She stepped into the tavern.
Noise immediately swelled up around her, making her feel as if she had plunged beneath the surface of water. It was paralyzing. Caroline didn’t even like the mild bustle of a society ball, and this chaos made that look like an evening alone in her room. How could this be something Prudence chose to?
What if her sister wasn’t even here? What if this was all just a waste of time?
Caroline scanned the room, hoping to see a familiar face and recognize it as Prudence, but she didn’t. Of course, plenty of men could be ruled out at once. Most of them were too tall or too stocky, or they had facial hair. None of those people could be her sister in disguise. She would be looking for someone who resembled the way she had appeared in the looking glass before she’d left home. Someone small and slim, boyish rather than mannish in appearance.
I must find her. The reputation of our family is at stake if she doesn’t make it to the altar—and her own future will be lost as well. How can she risk such a thing? She doesn’t understand the sacrifice she’s making by doing this. She doesn’t understand what she might be giving up and how she’ll wish, one day, that she had it back…
She approached the counter where drinks were being poured. Perhaps she might ask the bartender if he had seen a boy who looked like her. She could say that she was looking for her brother. Maybe someone had seen Prudence and would point her in the right direction.
“Watch where you’re going, son!”
She hadn’t even realized that she’d come close to stepping on the toes of a gentleman leaning up against the bar. He pushed her away from him—not roughly, so she didn’t mind too much, although itwasvery odd to have a gentleman’s hands on her body like that. She took a quick step backward.
He sneered. His red hair made him look as if he was ablaze in this darkened room, she thought—the light caught it in ways that were distracting and not, if she was honest, very appealing. “You look young,” he informed her. “And I haven’t seen you around here before. Is it your first time in this pub, then?”
Caroline was nervous about speaking aloud to someone who was paying her such close attention. It was obvious that he was trying to make discoveries about her. She nodded, but she didn’t say a word.
“You’ve got to have a drink,” the man decided. He put an arm around her shoulders and drew her close to him once more. “You’ll feel much more at ease if you relax a bit, and a good ale is the way to do that.” He raised a hand. “A drink for my young friend here!”
Caroline could tell by the way the man’s arm rested on her shoulders that he hadn’t realized she was a woman. But that didn’t make it any less uncomfortable to be touched this way. She hated it. But she felt unable to pull away and unsure of what she was supposed to do about the situation. Did people do things like this to Prudence in this tavern? Put their hands on her against her will? How did she bear it?
But she keeps coming back here. That’s what she told me. She said it’s the only place she feels free…
“Charles, for heaven’s sake, take your hands off that lad! When will you learn!”
Caroline tried to turn toward the new voice, but she was held in place by the arm around her shoulders. She saw a scowl take over the man’s face—Charles, she supposed. “Always so negative. So critical. I’m just trying to help him enjoy himself.”
“I highly doubt he requires your help—and he surely doesn’t require an embrace from a stranger twice his size, for heaven’s sake. You’re making a fool of yourself. Let him go, now.”
Charles flushed and released Caroline, giving her a shove backward. This time, his handswereforceful on her, and she stumbled slightly and fell into the arms of the man behind her.
That man—the one who had reprimanded Charles—helped Caroline to regain her balance. She thought his hands might have lingered a moment longer than was strictly necessary, but only a moment, and then he let her go. She wrapped her arms protectively around her body and refused to make eye contact with anybody. The whole tavern seemed to be looking in her direction now, and she wished she’d never come here. If Prudence was here, she would have been aware by now of Caroline’s presence and come over. She wasn’t here.
“Come with me,” the second man said to Caroline.
His tone was so forceful, so commanding, that Caroline found herself following without question.
He led her toward the door through which she had entered. When they reached it, he frowned at her. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing,” he said, his voice so low that she had to lean in to hear him.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean what I say. A young…man…like yourself in a place like this.” His eyes flashed. In that moment, though she couldn’t have said quite how, Caroline understood.
He knows.
He knew that she wasn’t what she claimed to be—that she wasn’t a man at all. Maybe he had realized when he’d touched her, although she wasn’t exactly sure how that brief touch could have given her away. But whatever it was,somethinghad happened, and he knew the truth. He knew she was a woman.
Fears lanced through her, but she pushed them away. “What business is it of yours what I’m doing here?” she asked him.
“It’s your business if I have to save you from my reprobate of a cousin.”
“You didn’t have to do anything.” She frowned. “And what areyoudoing here if you’re so noble. This place is not exactly a church.”
“But the ladies here are more fun,” he said with a rakish grin. Then he had the audacity to look her up and down. “And very pretty too—most of them, that is.”
She couldn’t believe him. “I’m not sure I wasn’t better off with your cousin,” she snapped. “You’re terrible.”
