Page 41 of The Baronet’s Bartered Bride

CHAPTER ELEVEN

He didn’t know what to do with her; that was easy to see.

“My ward will require a separate room,” Joseph told the innkeep at The George in Amesbury. This was a stately timber-framed edifice crowning Amesbury’s High Street, showing its centuries of age in the wainscoting on the inside, the heavy chamfered beams of the ceiling, and the woodwork on the staircase leading to the rooms on the first floor. Outside, ivy crawled around the many-paned windows, and the dormers under the eaves stood open, suggesting the rooms were getting an airing now that the dripping clouds had moved away.

“Your ward. Aye,” the innkeeper murmured, her glance at Inez suggesting she was frequently asked to arrange rooms for traveling men and their “wards.” “You’ll be wanting a room close by, I be thinking?”

“Of course, so I might keep an eye out. As she is a young, unmarried woman under my protection.”

Inez closed her eyes briefly and thought about kicking him in the shin to silence him. Her dear Joseph babbled when he was nervous.

Her Joseph. But he wasn’t hers, wasn’t he? He wasn’t her anything.

“She’ll like water sent up for a bath, when you can arrange it,” Joseph went on. “And a private parlor for dining.”

“No private parlor available, I’m afraid. Sir,” the innkeep said. “The Historical and Philosophical Society is usin’ it this evening for their meetin.’”

Joseph perked up at this. “A Philosophical Society? In a town this size? Splendid that there should be an interest in such subjects.”

“That’s as what they call themselves, sir, but it’s an excuse for the men to gather and smoke, and that’s a fact,” the innkeep said. “The wives drive them and they clay pipes out o’ the house, so they comes here.”

“Yes, I had read that Amesbury is famous for making clay pipes,” Joseph said. “Something about the white clay at Chitterne St. Mary Down being the best in the country, they say.”

Inez saw how it would be. He would look for a way to insert himself into this meeting, he would be welcomed, and he would spend the evening smoking and drinking and exercising his astonishing mind for the benefit of utter strangers, and she would be left to sit in her room and stare out the window at the street.

“We could dine in my room,” she said quickly. “If a supper might be sent up.”

“Yes, yes, that will be fine,” Joseph said, preoccupied by the thought of a scholarly convention. Inez saw she would have to strip down naked if she wanted to catch his attention.

And if she did? He’d offered her his hand, and she’d taken it. Her stomach curled around the memory of his large, warm hand holding hers. She could follow him to Cornwall, but what then?

She had to make him see that he needed her. She had to make him need her.

She had to find a way to ensure that she would not be turned out and left homeless again.

The room given Inez was a small, spare chamber on the second floor, tucked beneath the eaves. It was plain but tidy, the mattress on the cot stuffed with tick and her pillow with goose feathers. Inez was attempting to knock the dust of the road off the hem of her skirt when the innkeep entered with a servant girl bearing a large wooden basin and a boy behind lugging a yoke with two buckets sloshing water.

“You needn’t have brought it up all this way,” Inez said at once. “I could have come down.”

“His ward, ye say.” The innkeep gave a sidewise glance as she directed her staff where to set the things, and Inez realized she had betrayed herself.

“After a fashion,” she said, conscious she stood in shift and stays, apron and cap discarded on the bed. Her stays were leather, her petticoat much mended, and her battered half boots broadcast that she was no man’s ward, certainly not to a man of stature.

Her worsted socks said she was no one’s courtesan, either.

So what did that make her?

“I serve in his house,” she said. “Have served. His sister, not him. That is to say⁠—”

“I can brush that gown,” the innkeep said in a brisk tone, reaching for Inez’s outer robe, “and Polly can launder yer shift, if ye’ve got a spare. I’ve lavender for your water, and they’s no bugs in the tick.”

She directed the boy to set down the buckets, then shooed him out the door and turned to Inez with a stern face. “But mind he’s not seen a-comin’ or goin’, aye? There’ll be many a fellow below tonight has the ear of a magistrate and will take note of a woman entertainin’.”

“I’m not—we won’t—” Inez bit her lip as the innkeep sent her a sharp look, and wisely fell silent. Polly, gathering up Inez’s apron, held out her hand for the linens with a small smirk.

“I don’t think the gent will be calling on me.” Inez handed over her petticoat first. “He doesn’t want an arrangement.”

The innkeeper’s eyebrows raised with surprise, and her gaze swept Inez from toe to top. “With you? But you’re comely enough.”