A Hellion in Her Bed (13 page)

Yet he did.

“I hate to interrupt you, Annabel,” Mrs. Lake said, “but we’re coming up on Dunstable, and his lordship might like to pause here for a little refreshment.”

Annabel laughed. “You only want to stop and see your friend Mrs. Cranley at the Bear Inn.” She cast Jarret a conspiratorial glance. “They knew each other as girls. The woman is a walking gossip rag, and Sissy drinks up every word.”

Mrs. Lake tipped up her chin. “What’s wrong with keeping up with what’s going on in the world? Especially if his lordship doesn’t mind. I really am hungry.”

“Then let’s stop there.” Jarret was restless, and so was the boy. “I could use something to eat myself.”

Though Annabel rolled her eyes as he gave the command to his coachman, Mrs. Lake looked very pleased, and young George finally relaxed.

After they reached the Bear Inn and Jarret helped the ladies descend, Mrs. Lake hurried George inside, leaving Jarret to accompany Annabel. Annabel fell back to put a little distance between her and her family and murmured, “Thank you for not revealing the real terms of our wager.”

“I take it that your sister-in-law wouldn’t approve?”

“It would most assuredly shock her.”

“Not as much as it shocked me, I warrant,” he said under his breath. And intrigued him. And made him want to get her into a corner for another hot kiss.

He frowned—there he went again, letting his cock think for him.

Ahead of them, a woman rushed forward to greet Mrs. Lake. “How lovely to see you again, my dear! I take it that your mission to London was successful?”

This had to be Mrs. Cranley. She looked like a typical innkeeper’s wife—ruddy-cheeked, round, and ready to gossip.

“It went better than even we expected,” Mrs. Lake chirped. “His lordship was kind enough to offer his brother’s carriage so that we might travel in comfort to Burton.”

“His lordship?” Mrs. Cranley cast him an assessing gaze. “I thought you intended to ask Mrs. Plumtree for help.”

“Unfortunately she couldn’t come, but her grandson has
agreed to help us instead. Lord Jarret Sharpe, may I present Mrs. Cranley? She and her husband own this inn.”

As Mrs. Cranley heard his name, a palpable change came over her face. Though she curtsied stiffly and murmured a greeting, her demeanor showed that she considered Jarret one of the devil’s minions. Or perhaps the devil himself. Apparently his reputation had preceded him.

As soon as she straightened, she grabbed Mrs. Lake’s arm in one hand and Annabel’s in the other. “Come, my dears, we must talk.”

“Stay with his lordship, Geordie,” Mrs. Lake admonished the lad.

Wonderful. Now he was reduced to watching the cub like some tutor on the Grand Tour.

“And make sure you visit the necessary, Geordie,” Annabel added.

“Aunt Annabel!” the boy protested, his face flushing a bright red.

As she and his mother went off with the innkeeper’s wife, Geordie turned to Jarret. “They always talk as if I’m in leading strings. It’s damned embarrassing.”

Jarret resisted the urge to point out that using words like
damned
wouldn’t help the situation with his aunt and mother. “Sorry, George, but to them, you’ll always be in leading strings, no matter how old you get.”

The idea seemed to appall George. “Does
your
mother treat you like that?”

“No.” A sudden tightness in Jarret’s throat made it hard for him to speak. “She died when I was a little older than you.”

“Oh, right, I forgot.” George shoved his hands in his pockets. “That’s awful. I wouldn’t like Mother and Aunt Annabel
to die, but sometimes I wish they would just leave me alone. Like when Toby Mawer is around.”

“Who’s Toby Mawer?”

“My archenemy. He’s seventeen and bigger than me. And he’s always hanging about in the field behind our house with his friends, waiting to torment me.”

“Ah. I had an archenemy in school named John Pratt. Always taking my things.”

“Exactly. He tried to take the watch Father gave me for Christmas, but I outran him.” His words came out in a great rush. “He’s always calling me Georgie-Porgie. And one time, when he saw Mother kiss me on the cheek, he called me a mama’s boy. Why does she have to kiss me when the lads are watching?”

