A lump formed in her throat as she turned from the window. No sense in watching every day like this. He wasn’t coming. Now what must she do? Did she force her way back to him alone?
Or did she stay?
Felton dug his heels into his horse’s side. Air whipped at his face, moist with the morning fog, chilly enough to bite back some of his tension.
It had been three days.
Three days of listening to Mamma fuss over him, and chide him, and weep at him. Three days of Papa reading his newspaper and talking of everything except what had happened.
And three days of knowing that the Swabian and his men meant blood if he didn’t turn over Captain’s whereabouts.
Which he wasn’t about to do.
He glanced down at the flintlock pistol tucked in his trousers. He never carried a gun. But this was one situation he may not live through without such a weapon.
Christ, have mercy on me.
When he entered Lodnouth and trotted his horse to the Jester’s Sunlight, the door was already ajar and a skeletal fishwife was yelling curses into the building. When she spotted Felton, however, she jerked her tot out of the way and mumbled, “He can ’ave his bloomin’ ale and trollops. Wot’s the likes o’ me care any’ow?”
The smell hit him again as he entered. Not many crowded the room this early in the morning, but five still slumped at a table—and the Swabian still leaned against the bar where he’d been before.
Felton moved next to him. “I am here.”
“I can see that.” Which was odd of him to say, for he never so much as looked up. “A fine obedient lad, you be. I was rightly worried you weren’t going to come at all.”
“I never run from anything.”
“Wish Ellis would’ve thought the same.”
Silence.
A scraping sound—chair legs against floorboards—as the men at the table approached. They formed a wide circle around Felton and the Swabian but never said a word. The same who had beaten him three days ago?
Then he’d been unprepared.
He wasn’t now.
“Well?” Swabian wiped ale from his whiskers. “Go ahead and do your telling, then get your bloody bones out of here.”
“I didn’t come to tell you anything.”
Swabian’s head finally turned. His eyes moved up and down Felton’s face, as if surmising the damage, then he shook his head. “You’re some kind of a fool.”
Felton jerked out the pistol and leveled it to the man’s chest.
The men edged closer.
Someone’s hand landed on Felton’s back, sending a jolt of pain through the tender cuts—but he held the gun without wavering. “I came for one reason and one reason alone, fellow. No one does to me what you did three days ago.”
To his left, a man chuckled.
Another hand clapped down on his shoulder.
“And if you intend to kill me, you might as well try it here because I’m not telling you anything. My blood will not be the only blood spilt on this floor.”
Swabian stared. Said nothing. Then, with a shake of his head, he turned back to his foamy tankard. “Go sit back at your table, men.”
For a second no one moved.
