Page 26 of The Lady’s No Angel

“You’ll have this drink on me and then get back to The Chequers. First chance you get, you clout the big fellow, and clout him good. We don’t want him causing no trouble. I reckon I’ve an idea where Missy is going, but I can’t be certain, and complications are sommat I can do without. I can deal with her well enough; her maid and the laddie are nowt to concern us, neither. Him, though—he has to go.”

Bill grinned as Stan returned to the table, sloshing the three full tankards onto the sticky tabletop. He swiped up his tankard and lifted it in a salute. “I’ll drink to that.”

Chapter 9

Mr Cleaver’s Excellent Adventure

The Chequers, Sevenoaks, Kent, 8th April 1816

Milly pursed her lips, looking about the pokey room with an obvious lack of enthusiasm. Lifting a corner of the bedsheet, she peered beneath.

“Well, it ain’t The Rose and Crown,” she said with a sniff.

Angel untied her bonnet and cast it aside, quirking an eyebrow at Milly. “You’re becoming as expensive as Mr Cleaver,” she remarked, smiling ruefully.

Milly shrugged and walked to the window that looked out over the yard. It was north facing, which made it colder and darker too, though the light had long since faded from the skies. “We’ll be woken at some ungodly hour. We’re right over the stables.”

“Then we had best get ourselves to sleep,” Angel remarked briskly, though she doubted she would sleep any better than the previous night despite being bone weary. The indifferent meal she had eaten sat heavily in her gut, and not only because the meat had been as chewy as boot leather. Mr Cleaver’s insistence that they should trust him, and the knowledge that Toby had told him they were searching for a dead woman, had set her all on edge. For all she knew, he might be in league with whoever had ransacked their room, though she could not believe it of him. No, he would never be involved in anything so nefarious, she was certain, and there was a part of her that badly wanted to trust him. How comforting it would be to have such a man on her side, to help her find her inheritance.

She told herself she was a fool for even considering it. If she had told Black Jack that she was on the way to find his treasure and some handsome fellow had joined her, flirting with her and trying to pay her way, and asked him if she ought to trust the man—Good Lord!

Angel flushed hot and cold as she imagined his none too polite response. Shaking her head to rid herself of the scalding words still ringing in her ears, she opened her bag and searched for her night things.

“Miss?”

Angel looked up to see Milly peering down at the yard with a frown.

“What is it?”

“I dunno. But Mr Cleaver is down there, having a smoke, I think, and—look.”

Angel hurried to the window, hearing the note of anxiety in Milly’s voice. Looking through the grubby glass, she saw Mr Cleaver on the far side of the rectangular yard, leaning over the stable door, talking to the huge gelding he rode, by the look of things. The yard was mostly dark, diffuse light spilling from the taproom windows and from a lantern by the back door, but his height and breadth were unmistakable. The cigar glowed in the dim light, the ember burning brighter as he drew upon it.

Two shadows moved in the dark, one on either side of the yard. They moved with stealth and purpose, their attention fixed upon Mr Cleaver. A flash of metal caught her eye and Angel’s heart skipped as she saw the man on the left was carrying a knife. He gestured to his companion, telling him to go.

“My God,” Angel breathed. They meant to kill him! “Open the window and shout,” she told Milly, lunging for her bag and turning it out on the bed.

The pistol and the dagger landed with a thud, and she snatched up the gun, running from the room.

“I know, it’s not a patch on last night’s comfortable berth,” Hart said with a sigh.

The horse huffed and stamped one foot, apparently in agreement. Hart chuckled and patted the big gelding’s sleek neck. He’d sent Toby to sleep before the fire in his own room. The only alternative was to let the lad sleep in the stables. Nothing Toby wasn’t used to, but for some reason it sat ill with Hart to leave him alone in this place.

He lifted the cigar to his lips and drew in, allowing the smoke to sit warm in his chest before blowing a lazy cloud that vanished into the damp night sky.

The feminine shout of warning lifted the hairs on the back of his neck.

Hart’s hand jerked. The cigar fell, sparks scattering as it hit the ground. The gelding threw up his head, a sharp, frightened whinny echoing the shout that lingered still, tangible in the too still darkness.

“Look out!”

A great dark shape launched itself at him, all muscle and malice, and he caught the glint of teeth drawn back in a vicious grin. Surprised, he went down hard, slamming into the cobblestones. Hart grunted as the fellow’s fist drove into his gut, knocking the breath clean out of him.

Excellent. A fight.

Not slow on the uptake when a proper mill was on offer, Hart allowed the lumbering brute to believe he was out cold, giving him a moment to adjust his weight, heavy as a sack of flour, settling in to deliver a proper pummelling.

Then Hart shifted his hips and hooked the brute’s heavy leg with his arm.