. I am not going to marry Miss Freemantle. She is a silly little girl of no attraction whatsoever.’
‘Then,’ said Miss Hannah Pym tartly, ‘I do not know why you are becoming so exercised. The very sight of her must have filled you with loathing.’
‘Pah!’ said Lord Harley and went out of the kitchen and slammed the door behind him.
Up in the Red Room, Lizzie was saying to Mr Hendry, ‘I am so very tired. I do not think I can search anymore.’
‘You are too frail a lady to have to work like a servant in this inn,’ said Mr Hendry. ‘I would that I could protect you from all ills.’
He had odd light-grey eyes that were suddenly intense. Lizzie realized she was standing with her back to the bed and that he was advancing upon her. ‘Why, Mrs Bradley,’ she called, suddenly seeing that fat figure in the passage. ‘Come and join us in the search.’
‘Reckon it won’t do much good, m’dear,’ said Mrs Bradley, but looking curiously from Lizzie to Mr Hendry. ‘Landlord says as how he’ll only give us the one hint. It’s hanging, he says, where leather hangs.’
‘The tack-room?’ suggested Mr Hendry.
Now the landlord had said firmly that the slipper was in the inn, but Mrs Bradley said, ‘There’s a good idea, Mr Hendry. Why don’t you go across to the stables and have a look and Mrs Bisley and I will take a rest.’
Mr Hendry went with obvious reluctance.
‘I don’t know if it’s the money you got or that dainty way of yours, Mrs Bisley, but the men are around you like flies around the jam pot,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘You should be more like our Miss Emily. She got a good hard streak. Pretty as a picture, but not the type of lady to drive the men romantical.’
Emily had been about to enter the room for she had heard their voices, but as she heard the full import of Mrs Bradley’s country logic, she shrank back. Her lips trembled. How she longed to be home again with dear Mama and Papa and dear Miss Cudlipp. How she longed to be fussed over and petted.
As she moved away, she heard Mrs Bradley say, ‘As to this here slipper, landlord says it’s hanging where leather should hang. Where might that be, do you reckon?’
Emily went on down the stairs, turning the problem of the slipper over in her mind to stop her from thinking about anything else. She went into the kitchen and sat down at the table. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked Hannah.
‘I’ve made some broth from a bit of scrag end hanging in the larder. Thank goodness, the larder is well stocked with meat. I shall prepare a bowl of it for you to take through to Mrs Silvers.’
‘I resent waiting on that lady,’ said Emily haughtily. ‘She looks perfectly well to me.’
‘And to me,’ agreed Hannah.
‘Then why …?’
‘Because I doubt if she usually gets one day’s rest from one year’s end to the other,’ said Hannah. ‘So humour her.’
Emily suddenly jumped to her feet. ‘Leather!’ she exclaimed. ‘Hanging where leather should be!’
She ran through to the larder and looked up into the darkness of the ceiling where joints of meat hung on hooks. She ran back to the kitchen and seized a chair and carried it into the larder and stood on it. And there, high up among the joints, Lizzie’s slipper was hanging.
Emily took a hooked pole and lifted it down, crowing with delight. Hannah came in. ‘I’ve found it!’ said Emily. ‘No work for me tomorrow. I shall spend the whole day in bed. If I only had a novel to read.’
‘Well, go and tell the others it has been found and then come back and get the soup for Mrs Silvers,’ said Hannah.
Emily’s loud announcement that she had found the slipper received a lukewarm reception, the others having become thoroughly tired of looking for it.
She returned to the kitchen and picked up the tray that Hannah had prepared and took it into Mrs Silvers. ‘Just set it down on the table beside the bed,’ said Mrs Silvers faintly. Emily did as she was bid and then her eyes fell on a small pile of books on the window-seat. ‘Books,’ she cried in delight. ‘Are there any novels among them?’
‘I think so,’ said Mrs Silvers. ‘Guests leave books from time to time.’
Carrying a candle over to the window-ledge, Emily eagerly studied the titles and then sighed with pleasure. There was a three-volume novel entitled
‘Of course,’ said Mrs Silvers, now sitting up in bed and slurping soup.
Clasping the precious books to her bosom, Emily left the room and ran up the stairs. Half-way on the stairs, she met Lord Harley, who was coming down. She glanced at him and then the full memory of that sensuous dream sent a tide of hot embarrassment flooding through her body. She gave an odd ducking motion of her head, darted past him, and on up to her room.
Lord Harley tried to put her out of his mind. He should never have contemplated marrying one so young in the first place. In the coffee room, the coachman and the guard were once more at loggerheads. They were drinking dog’s nose, a wicked drink consisting of beer laced with gin, damned in London as a ‘whore’s drink’, even in the Coal Hole Inn in the Strand, which was famous for the concoction. The coachman and the guard tried to fight each other, but both were so very drunk that all they managed to do was swipe the air in the general direction of each other. Resisting a temptation to knock their heads together, Lord Harley went out into the storm and across to the stables to see that the horses were being cared for. They were only coaching horses and had nothing to do with him, and yet it was part of his upbringing to see that the horses were warm and well fed before going to bed.
Lizzie and Mr Fletcher had retreated to a cold corner of the taproom, away from the fighting in the coffee room. ‘You must be very careful,’ said Lizzie quietly. ‘Captain Seaton tried to kill you.’