“Because women have deplorable timing for things like that. I used to cringe when Mother fussed over me while my friends were around. Although now that she’s gone …”

He caught himself before he could reveal that he would give his right arm to have his mother fussing over him again. That watching Mrs. Lake and Annabel coddle the lad roused a ridiculous resentment in him. George had no idea how fragile such caring could be, how easily it could be snatched away—

God, he was turning maudlin. This was what came of letting people into one’s life. One started to yearn for things one had no business yearning for.

He clapped George on the shoulder. “Enough about that. Why don’t we get a table while the ladies are off gossiping?”

The inn wasn’t crowded at this time of day, so it took them little time to find a place. Jarret ordered what George suggested the ladies might like, then decided to make good use
of his time alone with the lad. “So, how long has your father been ill?”

George’s face closed up. “I … I … well … awhile. A long while.”

A long while? That didn’t sound like the sort of illness Annabel had described.

“Then it’s serious,” he said, feeling for the boy.

“No … I mean … yes.” He smiled weakly. “I’m not really sure.”

Odd. “And he doesn’t go to the brewery at all?”

“He goes sometimes,” the lad hedged, “when he’s not … feeling so ill.”

“And when he doesn’t go, your aunt goes. Do you go with her?”

“No.” His expression was troubled.

Jarret well remembered the pain he’d felt at being packed off to school instead of being allowed to be useful to his family. “Why not?”

“Because everyone says it’s too dangerous for me.”

It seemed that several things were
too dangerous
for poor Geordie, according to his mother and aunt. “And you wonder how it can be too dangerous for you, but not too dangerous for a woman.”

“I-I didn’t say that.”

But his lower lip quivered, and Jarret knew that he’d thought it. Jarret would have wondered much the same thing in George’s place. Boys of twelve chafed at being told that a woman could do things better than they could, even if it were true.

“Father says women don’t belong in the brewery,” George ventured.

“Ah.” No wonder Annabel was so defensive on the subject.
Yet clearly she went there anyway. Did her brother allow it because he had no choice, given his illness? Or did Annabel have to go for other reasons?

Once again, he got the feeling that there was more here than met the eye. “What do
you
think about women in the brewery?”

George blinked. Clearly no one ever asked him his opinion. “I don’t rightly know, since I’m not allowed there myself. Aunt Annabel seems to like it, and Mother says she does a good job.”

“And your father? What does he say about her prowess?”

Her voice answered from behind him. “He says I should get a husband and leave brewery matters to his manager.” Annabel glowered at him. “But you didn’t need to interrogate my nephew just to learn
that
, did you?”

Jarret met her glower with a raised eyebrow. Well, well. There was definitely more here than met the eye. Annabel was keeping secrets. The question was, what kind? And how might they affect him and this scheme of hers?

One way or the other, he would find out.

A
nnabel was already cranky because of Mrs. Cranley’s nonsense, and finding Jarret quizzing poor Geordie only made it worse. If Jarret found out the real reason that Plumtree Brewery was failing, there would be no more help from him.

But she didn’t think he’d learned that, or he’d be angry at her. No anger showed on his face, only the sort of wariness he’d worn from the beginning.

Good. Right now they had far more pressing concerns.

“I have bad news,” she went on in a low tone. “Apparently a man present at our card game in London happened to pass through here this morning. He told Mrs. Cranley that a Miss River from Wharton gambled with your lordship at a tavern last night.”

A thin smile tipped up his lips. “A ‘Miss River’? And your friend, Mrs. Cranley, didn’t make that connection?”

“Fortunately, no. And she’s no friend to me. Since her informant made … certain nasty insinuations about your ‘scandalous conduct’ toward ‘Miss River,’ Mrs. Cranley is full
of concern about our traveling with you.” Her voice turned bitter. “She says you’re a notorious seducer of innocents, and we should tell you to go on while we stay here until the mail coach comes through.”

His face turned stony, with only the glitter of his blue-green eyes betraying his anger. She felt a moment’s pity for him. He must tire of the gossip.

Then again, the only one who would really suffer from the gossip was
her
, if anyone ever connected “Miss River of Wharton” to “Miss Lake of Burton.” She wished she could give Mrs. Cranley a piece of her mind about rumormongering, but that would only focus the woman’s attention in the wrong direction.

This was Annabel’s punishment for having accepted Jarret’s wager. She should have realized that the men in the tavern would make lurid assumptions about what a rogue like Jarret must have asked her to do in payment for the bet. Men always assumed the worst about women, and she ought to be used to that by now. Especially when their assumptions hadn’t been far off the mark.

