“I’m Matt Corbin. Does my mam know you’re here?” Quicksilver expressions flashed across the boy’s face. “Can’t, can she. You only just came.” He bobbed as if struck by another thought and ran off, bucket forgotten, calling over his shoulder. “I best fetch her.”
“Does he ever walk?” Rob asked the innkeeper, staring after the lad.
“Not often. Like you that way,” the old man replied with an affectionate smile. He picked up the forgotten bucket and beckoned with one hand to the hostler who had been watching the scene avidly from the door of the stables. The young man came running to take the horse. “Best come in for a pint, Robbie. Travel dries a man’s throat fierce.”
Travel dries a man’s throat. Rob had heard his father—yes, father, and if not that then what—say those words to guests hundreds of times. At that precise moment, he could think of nothing he wanted more than a pint of ale at The Willow and the Rose. Loath though he was to hand Khalija over to a stranger, he gave the reins to the hostler and followed the man he called “Da” inside.
Ducking his head to enter, he felt for a moment as if he stepped back in time, so little had changed. The dark plank floors, once his mother’s pride, showed little wear and less dirt, as always. The banister leading up to guest rooms and the upright beams at the taproom door smelled of beeswax, as always. “Do you still keep bees?” The hives had been his mother’s; he wondered what became of them.
“Me? No. A neighbor took them over when—you know.”
When Mam died—and I left.
“She keeps us in honey and wax, like always,” the old man said proudly.
Like always.Emma said they had troubles, but, from what Rob could see, the inn hadn’t suffered. Only a few sat in the taproom, but midafternoon with the mail gone, that was normal. Pewter pints still hung above the bar. Sun showed through clear, clean windows overlooking the road. If the curtains over them were unfamiliar, they were ones his mother might have sewn. A respectably dressed girl still smiled at customers, although Rob didn’t remember the table servers being so young.
“A friend, Mr. Benson?” the girl asked.
“Better, Clara. Family. Fetch my son a pint of the best.”
My son. The old lie fell like a hot brick into Rob’s stomach.Fish or cut bait,he chided himself. You called him Da, but you bristle when he names you his son.He clamped his jaw shut to keep from barking out the truth in the public room.Maybe I should have it out with the old man once and for all before I leave.The innkeeper must have seen something in his face because his eyes darted away.
Rob’s sister had questions to answer. For now, the promised pint arrived promptly, and he drank deeply of ale every bit as fine as he recalled. He’d stay a few more days for that alone.
Chapter Three
Emma’s successful effortto avoid Rob his first evening home made him almost as uneasy as being under the same roof as Robert Benson the Elder after so many years. Sleep had proven elusive. He stood at the door intending to set out for a vigorous ride before he faced them again, but the smell of coffee drew him, and muted sounds from the kitchen told Rob he wasn’t the only one prowling the inn before the sun came up the next morning.
Inside he found a woman he didn’t recognize elbow-deep in bread dough. She had the girth of a well-fed cook and the serenity of one comfortable in her work. A lad of twelve or so sat a table, scratching a pencil across a bit of foolscap. Clara, the serving girl from the day before, stirred what looked like porridge but smelled infinitely better than any he had around an army encampment.
“Sorry to disturb your work, but I hoped to have some of that coffee I smell.”
“God be praised, Robbie,” the cook exclaimed. “You gave me a start. Clara, fetch the man a mug. Robbie always takes… But I expect we’re meant to call you Sir Robert now,” she added, looking flustered.
It was the way she squinted that triggered the memory. She’d been seventeen and a slip of a girl waiting tables in the taproom when he saw her last. “Annie?” he asked. “Annie Carrick? Is that you?”
“Annie Morris, now, if you please. I expect I’m a mite changed since you saw me last. That’s my son Wallace yonder,” she said, indicating the boy who stared up from his schoolwork. “Only one we were blessed with before my Walter passed.”
A blushing Clara handed him a steaming coffee, hot and black, exactly how he liked it, and a Chelsea bun that smelled of spices—heaven in the hand. The guests at Robert Benson’s inn were fortunate indeed. He gobbled it down, and Annie, laughing, gave him another.
“Annie, you’re an angel,” he sighed, juggling the Chelsea bun and striding to the kitchen door, his mood considerably lightened. He didn’t get far.
Ellis Corbin, Emma’s husband, stood near the stables in conversation with the young hostler who had taken charge of Khalija the day before.
“Robbie!” Ellis strode across the yard, hand out in greeting, only to laugh when he saw Rob’s hands. “Annie keeping you fed, I see.” No Sir Robert—or any other nonsense—from Ellis. Rob respected him for it.
“Good to see you, Ellis.” Rob gulped down his bun, wiped his hand on his trousers, and took the man’s calloused hand. Rob had no doubt Ellis worked hard.
The Willow and the Rose boasted only modest stables by coaching inn standards. Their resources were augmented by Corbin’s livery stables. Ed Corbin, Ellis’s father, an excellent farrier and canny businessman, had long partnered with the Bensons.
“How are you keeping?”
“Well enough! With my father gone, the days are too short. I need to get back across the way—horses can’t shoe themselves. Will I see you at dinner? Emma means to have you.”
Rob nodded, making no commitments. “I’ll walk with you a bit,” he said, matching his stride to Ellis’s. Ellis had been a lad of ten when Rob left; he looked too young to be managing the livery, much less to be Matt’s father and Emma’s husband.
“Emma can’t get over seeing you.” Ellis glanced sideways as they walked into the forge to the rear of the livery.
