At least the difference in their sizes meant his shoulder fitted nicely under the captain’s armpit as he supported the man up the stairs to their apartment. Jake was no shrimp, but the captain was a giant of a man, and on the few occasions he’d drunk himself unconscious, Jake had had to hire help to get him inside.
Jake would topple him into bed, strip off as many clothes as he could, and leave the man to sleep it off. Tomorrow afternoon, he and the captain would begin a round of visits to distribute more of the envelopes to their proper owners. Then tomorrow night, the captain would be back to the Lyon’s Den to get drunk and lose some more money. And the night after, and the night after that.
Jake needed to find a solution. And soon, while the silly duffer still had a scrap of wealth and health worth keeping.
A town in Oxfordshire
“Done,” said MissEllen. “It suits you, Kat. You look like a very pretty boy.”
Miss Ellen had just finished cutting her hair. Since it was usually tied back and under a cap, Kat wasn’t used seeing herself with long hair. Still, seeing short curls tousled over her head was abit of a shock, and after one glance at the long, black, wavy locks that had been shorn off, she steadfastly kept her gaze away from the floor.
Kat made a fine-looking man if she did say so herself. She was taller than the average woman, and the binding in some places and padding in others that she’d used to hide her feminine assets gave her a burly silhouette under the coat she and Miss Ellen had found on a clothing stall. The long coat hid her hips and bottom, which would be a dead giveaway to a suspicious observer.
With the coat on, though, she was sure she looked the part. She’d have to practice the walk, of course. Women were meant to glide. Men, Kat had observed, tended to strut. But it would not be hard to strut in her new boots.
“Let’s go catch our coach, Miss Ellen,” Kat said. She pulled on the boots, which had been cheap because they looked shabby. But Kat had been assigned to help the boot boy often enough that she knew quality when she saw it, and sure enough she’d managed to work miracles with a mix of neatsfoot oil, beeswax, and lamp black.
In Kat’s experience, most people didn’t look beyond surface appearances, whether it was boots or people, and so it proved to be when they caught the coach, which arrived just after noon and left almost immediately. No one treated Kat as anything other than a man, or at least a beardless youth.
It was not a pleasant journey. The mail coach was fast, but that meant it lurched along the road, bouncing in ruts and swaying on corners. It was also crowded, so that Kat, squeezed in next to Miss Ellen, had the bony elbows of the widow next to her in her ribs with every lurch or sway. At least Miss Ellen was against the wall, and Kat did her best to keep her own elbows fixed into her sides so as not to pass on the bruises.
A young gallant on the facing seat tried to set up a flirtation with Miss Ellen, but she ignored him, and Kat glared at him. After a while, he gave up. One of the men beside the gallant was overweight, and hetook up at least half of the seat. He could also have done with a bath. Before they’d gone more than a mile or so, his odor filled the coach.
Fortunately, both the flirtatious man and the man on the fat gentleman’s other side were slender, but even so, they must have found their seat companion a trial, especially when the carriage flew around a long bend and the middle gentleman leaned into the curve and their bodies.
Kat and Miss Ellen had been warned to drink sparingly before the three-hour trip, since there was often a long line for the facilities at the coaching stops. The mail coach paused only long enough for the horses to be changed, and any travelers who were not back aboard the coach would be left behind.
For a similar reason, they did not try to purchase food at any of the stops. The large man did so at the second stop, and sure enough, just as Kat and Miss Ellen had been told, he was forced to abandon his order when the coachman called, “All aboard!”
The groom who had warned them about not drinking had said that uneaten food would be sold to someone from the next coach, and possibly, if the queue for orders was long, to a third person in the coach after that. Kat wondered if that was true, but she wouldn’t be here to see, for they were already on their way again. Next stop, Ealing.
At long last, they descended at a coaching inn called The Feathers. Kat led the servant who’d helped carry their baggage to a corner of the inn’s entrance foyer and gave him sixpence for his effort. “Stay here, Miss Ellen,” she commanded. “I shall organize a room for us.”
Several people were ahead of her at the innkeeper’s desk. “A bedchamber for my lady,” she said in the hoarse voice she had adopted for her disguise, when it was her turn. “Also, a pallet for myself. I shall be sleeping across my lady’s door.”
The innkeeper jutted his chin and frowned. “No need for that,” he said. “Irun a safe inn.”
Kat prepared to flatter him into compliance. “I am certain you do. However, my lady is a nervous traveler. She cannot sleep unless her maid is with her, and the silly girl broke her leg just before we boarded the coach. I have solemnly promised her I shall be within earshot at all times. Of course, she cannot have me sleeping in her room, now, can she?” She spread her arms as if presenting her masculinity for the innkeeper’s inspection.
“It is more than my sanity is worth to have her short of sleep, sir,” she continued. “She is the sweetest of ladies, but fretful and anxious. Please. She does not want to go further and nor do I, for your inn looks to be just what we need. Safe, comfortable, clean, and the smells from your kitchen are heavenly.”
The man’s expression had softened, and he was narrowing his eyes in thought. “I have an idea,” he said. “It’ll cost extra, mind. I’ve a bedchamber with an anteroom, just big enough for a pallet. You’ll not be in the way in my passages, and you’ll not be in her bedchamber.”
“That sounds perfect,” Kat said. “How much extra?”
After a bit of dickering, they settled on two shillings a night. Of course, there would also be tips for any servant who did anything for them. Meals, too, would be extra. It would be good enough for tonight but would soon eat up pounds if they stayed for long. Still, Kat hoped to have another, cheaper alternative for them after her visit to Carr Abbas tomorrow.
She and Miss Ellen followed another of the inn’s servants up several flights of stairs, along a passage, around a corner and along another passage, then down a flight of stairs and along a third passage to a tiny room that opened into a bedchamber which looked out over the stable yard.
Another sixpence for the porter, one for the man who brought up the pallet and mattress, and one for the maid who arrived with a stack of bed linen and made Kat’s bed. That was a shilling and sixpence—three shillings and sixpence with the payment for the room, and theyhad been at The Feathers for less than half an hour.
“My lady will have dinner in her room, also washing water,” said Kat to the maid, and the girl bobbed a curtsey and left.
“Now Kat,” said Miss Ellen. “Why have you brought us to Ealing? What do you intend us to do?”
Kat looked out into the passage. The girl was gone. But just to be sure, she led Miss Ellen into the bedchamber—which was acceptable enough, but nothing special. The wallpaper was faded but spotless, as was the bedcover. The furniture was old and dented, but well-polished. The curtains had been mended along the hem.
But there was a small, friendly fire in the grate to take the damp from the air, and the room smelled clean and fresh.
