She nodded.
“Your reputation is safe, my lady.” He’d said the words to reassure her.
She muttered something he didn’t hear but Toby left that alone and walked her to the room the innkeeper had shown him earlier. It was small, yet clean, because he’d checked that too.
“I know your things are with the carriage, but a nightgown was found for you to sleep in.”
She turned in the doorway to look at him. “Thank you for all of this. I’m not sure considering… well, thank you.” She then closed the door in his face.
Considering the bastard you were to me, he finished off her words.
Toby went back down the stairs to the bar and ordered a whiskey. Sleep would not come tonight after the day he’d had, and being this close to Liberty again. Sipping the drink, he let the liquid roll around inside his mouth.
“Where is this whiskey from?” Toby asked after he’d swallowed. “It’s good.” He knew whiskey and would bet a great deal of money it was the same as the one he’d tasted in the Gill.
“We have a new supplier. Plentiful and a good price, too.” The barman tapped his nose. “But I’ll not say more.”
“Irish or Scottish?” Toby asked after another sip.
The man didn’t answer as he was called away, and Toby was left mulling over what he’d learned today in Bidham, which wasn’t a great deal, but when you added what Liberty and Helen had said, it was something. He thought about the barrels he’d seen on the back of that cart in the village, and how Liam had been nervous when he’d asked about the whiskey.
“Evening.”
Toby nodded to the man who took the stool beside him. Large and menacing were his initial thoughts.
“I overheard you asking about the whiskey,” the man then said.
Toby had spent a lot of time in his life watching people, and this man had thug written all over him right down to the sneer on his face. But there was also something familiar about him, he couldn’t put his finger on.
“It’s very good. I would like to procure some for my private cellars,” Toby said taking another sip.
“Don’t believe that would be possible, Lord Corbyn.”
Studying him more closely, Toby realized then where he’d seen the man before. He’d been in the Gill earlier today, and one of the men Liam had been looking at nervously.
“I am happy to pay, of course. Are you the supplier?” He didn’t ask how it was this man knew his name. Everyone in Bidham knew Toby, even if they didn’t like him.
“You’re best to mind your business, my lord. Safer for everyone.”
The words were a threat, and there was no other way to take them.
“Mind my business?” Toby asked, swallowing the last of his whiskey. He’d never taken well to threats, and especially not after his time at Blackwood House, as they’d been constant there.
The man smiled, but it held no humor.
“A word of advice, my lord. Don’t meddle in what doesn’t concern you.”
“I’m a viscount. What is it you think you can do to me, and I’ll addwhy to that? I don’t know you, or what it is you allude to, but I know I don’t like the threat in your voice, especially as I asked a simple question about the supply of whiskey.”
“All is well, my lord?”
Rory, his driver, and Liberty’s footman, Jasper, were now standing beside Toby’s stool.
“All is well,” he said, holding the man’s gaze. “Two of your whiskeys for my men, if you please,” he said to the barman.
Toby watched two others rise from the table near the bar.
“I’ve always found that if someone is guilty of something, they are likely to be aggressive for no apparent reason. You were that from the moment you sat next to me, sir, but what I don’t know is why?” Toby said.