A door opened behind Jarret, and Annabel groaned. “Sissy is coming. Honestly, I think we should just leave. I don’t know how much of a fuss that foolish woman will make if we stay, and you shouldn’t have to put up with her nonsense.”

With eyes that brooked no argument, Jarret leaned back to cross his arms over his chest. “I’m used to gossip. Besides, I’ve already ordered.” His smile was forced. “Let her say what she will. I’m not budging until I get my roast loin of pork.”

Sissy strode up, looking anxious. “I don’t think my friend will say anything, my lord. I told her how kind you’ve been to us and how false the gossip is.” She took a seat across from Jarret on the other side of Geordie. “Mrs. Cranley is no
fool—I’m sure now that I’ve explained to her about your fine character, she’ll understand.”

Somehow Annabel doubted it.

Nervously, Sissy unfolded her napkin. “Though it’s probably just as well that she didn’t guess ‘Miss River’s’ true identity. I swear, I can’t believe the awful things people dream up. Whoever this wretched traveler was, he ought to be shot for claiming that you and Annabel were wagering for something as salacious as—”

“Sissy!” Annabel cut in, with a glance at Geordie.

Sissy colored. “Oh, right.”

“What does ‘salacious’ mean?” Geordie asked predictably.

“Never you mind, Geordie,” Sissy said. “Sit down, Annabel. I’m sure Mrs. Cranley will not be rude.”

With a sigh, Annabel took the seat beside Jarret. Sissy had a tendency to think the best of people who didn’t deserve it.

“If ‘salacious’ comes from Latin,” Geordie mused aloud, “then it has to do with leaping. What is there to wager over in that?”

“It doesn’t concern you,” Annabel said. “You can look it up when we get home.”

“But I want to know
now
!” he protested. “It could have something to do with leapfrog—”

“It means ‘lustful,’” Jarret put in. When Annabel shot him a reproving glance, he added, “The lad is old enough to be told when a member of his family has been insulted.”

Geordie sat up straight. “Yes, I am. Old enough to call the man out for it, too.”

“Don’t be silly, Geordie,” Sissy said. “That traveler is long gone by now.”

“And he’d be unlikely to agree to a duel with a twelve-
year-old, anyway,” Annabel said dryly. She raised her eyebrows at Jarret. “You see what you started?”

“If George is providing you ladies with protection,” Jarret countered, “he should start thinking like a man. He can’t do that when you treat him like a child.”

Though Annabel bristled, Sissy flashed Jarret a strained smile. “How kind of you to take such an interest in our Geordie, my lord. Isn’t it, Annabel?”

Annabel’s eyes narrowed on him. “Yes. So very kind of him.”

“Hardly,” he remarked. “I merely remember what it was like to be twelve.”

That gave her pause. What
had
Jarret been like at twelve? As feckless as he was now? Or more sober? He’d said his grandmother had raised him from the age of thirteen. Had his character changed then? No one could survive the violent deaths of their parents and be untouched by it.

Or perhaps her attraction to him was making her look for depths of character where none existed.
Careful now, missy. There’s always some truth to even the vilest gossip.

Just then, a servant approached with their food. There was no sign of Mrs. Cranley, thank goodness. Apparently the woman had contented herself with merely cautioning Annabelle and Sissy about Jarret’s character.

The servant set the ale down first. Annabelle sniffed it. Leave it to Mrs. Cranley to purchase an inferior brew. She sipped some and wrinkled her nose, too engrossed in assessing its quality to notice when Sissy told the servant to take one of the plates back to the kitchen.

“The mistress insisted that I give it to his lordship,” the servant countered and tried to scoot past her to put it before Jarret.

Sissy whisked it from the maid before the girl could react. “He can have the other.” When the servant protested again, Sissy began to eat from it. With a shrug, the servant served Geordie.

“It’s all the same food, Mother,” Geordie said. “I told Lord Jarret you were fond of a good loin of pork.”

“I am indeed,” she said as she took another big bite. Then she made a face.

At that, Jarret’s eyes narrowed. Reaching over, he snatched the plate from her and stared hard at it. “You can’t eat this.”

That’s when Annabelle looked closer. The meat’s off color and rancid smell made her gag. She glanced at the other dinners, but theirs looked fine.