landlady was still standing there, hands on her hips now, glaring past him at the state of his room as though expecting to see the naked girl he’d ejected the moment she’d put on her clothes. That sounded wrong. As though he’d only tolerated her in his room while she was naked. What he’d meant was that of course he wouldn’t have thrown her out until she was dressed. That would not have been a decent thing to do.
While he was standing there, wondering why his thoughts were in such a muddle when he was used to making incisive decisions about complex issues in the blink of an eye, the landlady’s eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared. He followed the direction of her fixed stare to see what had put that disgusted expression on her face. And spied a stocking. A lady’s stocking. Dangling from the mirror over the washstand. Looking for all the world as though it had been thrown there during an explosion of frenzied undressing.
He stalked across the room, wrenched it from the mirror and shoved it into his pocket, feeling...cheated. If he really had torn that girl’s clothing from her in a burst of passion so overwhelming he’d thrown her stockings clear across the room, then he ought to be able to remember it. Remember being so out of control that he’d not only scattered her clothing all over the room but his own, too.
He shivered in distaste at the recollection that his shirt had spent its night on the floor. A floor that was none too clean.
‘I will be down directly,’ he said, coming to a sudden decision to shake the dust of this place from his shoes. As he’d had to shake the dust from his shirt a short while ago.
The landlady gave him one last basilisk stare before very pointedly stepping over the stays that lay on the floor by the door through which she exited.
He strode to the door and slammed it shut after her. Picked up the stays. Glared at them. Wondered for a moment why he felt such reluctance to leave them lying exactly where they were.
Because he didn’t want any trace of himself, or whatever had happened here, lingering after he’d gone, he decided. Which was why he thrust them into the one meagre little valise he’d brought with him. Then he went to the washstand and rolled up his shaving kit, tossed it into the valise with the stays and the rest of his things.
Not that the stays were his.
And who was likely to look in his valise and imply that they were?
Nobody—that was who. Not once he’d returned to where he belonged. Which he planned to do as soon as possible.
He paid his bill downstairs at the bar, rather than calling for the landlord to come and attend to him. The sooner he’d done with this place, the better. He needed to get outside and breathe fresh air. Perhaps even find a pump under which to douse his head with cold water. He certainly needed something to clear his head.
Instead of calling for someone to bring his gig round to the front of the inn, he decided to go and fetch it himself. Because there was bound to be a pump in the yard at the back. Or at least a trough for the horses.
He had to pause on the threshold when the spring sunshine assaulted his eyes. It seemed incredibly bright after the darkness of the inn.
When his eyes adjusted to the daylight he saw that there was indeed a pump in the stable yard. And that next to it were two people. One was an ostler. The other was the girl. The girl from the night before—or rather this morning. Heaven alone knew what had happened the night before.
She was inching backwards, round the pump. While the greasy-haired ostler was stalking her. Leering at her.
He frowned. Surely if she was plying her trade at this inn she ought not to be taking evasive action. Or looking so scared. She should be smiling coyly, attempting to wheedle as high a price from the ostler as he could afford to pay.
Come to think of it, she shouldn’t have clutched the sheets to her chest, or dressed so hurriedly, or scrabbled at the door in what had looked like desperation to get away from him earlier, either.
‘Hi, there. You! Ostler!’
The ostler suspended his pursuit of the girl. Recognising him as a customer, he pushed his hat to the back of his head with a grubby forefinger and shambled over.
‘Leave that girl alone,’ Gregory found himself saying. When what he’d meant to say was, Harness up my gig.
The ostler gave him a look that was very much like a sneer. ‘Want to keep ’er to yerself, do yer?’
The girl was looking round the yard wildly, as though for a means of escape. The only way out of the yard was through an archway. To reach it she’d have to get past both him and the lecherous ostler.
‘That is none of your business,’ he replied. ‘I want my gig. And I want it now.’
‘Oh-ar,’ said the ostler, apparently remembering what his job here actually was. He shot the girl a look that made her shudder as he went past her and into the stable.
Once the ostler had gone into the stable Gregory turned to look at the girl. She was pressed up against the far wall of the stable yard, as though trying to disappear into the plaster.
It didn’t make sense. Well, nothing about this morning made sense. But the girl’s behaviour, above all, was perplexing.
He didn’t like it. He didn’t like not being in complete control of any situation. He didn’t like the feeling of stumbling about in the dark.
He’d thought all he wanted to do was get away from this inn and back to normality. But the mystery of this girl, and how she’d come to be in his bed when she clearly wasn’t a professional, was plaguing him.
He’d never be at rest until he knew what had really happened here last night. He wanted answers. And the girl would have those answers.
He stalked towards her. And as he did so she pressed even deeper into the plasterwork, her eyes widening with alarm. He supposed she must fear the consequences of having perpetrated—ah, there was that word again—whatever deception it was she’d attempted last night. As well she might. When she’d attempted to perpetrate whatever it was she’d been attempting to perpetrate she’d picked the wrong man.
He came to a halt a scant foot from her, wondering how best to make her abandon any loyalty she might feel towards her accomplices and put her faith in him, instead. Only then would she tell him what he wanted to know. Which was how the deuce had they managed to penetrate his disguise and what would be their next move?
The answer came to him when the ostler led his gig out of the stable, giving the girl a knowing, triumphant grin as he hitched the reins to a ring in the wall. If she wasn’t a whore yet she would be one by tonight, that look said. Willing or unwilling.
His whole being rejected the notion of abandoning any woman to such a fate. No matter what she’d tried to do to him.
Besides, he had his reputation to think of. Somehow the screeching woman with the bony fingers must have worked out who he was.
Or been informed.
Ah, yes, that would explain everything. Even the confusion and panic on the girl’s face. It would be just like Hugo to drag some unsuspecting third party into one of his pranks and leave them to pay the price.
And the devil of it was that Hugo knew he would do his utmost to hush
