A Night Like This (Smythe-Smith Quartet #2)(82)

He was not used to women treating him with disdain, she realized. When she had known him, the girls had fawned and hung on his every word. She did not know what sort of attention he drew now, but the truth was, when he was not red-faced with fury he was not unhandsome, even with his scar. Some women would pity him, but others would probably find him dashing, mysterious even, with what looked like a valiant war wound.
But disdain? He would not like that, especially from her.
“You’re smiling again,” he accused.
“I’m not,” she lied, her voice but a quip.
“Don’t try to cross me,” he raged, poking her shoulder again with his finger. “You cannot win.”
She shrugged.
“What is wrong with you?” he roared.
“Nothing,” she said, because by now she had realized that nothing would infuriate him more than her calm demeanor. He wanted her to cower with terror. He wanted to see her shake, and he wanted to hear her beg.
So instead she turned away from him, keeping her eyes firmly on the window.
“Look at me,” George ordered.
She waited for a moment, then said, “No.”
His voice dropped to a growl. “Look at me.”
“No.”
“Look at me,” he screamed.
This time she did. His voice had reached a pitch of instability, and she realized that she was already tensing her shoulders, waiting for a blow. She stared at him without speaking.
“You cannot win against me,” he snarled.
“I shall try,” Anne said softly. Because she was not giving up without a fight. And if he managed to destroy her, then as God was her witness, she was taking him down, too.
The Pleinsworth coach sped along the Hampstead Road, the team of six pulling the carriage with speeds not often seen on the route. If they looked out of place—a large, opulent coach going breakneck speed with armed outriders—Daniel did not care. They might attract attention, but not from Chervil. He was at least an hour ahead of them; if he was indeed going to an inn in Hampstead, he would be there already, inside and thus unlikely to see them on the street.
Unless the room was facing the street . . .
Daniel let out a shaky breath. He would have to cross that bridge if he came to it. He could either get to Anne quickly or stealthily, and given what she’d told him of Chervil, he was opting for speed.
“We will find her,” Marcus said in a quiet voice.
Daniel looked up. Marcus did not radiate power and swagger, but then again, he never had. Marcus was dependable, and quietly confident, and right then, his eyes held a resoluteness that Daniel found comforting. Daniel gave a nod, then turned back to the window. Beside him his aunt was keeping up a steady stream of nervous chatter as she clutched Frances’s hand. Frances kept saying, “I don’t see it. I don’t see his carriage yet,” even though Daniel had more than once told her that they had not yet reached Hampstead.
“Are you sure you will be able to recognize the carriage?” Lady Pleinsworth asked Frances with a dubious frown. “One looks very much like another to me. Unless there is a crest . . .”
“It’s got a funny bar on it,” Frances said. “I will know it.”
“What do you mean, a funny bar?” Daniel asked.
“I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “I don’t think it does anything. It’s just for decoration. But it’s gold, and it swirls.” She made a motion in with her hand, and it brought to mind Anne’s hair the night before, when she had twisted her wet locks into a thick coil.
“Actually,” Frances said, “it reminded me of a unicorn’s horn.”
Daniel felt himself smile. He turned to his aunt. “She will recognize the carriage.”
They sped past several of London’s outlying hamlets, finally reaching the quaint village of Hampstead. Off in the distance, Daniel could see the wild green of the famed heath. It was a huge expanse of land, putting the London parks to shame.
“How do you want to do this?” Hugh asked. “It might be best to go on foot.”
“No!” Lady Pleinsworth turned on him with visible hostility. “Frances is not getting out of the carriage.”
“We will go up the high street,” Daniel said. “Everyone shall look for inns and public houses—anyplace where Chervil might have hired a room. Frances, you search for the carriage. If we don’t find anything, we shall start on the smaller alleys.”
Hampstead seemed to have a remarkable number of inns. They passed the King William IV on the left, the Thatched House on the right, and then the Holly Bush on the left again, but even though Marcus hopped out to peer around the backs to look for anything resembling the “unicorn” carriage Frances had described, they found nothing. Just to be sure, Marcus and Daniel went inside each of the inns and asked if they had seen anyone matching Anne’s and George Chervil’s descriptions, but no one had.
And given the description Frances had given him of Chervil’s scar, Daniel rather thought Chervil would have been noticed. And remembered.
Daniel hopped back into the coach, which was waiting on the high street, attracting a fair bit of attention from the townspeople. Marcus had already returned, and he and Hugh were talking about something in animated, yet quiet, tones.
“Nothing?” Marcus asked, looking up.
“Nothing,” Daniel confirmed.
“There’s another inn,” Hugh said. “It’s inside the heath, on Spaniards Road. I have been there before.” He paused. “It’s more remote.”
“Let’s go,” Daniel said grimly. It was possible they had missed an inn near the high street, but they could always come back. And Frances had said that Chervil had specifically mentioned “the heath.”