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“I have nowhere else to stay,” he announced persuasively.
When Jess still didn’t relent, he adopted his most hang-dog expression. Still, neither of them offered him the room but continued to trade cautious looks. Marcus knew it was time to fight dirty. Digging around in his pocket, he drew out a note temptingly and held it out. It was far more than he wanted to pay for any accommodation and considerably more than any room in this house was worth. But he held it out because he rather suspected that funds were short in this house.
“I will only need the room for a short while, I am afraid, but I can pay well while I am here,” he urged when he still didn’t get the agreement he wanted.
“If you don’t mind waiting while we prepare the room then you are welcome,” Ben began, ignoring Jess’ drawn breath. “We provide breakfast and an evening meal. However, you do need to tell us in the morning if you intend to dine here in the evening.”
Before Marcus could reply, Ben snatched the money out of his hand. Marcus blinked at the speed with which the lad moved, but didn’t mention it. He had gotten what he wanted.
Marcus held his hand out and shook the man’s hand while surreptitiously studying the pocket of his jacket. The package was still there and, although it looked the same size as the box that had contained the Squire’s jewels, he needed to take a closer look to be definite. There were certainly enough telling looks passing between Ben and his sister to warn him that they had secrets. He just needed to get to the bottom of what those were before he made a decision whether he could take someone like Jessica to the magistrate.
Jess sighed in dismay, but couldn’t come up with any reasonable
objection to accommodating the man. As a result, she now had to move her belongings out of her room and move into the worst bedchamber in the house.
It galled her to admit it, but they were in desperate need of all the money they could get their hands on at the moment. It would be foolish to turn down any opportunity to earn a bit extra. Besides, now that Ben had taken the note from the man, they had no choice but to provide Mr Cauldwell with what he had purchased.
“If you would like have dinner tonight, it will be ready soon. The lodgers usually dine in the dining room at the front of the house. Your room should be ready for you by the time you have eaten,” Jess murmured.
She was a little annoyed at Ben for having taken the situation out of her hands, but wouldn’t take him to task for it in front of the new lodger.
Marcus nodded his thanks and struggled to contain the shiver that swept through him as he listened to the slightly husky tones of her voice. It was nothing short of a siren’s call of seduction that most women could only hope to possess. He suspected that she wasn’t even aware of the flurry of awareness that brought his exhausted body to arousal, and was thankful he still had his cloak on to hide the obvious evidence of his attraction to her.
Shaking his head in disbelief, he followed Ben into the front room that had been set aside for the lodgers.
“Who else do you have here?” he asked as he studied the empty room.
It contained nothing more than a large, well used dining table, a huge dresser covered with plates and cutlery, a retiring screen, and nothing else. The curtains and the cushions on the window seat were threadbare, and although everywhere was clean, there was a tired feel to the place that warned him it had long since seen better days.
“You will meet all of the lodgers in a while. I will introduce them all then,” Ben replied as he studied the room.
There was something in that searching look that warned Marcus that the lad had an ulterior motive for forcing his sister to accommodate him. However, what that was would have to be discovered in its own good time. At the moment, he wondered what the reaction would be if he asked to take a bath. If they possessed a tin bath, he suspected that the stunning woman in the kitchen would begin the relentless march through the house laden with buckets of steaming water. He just couldn’t bring himself to do that to her.
Quickly turning his thoughts away from being able to sink up to his neck in hot, steaming water, Marcus nodded his thanks. With nothing else to do, he took a seat beside the fire while Ben went to help his sister with the dinner.
“Why did you do that?” Jessica whispered as soon as Ben reappeared in the kitchen. “Now I have to move all of my things out of my bedroom and sleep in that horrid back room. He can’t stay in there; I will have to.”
Ben snorted unsympathetically. “Well, I have to sleep in the scullery with the dead birds.”
“You haven’t gotten rid of them yet?” Jess was horrified.
“I will move them on,” Ben promised with a nod toward the window. “I can’t risk going out there with them. Lloyd or Carruthers might be sniffing around. For now, the game has to stay in here.”
“Well, I can’t serve them. If the magistrate asks any of the lodgers what they had for dinner and they tell him they had pheasant, you may as well take yourself to jail because that is where you will be going.”
Ben sighed and sensed there was another lecture coming.
“You had better start to move your things,” he suggested in the hopes of preventing it. “I will keep an eye on dinner. Hurry up. We don’t have long. That man will want his room once he has eaten, and I don’t think he will want to sleep amongst your smalls.”
Jess growled as she stormed out of the kitchen. She was so furious that she didn’t notice someone standing on the opposite side of the door until she ran smack into a solid wall of unrelenting masculinity. She hadn’t realised just how tall the new guest was until she was close to him, and had to tip her head right back to be able to look up at his face.
The warmth of his breath fanned across her cheeks, but that didn’t bring the flush to her cheeks. He did. His very presence sent a shiver of awareness swept down her spine that made her toes curl. She tried to take a step back, but her feet wouldn’t work properly. Neither would her mind because words failed her completely.
“I am sorry, I didn’t realise you were there,” she murmured awkwardly when her ability to formulate words returned.
“It’s alright,” Marcus soothed. “No harm was done. I was just wondering if I could have a drink?”
“Of course,” Jess replied quickly and sidestepped around him. “There is a jug of ale kept on the dresser in the front room. Just help yourself.”
