Page 77 of Your Wicked Ways

“The kitchen is around the back,” he said, taking Lina to safety under the covered walkway that ran around the yard.

Lina looked up and said something, but he couldn’t hear it, due to the fracas (the owner of the chickens had taken in very bad part the fate of his chicken-coop, not to mention his fowl, who were comfortably roosting on the second-story balcony). So Tom shook his head at Lina and just brought her around the path that Meggin had taken, leading to the kitchens.

But when they walked through the door, Mrs. Fishpole had been replaced by a hatchet-faced individual wearing a dirty white apron. He had a bad-tempered look about him, as if he’d toss a pot of boiling water at the slightest provocation.

“No gentry coves in the kitchens,” he growled, giving a ferocious stir to a pan of pale gray water, graced with a few bobbing vegetables. “Get around the front then, where your sort belongs.” Without looking at them again, he grabbed a wine glass from the table and sucked a long draught of red down his throat.

“We’re looking for Mrs. Fishpole,” Tom said politely, removing his hat. “I wonder if you could tell me when she might be on duty again.”

“Never, and that’ll be too soon,” the man growled, pouring himself another swig of wine. “Now be off with you. She weren’t owed any wages, and if she’s taken off without paying your tick, it’s nothing to me.”

“We merely wish to find her direction,” Tom explained. “She owes us nothing.”

But the man turned back to his pot as if he weren’t even going to bother to answer. A potboy dashed in, calling “Mr. Sigglet, Mr. Sigglet! Mr. Harper has arrived for his regular and wants the fish and sausage pie as always, what should I tell him?”

“Tell him that the harpy’s gone this afternoon, and left me without a fish pie to my name,” Mr. Sigglet snarled. “He’ll eat vegetable soup and be glad with it, or he can take himself off somewhere else. I’ll have another cook by tomorrow.”

He swung around and waved the wooden spoon so that greasy drops flew, landing on his beard and hair. “You all can make your way out of here,” he said. “That Fishpole has done a bunk on me, left her job without a word of warning, and all to go back to her family. Who would have thought the woman had a family? Family!” It was clear that Sigglet, at least, had no faith in the institution.

Without another word, Tom drew Lina backwards out of the kitchen; he was a little worried that Sigglet would lose his patience and launch vegetable soup in their direction.

“Where could she have gone?” Lina asked. “Oh, this is the worst of all situations!”

“No, it’s not,” Tom replied, hating the look of distress in her eyes. “It means you were right. You were absolutely right, and I was a blunderhead not to consider other options.”

Lina shook her head. “No, you were right. That inn yard is no place for a little girl. And what sort of a mother could Mrs. Fishpole be, if she up and leaves her position without a word of warning? Meggin needs a reliable family.”

He cupped her face in her hands. “Hush, you,” he said, grinning down at her. “Mrs. Fishpole quit her position because she’s gone to find Meggin. All she knows of me is that I’m the vicar of St. Mary’s Church in Beverley. Her family lives a few counties over. And that’s where she’s gone; I’ll bet my last shilling on it!”

She was so beautiful that he had to kiss her. And the kiss was so delicious that they likely would have kept kissing all night, bundled up in their loo cloaks and leaning against the back wall of an inn, except Lina had an idea.

“She only just left the inn this afternoon, Tom,” she said, rather breathlessly. “Perhaps Mrs. Fishpole hasn’t set out for the North Country yet. Perhaps we could find her in London.”

For a moment he didn’t catch her meaning. His whole body was aching to make her his. “Will you marry me?” he asked rather thickly.

“No,” she said. “Let’s go find Mrs. Fishpole!”

“Not until you agree to marry me,” he said, pulling her back against him.