Page 38 of Miss Harvey's Horribly Lovable Fiancé
“What are all of you talking about?” Lady Courtland appeared on the threshold. Her brown eyes round with suspicion, her hair so like Esme’s, a rich brown kissed by gold, flowing in abandon over her shoulders. She wore a dressing gown of jade and yellow Chinese flowers as frantic as her expression. Then she stepped inside. “And why are you here in Esme’s rooms? What is amiss?”
Her husband could not summon more than a look of utter loss. “My dear, Alice…”
She gawked at the five men, each in turn, then considered the sobbing maid. “Noooo,” she groaned. “She would not do this. Would not!”
She shot toward Esme’s bedroom.
Lord Courtland reached out to restrain her.
But she dodged him and ran into the bedroom. After crashing about, she emerged blindly stumbling toward the hall like a woman long dead. Then she slowly turned to stare back at her husband. “She’s gone, isn’t she, Howard?”
“Yes, my darling.”
It was then she muttered a bit about “madness in the family” and fainted dead away.
Chapter 9
The rumble and scrape of heavy wooden crates and barrels in the gathering room below roused Esme from her dreams of running, chased by a tall rather handsome black bear. She glanced at her spare accommodations and squinted at the harsh sunlight darting through the bare window glass.
’Twas then she blinked and came full awake.
The Drunken Crab Inn. Of course.
Their finest room behind the front stairs.
The clatter below of Watts, the owner, and his wife Ida who made good stew but better beer.
How long had she slept? Noon or past? She’d forgotten her timepiece. But she wouldn’t criticize her lack. She’d made it safely through the night to Aunt Elizabeth’s. Too late to catch the lady before she, her companion and her groom had left for Bath for the summer months. But soon enough to arrive at the door of the Crab before day-break and catch the eye of Master Watts. The man knew her well. Two years ago she and her father had sought him out and his accommodations when Papa’s horse went lame and they needed the farrier who lived down the lane.
She shuddered to think what might have befallen her if Admiral had suffered the same afflictions. But he had not. And she had continued on her journey to the Crab when Aunt Elizabeth’s gardener gave her news of their departure. “Quick, it was. Yesterday, they left.”
So much for sanctuary with her aunt.
Esme’s stomach growled and she accepted the calls of nature, then washed and dressed. Her mannish attire would stir a few odd looks from other travelers, but she could not take much concern. William and Ida Watts knew who she was but would not tell the full of her pedigree. They hadn’t years ago when her father and she asked for discretion. She doubted the owners would break that practice now. She pulled on her trousers, tucked in her linen shirt, then found her boots and tugged them on. She considered her frilly little loaded pistol within reach of the bed on the old table. She’d not need it for breakfast. What she did need was a new idea of where to go.
Bath was out of the question. Her cousin Fiona—and her school friend Mary Little-Finch—lived there, and they’d return home after they left Courtland Hall today or tomorrow. But Esme would not prevail upon either to shelter her from the storm of ridicule that would rain down on her. Even sanctuary with Aunt Elizabeth was a temporary solution.
She needed bread and cheese, a mug of strong tea and milk, then she’d have a clearer head for the business of finding a new place to live. She needed to befuddle her father, canny as he was about her, for as long as possible. She could never refuse her Papa anything, but now she had to stay away from home. Had to remain mysteriously absent. And as for Giles…
She had to elude Giles for at least four weeks. It was four more weeks until the special license expired, wasn’t it? Good God, she couldn’t remember. But whatever it was, she had to hide away from Giles. Of course, he could get another license, but that would take some explanations, wouldn’t it? And why ask for a second one when the bride had not wed you when you had the first? Wouldn’t that be humiliating?
Giles. She had humiliated him today. He so disliked notoriety. He and her parents would be frantic with worry. Giles might never forgive her, either. And her parents were disgraced.
They would forgive her. They always had. And didn’t all wounds heal with time?
But could she forget Giles? Ever? The prospect gripped her with sorrow and she refused to shed the tears that sprang to her eyes.
Instead, she headed down the front stairs. No one was about. Had all the guests of last night left the Inn?
Esme took a seat on the rough wooden bench near the kitchen.
“Mister Watts!” Ida appeared at the door to her brewery and beckoned her husband. “A new guest’s come. In the stables!”
“I’ll be with him in a minute, Ida. We’ve tea steeping in a pot. That or coffee for ye, Miss?” he asked Esme.
“Tea. Bread and cheese, if you will, please, sir.”
“Call it done, Miss. Yer father’s not with ye this time. Does he well?”
