‘Mebbe they be boring,’ Finn suggested.
‘Never say a lady’s boring,’ Reverend Shackleford recommended with a wince that suggested being on the end of a curtain lecture was quite possibly any man’s worst nightmare.
‘My Elspeth didnae hae a dour bone in her body,’ Dougal announced suddenly, much to everyone’s astonishment. ‘A terrible hairy chin, mind, but full o’ sunshine.’ He nodded to himself, oblivious of his bemused audience before sighing and adding, ‘Ah loved her, true, but ah cannae deny she haed a face like a skelped arse.’
‘Did she hae a beard?’ Finn quizzed him delightedly. ‘Ah once saw a lady wi’ a beard doon tae here.’ He pointed at his knees, drawing Percy’s frowning attention to the fact that they were the colour of Blackmore’s cesspit.
‘I don’t think it’ polite to discuss the lady’s physical attributes,’ Henrietta interrupted hastily. ‘After all, the lady is not here to defend herself.’
Dougal grinned. ‘Och, she niver had any trouble defending herself, lass. Ah once saw her knock a grown man on his arse fer gaein her a wink.’
‘What did he do?’ Percy asked, interested despite himself.
The Scot creased his brow in thought. ‘Ah cannae remember, tae be honest. Ah reckon when he came roond a couple o’ days later, he begged her tae forgie him. An’ ah cannae say ah blame him seein’ as his eye was as black as the Earl o’ hell’s waistcoat.’
There was a short silence punctuated by Flossy’s snoring, then, with a scepticalhmph, the Reverend turned back to his granddaughter. ‘Right then, Henrietta Carew, I’ll say my piece and that’ll be the end of it - though I do think this is a conversation you should be having with your mother.’ Henri stared at him in alarm as he went on, ‘I think we all know that your attack of the mulligrubs is due to the Frog, but if you think sulking will solve your problem, think again, girl. All it’ll do is set up his bristles and if you’re determined to set your cap at the fella – though in truth I’ve never heard anything so totty headed in my entire life – the only thing you can do istalkto him.’
Henrietta bit her lip. Her grandfather was right. She was behaving like a spoilt child. There was far too much at stake for Raphael to spend time pandering to a foolish girl. With a sniff, she confessed what had happened – not the kissing bit, naturally, but the fact that he’d lied to her.
‘So, you think he should have risked the whole deuced mission to tell you what was going on…’
‘No… I… that’s not what I…’ Henrietta began before stopping and throwing her hands in the air. ‘Shouldn’t any relationshipworth having be based on mutual trust?’ She blurted. ‘That’s what I heard Papa say when I left the dining room.’
‘Yes, well, I reckon your father was staring up his own nether regions when he made that statement. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, lass, it’s that nothing is ever black and white. You ask Percy. He’s spent most of his life making deuced bad decisions that have turned out to be good ones in the end.’
‘Well, I’m not quite sure that’s entirely true,’ grumped the curate. ‘One could argue that most of my bad decisions have actually been made by you, Sir…’
At the sound of carriages arriving in the inn’s front courtyard, Rafe felt the first flickering of anxiety. What if Tristan wasn’t recognised? There were some people in the bar that were old enough to remember the fate of the Marquis and Marquese, but most had only heard the story secondhand.
The one thing that gave the agent hope was the careful way in which those in the bar spoke about Montclair’s caretaker. In his experience, such reluctance to say anything remotely damning meant one thing – fear.
And if they feared him, they would welcome the new Marquis – if not with open arms, then at least without opposition. All he needed was for enough people to see the uncanny resemblance to his father, then hopefully the floodgates would open.
‘Is Monsieur Fontaine up at the Chateau now?’ Rafe asked casually.
‘He left last evening,’ commented the innkeeper. ‘Took quite a few of his men too - I heard them galloping past just before midnight.’
Raphael felt a surge of triumph. The bastard had taken the bait.
Seconds later he heard the unmistakable sound of carriages outside. Remaining in his seat, he took a sip of his wine and watched.
First in were Roan and Gabriel, both looking, he suspected, as anxious as he did. ‘We’re looking for rooms,’ he announced to the innkeeper in passable French.
‘You’re English?’ Rafe felt a tightening as the sea captain nodded, adding, ‘Most of us anyway. Is that a problem, Monsieur?’
The innkeeper shook his head. ‘Not to me. How many rooms are you looking for?’
‘How many do you have?’ Gabriel asked drily as Faith, Hope and Roseanna came through the door.
The innkeeper scratched his head. ‘Five in total and nobody in them at the moment.’
‘Then we’ll take all five,’ Roan responded as Henrietta came through the door behind the Reverend and Percy, closely followed by Dougal and Finn. The innkeeper frowned.
‘How many of you are there?’ he growled, raising his eyebrows.
‘Just one more,’ Roan answered, shrugging off his greatcoat with a cordial smile. Seconds later, Tristan walked in. With his pale face and set jaw, he looked for all the world as though he was ready for a fight. For a moment the buzz of conversationcontinued, then slowly, one by one, it died, as the patrons looked towards the man standing in the doorway.
A man who was the spitting image of the old Marquis de Montclair.
