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“I cannot go in there by myself.” Tilly had said to come alone, but wandering about Edinburgh without even her maid would be truly foolhardy. “Please get out of the coach.”
Sabrina sounded a bit testy, but the morning had been a challenge. First, she and Hannah had had to sneak out of the house, and then they’d been forced to walk several blocks before finding a hackney stand.
“Lady, are ye goin’ to pay me,” the driver asked, “or do I have to call me a constable?”
Mustering an apologetic smile, Sabrina dug into her reticule.
The disreputable-looking fellow suspiciously counted the coins she’d handed him. “Yer not exactly spilling it out, are ye? Jest like a nob. Tight in the fist.”
She struggled to keep hold of her patience. “I am paying you exactly what we agreed upon, sir. Besides, your carriageisrather shabby. If you thought a bit more about the comfort of your passengers, you might find your business improved.”
When the driver made a growling comment about what she should do with her suggestion, Hannah let out a faint shriek and clambered out.
Sabrina refused to be cowed by vulgarity. “Might I also point out that addressing a customer in such crude terms will hardly encourage future business.”
The driver gave her a hard look. “Yer daft, lady,” he finally said. He snapped his reins, and the coach lumbered off.
At the moment, Sabrina could not disagree with his assessment.
Hannah stared glumly after the hackney. “We should’ve brought one of them strapping footmen for protection. That Davey is awfully nice.”
Sabrina had also been second-guessing herself from the moment they’d left Heriot Row. Hearing from Tilly had been a surprise, and she’d not been prepared with any sort of plan.
Just after dawn, a grubby boy had appeared at the kitchen entrance with a note for Sabrina. The boy had probably been Tilly, which begged the question as to why she hadn’t simply asked to speak with Sabrina. Instead, she’d handed over the note to the scullery maid, who’d passed it to the kitchen maid, who’d then handed it off to Hannah.
“We’re here now,” said Sabrina, “so we just have to make the best of it.”
Two laborers brushed by them and went into the coffeehouse. The men cast them curious glances as they passed, but looked perfectly respectable in their smocks and breeches—ordinary workers looking for breakfast on a quiet street before starting their day.
“But we’re smack in the middle of a slum, my lady,” Hannah protested. “As like we’ll end up dead, or worse.”
Sabrina steered her toward the door. “Hannah, do not address me asmy ladywhen we get inside. In fact, don’t say anything. Just look like the stout-hearted Englishwoman I know you to be.”
“If you say so, Lady Sabrina.”
“Don’t call me that, either.”
“Yes, my lady.”
Hopeless.
Several steps led down from the street into a dim, low-ceilinged room. The vision that greeted Sabrina, while certainly uninspiring, was neither threatening nor particularly grim. The Wee Black Dog seemed exactly what Tilly had said in her note—a decent coffeehouse near Edinburgh’s cattle markets. Under the enticing scent of coffee lurked the same faint smell of manure that permeated the entire neighborhood. The tables and benches were rough-hewn but clean, and the floor neatly swept. There were small windows set high in the outside wall, but most of the light came from spirit lamps and two large branches of candles on a service counter.
Ignoring curious glances from patrons, Sabrina made her way to the counter, where a young woman with a kind face and a wealth of red hair under a mobcap was stacking oatcakes onto a platter. Hannah, breathing out an aggrieved sigh, trudged along in Sabrina’s wake.
The woman looked up with a sharp, assessing glance before reaching under the counter for two coffee mugs.
“Good morning,” Sabrina said. “I’m looking for—”
“She’s in the back corner. Just let me get ye and yer girl some breakfast, and ye can join her.”
“Oh, thank you. But that won’t—”
“Ye’ll not stand out so much if ye have a cup and somethin’ to eat.” Her gaze flickered over Sabrina’s dress. “Right now, ye stick out like sore thumbs.”
Oh, dear.She’d worn her plainest walking dress and a simple straw bonnet in the hope she wouldn’t stand out.
“Yer quality, miss, andSassenachto boot. No hidin’ that, no matter what ye wear.”
