A Holiday by Gaslight(46)

She suppressed a shiver. She was hardly dressed for seduction in her gray striped-silk traveling gown, though she’d certainly made an effort to look presentable. After all, it was not every day that one met one’s future husband.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” the innkeeper called to her from behind the crowded bar.

“Yes. If you please, sir.” Tightening her hands on her carpetbag, she approached the high counter. A very tall man was leaning against the end of it, nursing his drink. His lean, muscular frame was shrouded in a dark wool greatcoat, his face partially hidden by his upturned collar and a tall beaver hat tipped low over his brow. She squeezed into the empty space beside him, her heavy petticoats and crinoline rustling loudly as they pressed against his leg.

She lowered her voice to address the innkeeper directly. “I’m here to see—”

“Blevins!” a man across the room shouted. “Give us another round!”

Before Helena could object, the innkeeper darted off to oblige his customers. She stared after him in helpless frustration. She’d been expected at one o’clock precisely. And now, after the mix-up at the train station and the delay with the accommodation coach—she cast an anxious glance at the small watch she wore pinned to the front of her bodice—it was already a quarter past two.

“Sir!” she called to the innkeeper. She stood up on the toes of her half boots, trying to catch his eye. “Sir!”

He did not acknowledge her. He was exchanging words with the coachman at the other end of the counter as he filled five tankards with ale. The two of them were laughing together with the ease of old friends.

Helena gave a soft huff of annoyance. She was accustomed to being ignored, but this was the outside of enough. Her whole life hinged on the next few moments.

She looked around for someone who might assist her. Her eyes fell at once on the gentleman at her side. He didn’t appear to be a particularly friendly sort of fellow, but his height was truly commanding and surely he must have a voice to match his size.

“I beg your pardon, sir.” She touched him lightly on the arm with one gloved hand. His muscles tensed beneath her fingers. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but would you mind very much to summon—”

He raised his head from drinking and, very slowly, turned to look at her.

The words died on Helena’s lips.

He was burned. Badly burned.

“Do you require something of me, ma’am?” he asked in an excruciatingly civil undertone.

She stared up at him, her first impression of his appearance revising itself by the second. The burns, though severe, were limited to the bottom right side of his face, tracing a path from his cheek down to the edge of his collar and beyond it, she was sure. The rest of his face—a stern face with a strongly chiseled jaw and hawklike aquiline nose—was relatively unmarked. Not only unmarked, but with his black hair and smoke-gray eyes, actually quite devastatingly handsome.

“Do you require something of me?” he asked again, more sharply this time.

She blinked. “Yes. Do forgive me. Would you mind very much summoning the innkeeper? I cannot seem to—”

“Blevins!” the gentleman bellowed.

The innkeeper broke off his loud conversation and scurried back to their end of the counter. “What’s that, guv?”

“The lady wishes to speak with you.”

“Thank you, sir,” Helena said. But the gentleman had already turned his attention back to his drink, dismissing her without a word.

“Yes, ma’am?” the innkeeper prompted.

Abandoning all thoughts of the handsome—and rather rude—stranger at her side, Helena once again addressed herself to the innkeeper. “I was supposed to meet someone here at one o’clock. A Mr. Boothroyd?” She felt the gentleman next to her stiffen, but she did not regard it. “Is he still here?”

“Another one for Boothroyd, are you?” The innkeeper looked her up and down. “Don’t look much like the others.”

Helena’s face fell. “Oh?” she asked faintly. “Have there been others?”

“Aye. Boothroyd’s with the last one now.”

“The last one?” She couldn’t believe it. Mr. Boothroyd had given her the impression that she was the only woman with whom Mr. Thornhill was corresponding. And even if she wasn’t, what sort of man interviewed potential wives for his employer in the same manner one might interview applicants for a position as a maidservant or a cook? It struck her as being in extraordinarily bad taste.

Was Mr. Thornhill aware of what his steward was doing?

She pushed the thought to the back of her mind. It was far too late for doubts. “As that may be, sir, I’ve come a very long way and I’m certain Mr. Boothroyd will wish to see me.”

In fact, she was not at all certain. She had only ever met Mr. Finchley, the sympathetic young attorney in London. It was he who had encouraged her to come to Devon. While the sole interaction she’d had with Mr. Boothroyd and Mr. Thornhill thus far were letters—letters which she currently had safely folded within the contents of her carpetbag.

“Reckon he might at that,” the innkeeper mused.

“Precisely. Now, if you’ll inform Mr. Boothroyd I’ve arrived, I would be very much obliged to you.”

The man beside her finished his ale in one swallow and then slammed the tankard down on the counter. “I’ll take her to Boothroyd.”