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She gave him an odd look. “It’s a small country inn. It seems perfectly respectable.”
He could feel his face heat a bit, and his words were rather gruff as a result. “Nonetheless, we’ll present ourselves as Mr. and Mrs. Munroe and stay in the same room.”
And he ended the discussion by descending from the carriage before she could protest farther. The inn did look respectable. A row of old men sat outside the main door, which was blackened with age. There were a fair amount of hostlers and stable boys milling about and gossiping, and in a corner of the yard, a little boy with tousled brown hair played with a kitten. Alistair felt a pain in his chest at the sight. He wasn’t very similar to Jamie, but the boy was of an age.
God, let the children be safe!
He turned back to the carriage to help Helen down, moving his body between her and the sight of the little boy. “Come inside and I’ll see if there’s a private room to be had.”
“Thank you,” she said breathlessly.
He offered her his arm in a husbandly way, and the hesitation before she laid her fingertips on his sleeve was so small that in all probability only he saw it. But he did see and note it. He covered her gloved hand with his and led her into the little inn.
As it turned out, there was indeed a small—very small—private room at the back of the inn. They settled at the rustic table next to a tiny hearth, and very soon thereafter a hot meal of mutton and cabbage arrived.
“Are you sure Lister’s headed to London?” Alistair asked as he cut into his meat. The thought had begun to bother him the last half hour or so; they might be on a wild-goose chase, haring off to London when Lister might have an entirely different destination in mind.
“He has a country estate—several, in fact,” Helen murmured. She was pushing at the food on her plate, but hadn’t taken a bite. “But he spends nearly all his time in London. He hates the country, he says. I suppose he might decide to hide the children elsewhere, but if he came in person to get them, I think he’d want to return to London first.”
Alistair nodded. “Your reasoning is good. Do you know where he might take them in London?”
She shrugged, looking weary and depressed. “It could be anywhere. He has a main house, of course—a huge town house in Grosvenor Square—but there are several other properties that he owns.”
An unwelcome thought intruded. He carefully broke apart a crusty roll and, with his eye on his task, asked, “Where did he keep you?”
She was silent a moment. He buttered the piece of roll without looking up.
Finally, she said, “He gave me a town house to live in. It was on a small square, quite nice, actually. I had a staff to look after the house and serve me.”
“The life of a duke’s mistress sounds very elegant. I’m not sure I understand why you bothered to leave him.” He raised his eyes as he bit into the buttered bread.
Her face was flushed, but her blue eyes sparked with anger. “Don’t you? I don’t think you understand much about me, really, but I’ll endeavor to explain. I’d been his plaything for fourteen years. I’d borne him two children. And he didn’t love me. He never loved me, I think. All the jewels in the world, all the servants and the town house and the beautiful dresses were not enough to make up for the fact that I’d let myself be used by a man who didn’t really care for me or my children. In the end, I decided that I was worth more.”
She shoved back from the table and stalked from the room, fortunately refraining from slamming the door behind her.
Alistair thought about following her immediately, but some innate male instinct told him it was safer to wait just a bit. He finished his meal in higher spirits than he’d begun it. The knowledge that she no longer loved Lister—if she ever had—was a salve to his soul. He took the plate that Helen had abandoned and went up to the room he’d procured for the night for the both of them.
He tapped softly at the door, half expecting her not to answer—she was very mad at him, after all—but the door cracked almost at once. He pushed it open, entered the little room, and shut and locked it behind him. She had moved across the room after letting him in and now stood at a tiny gabled window, her back to him, in her shift with a shawl thrown over her shoulders.
“You didn’t eat any of your dinner,” he said.
One elegant shoulder rose in a shrug.
“It’s a long journey to London,” he said gently, “and you’ll need to keep your strength up. Come eat.”
“Maybe we’ll catch up to Lister before London.”
He looked at that slim, brave back, and the tiredness that he’d been holding in check all day nearly overwhelmed him. “He’s got a head start. It’s not likely.”
She sighed then and turned, and for a moment he thought he saw tears sparkling in her eyes. But then she ducked her head and came toward him, and he could no longer see her eyes. She took the plate of food from him but then didn’t seem to know what to do with it.
“Sit here,” he said, indicating a small chair before the fire.
She sat. “I’m not hungry.” She sounded like a small child.
He squatted before her and began cutting her meat. “The mutton is quite good. Have a bite.” He proffered a piece on the tines of the fork.
She met his eyes as she accepted the bit of food from him. Her eyes were wet, harebells that’d fallen in a stream.
