trade is and ye’ll ply it somewhere else.”
Sarah blinked. “You can’t think I’m…” she squeaked. She swallowed and tried again. “That I’m…” No, she couldn’t say it.
The innkeeper could. “A whore, a doxy, a tart,” he sneered. “I’ll thank ye to get out of my inn.”
Just as he spat out his last words, a tall man with reddish hair stepped into the hall.
The troll behind the desk bowed immediately. “Yes, my lord? Did ye be needing something?”
“Sounds like you’re needing a little milk of human kindness, Jakes,” the man said, his words slurring slightly. He barely glanced at the innkeeper; his attention was all on Sarah. “You wouldn’t really throw this poor damsel in distress out into the night, would you, old man?”
“Ye know this woman, my lord?” The innkeeper shot Sarah a worried glance. She smiled vaguely. She certainly didn’t know her potential savior.
“Well, we haven’t met, but I’ve been expecting her.” The man stepped closer, bracing himself against the wall with his hand. Sarah could smell his words. This redheaded lord had found the bottom of a brandy bottle.
She should have been terrified, but there was something oddly familiar about him. She studied his slightly glazed hazel eyes and lopsided grin. Perhaps he reminded her of the fervent young men who’d gathered in her father’s study to argue politics and drain tankards of rum punch.
“Come on,” he said. “The room’s this way.” He lurched toward the stairs and grabbed the railing.
He must have confused her with another traveler. She followed him as he stumbled up the narrow steps and weaved along the corridor. Her conscience urged her to speak up, but her exhausted body told her conscience to shush. She could not go another step tonight. Surely the woman her redheaded escort was expecting would not arrive tonight, and if she did, she would understand. Any woman would be willing to share accommodations in such a situation.
The man finally found the room he was seeking. He opened the door and stood aside to let Sarah pass through. She paused on the threshold. There was one point she should clarify.
“This is not your room, is it, sir?”
The man propped a broad shoulder against the doorjamb and grinned. It was impossible not to respond to the twinkle in his eye, even if it was a drunken twinkle, and the deep dimple in his right cheek. Sarah smiled back. He leaned closer.
“Oh, no, mine’s farther down the hall.”
“Ah.” Sarah tried not to choke on the brandy fumes that enveloped her. “Well, then, thank you.” She stepped into the room. The man remained on her doorjamb. She could not close the door without catching his fingers. She looked at him uncertainly. “I do appreciate your help.”
He nodded. “Water,” he said. “I bet you’d appreciate water to wash with as well.”
“Thank you, that would be wonderful.” Washing off her travel dirt sounded almost as heavenly as sleeping. “But I don’t want to be a bother.”
“No bother.” The dimple deepened. “James will thank me, too. I’ll have some water sent up directly.”
“Who’s James?” she asked, but her new friend had already vanished down the stairs.
Sarah shrugged and closed the door. The mysterious James was a puzzle to be solved in the morning, when her poor brain was up to the task.
In a moment, a young girl appeared with a large pitcher and a towel. Sarah waited for her to leave, then stripped off all her clothing. The fire warmed her skin as she rinsed the sea salt off her body and out of her hair. While she toweled herself dry, she eyed her discarded clothes. She had lived in them for three very long days—she could not bear to put them right back on. She shook each garment vigorously and hung them all up to air. With luck, they would be acceptable by morning. She did not want to reek of the sea when she met her uncle.
Her stomach clenched. Why had her father insisted that she come to England? She couldn’t begin to count the number of times he had railed against the aristocracy, calling it a cesspool of idiots, the fatal infection of England. Yet when he had been dying, he had insisted that she go to his brother, the earl.
“Go home, Sarah,” he’d said, his voice thin and whispery, “to England.” He’d gasped and struggled to sit up. “Promise me…”
Sarah swallowed sudden tears. She would never forget her father’s smile at her promise. When his last breath had whistled out moments later, she truly believed he had found peace.
She sighed, pulling her comb through her wet mass of hair. If only the promise had given her peace. The Abington sisters had badgered her to change her mind from the time she’d told them she was leaving to the moment she’d finally stepped onto the Roseanna bound for England.
“How could David ask you to go so far away?” Clarissa, the short, stout sister, had said yet again as Sarah had closed the door to her father’s house for the last time.
“It was the fever talking.” Abigail, the tall, thin sister, said, patting Sarah’s hand. “It’s not too late to change your mind, dear. We’ll just send word to the docks.”
Clarissa nodded so sharply that her gray ringlets bounced over her ears. “Your father is dead, Sarah. Now you need to do what’s right for you.”
“What will happen if you go to England and the earl repudiates you? You’ll be alone, at the mercy of all those unscrupulous men.” Abigail shuddered, her hands clasped so tightly their knuckles showed white.
“It’s true, Sarah.” Clarissa’s pudgy fingers dug into Sarah’s arm. “You’ve lived a very quiet life here in Philadelphia. You have no idea! Why, you’ve hardly spoken to any American men—and American men are leagues different from those corrupt Englishmen. As different as house cats from man-eating lions.”
“Woman-eating,” Abigail whispered.
“Too true. Those dukes and earls and whatnots—they think women are theirs for the taking—and discarding.”
Sarah shook her head, banishing the uncomfortable memory. It was too late for regrets. She was here. She hoped her uncle would welcome her. If he didn’t…No, she wouldn’t think of that. She wouldn’t let worry spoil her first chance in two months to sleep in a real bed on terra firma. No matter what happened with the earl, she did not intend to cross the Atlantic again.
With that vow, she snuffed out the candles and climbed into bed.
James Runyon, Duke of Alvord, looked up from his contemplation of the fire as Major Charles Draysmith stepped into the private sitting room, leaving the door ajar.
“I believe I saw your black-hearted cousin Richard in the common room, James,” Charles said, running his broad hands through his curly brown hair. “He must have come in on the stage. God, how I’d love to smash that beak of his back into his brain box!”
“Richard is here?” James lifted one golden eyebrow. “I wonder what the devil he means by showing his face in the neighborhood.”
“Devil
