Page 15 of The Rebellious Countess
“Send the maid up with enough food for the two of us. Then my wife will need water for her bath. We’ll be in Hag’s room. She was good enough to offer it up, seeing as how we’re newlyweds.”
“Oui, monsieur.” The cook didn’t bat an eye at his request. She did ogle his naked chest and legs that dripped with waterwith each step he took, until her eyes snagged on the cockstand he couldn’t hide. The bloody thing had been wanting his wife for too bloody long. He winked and the older woman grinned, her sagging cheeks turning the slightest bit pink before she turned back to her stove.
He felt a pinch on his backside and couldn’t help but laugh at the minx in his arms. “There will be time enough for that when we get to our room, Wife.”
She pinched him harder and his cock responded in kind, as he thought about her bare hands on his buttocks, nails biting into his flesh while he drove into her tight, sweet cunny. If his head wasn’t splitting, she would be in danger of losing more than the filthy clothes she wore. As it was, all he wanted to do was take another bath and fall onto a mattress. Any clean mattress would do.
It was the lie he kept telling himself. His traitorous cock, however, was the only honest bone in his body.
At the top of the stairs Máira spoke. “Hag won’t be happy with you taking her room.”
“It will beustaking her room, not me.”
“Same thing.”
“Not even close. If it were just me, she’d shoot me.”
“Like the man she shot yesterday?”
Her question spoke of fear and shock, and so much more that a gently bred woman should never be forced to endure. Yet he could tell she wanted him to believe she was as comfortable with their conversation as she would be if they were discussing the weather while she lounged in her library doing needlepoint. She deserved more truth than he could give her, and knowing that only caused the pang of guilt to squeeze harder.
He would make certain she was safely returned to her home, but it was up to Sir Williamson to repair the damage to her reputation.
Elias looked down the darkened hallway and listened for any source of danger among the other guests. Normally he stayed in the first door on the right. Since he was taking Hag’s room he went in the opposite direction, to the left. Once they were inside, he could slip the drawbar into place, sealing the heavy wooden door like a medieval castle. If they needed to escape due to the tavern being under siege, or Peter bringing troops to take them into custody, the drop from the window would be soft enough to survive without breaking a limb. To climb into it, however, would take a man with the capabilities of a spider.
At Hag’s room, Elias made his way inside, kicked the door closed and set Máira down on her feet before turning to slide the heavy drawbar into place. He lit a candle and glanced around the room. “Hag has been doing very well for herself as of late.”
The bed was large, with a deep luxurious mattress and bedding made of the highest quality linen and deep burgundy silk that glistened in the dim light of the fireplace. In the corner near the window was a screen hiding a copper tub fit for a queen, or at least a duchess. The ornate desk and chair on the opposite wall of the bed was as opulent as the furniture sold out of the Palace of Versailles, and Elias wondered if Hag had bartered for the piece the same way she had maneuvered him out of more Scotch whisky. He walked over and checked the desk drawer but found it to be locked. It wouldn’t take much to break into it, but he couldn’t do it without destroying the drawer and lock which would defeat any attempt at stealth. If it were any other mission, he would take his chances. Discovering Hag’s secrets, however, was of personal interest, not the Crown’s.
A table and singular chair sat next to the fireplace. He stared at the scene and imagined the small, stern redhead, capable of killing a man in cold blood, eating alone while looking out the window into a back garden that hadn’t been tended to ina decade. He, of all people, knew Hag had chosen this life for herself, but it still didn’t make it any less tragic.
Shaking off memories that threatened to engulf him with melancholy, Elias pulled the desk chair over to the table and offered it to Máira. “Have a seat. As soon as our food arrives, we’ll eat and then you can take your bath.”
She nodded and did as she was told, which spoke of how hungry and tired she had to be. “Start with yesterday morning and tell me everything that happened to bring you here tonight.”
She sighed. “As I said, Peter came to my cabin after breakfast. He said we were going ashore, but I had to hurry and be quiet, lest one of the crew saw us and reported my escape to you.”
“Report your escape? He said he was helping you escape—me?”
“Yes.”
His teeth ground together. “Continue.”
“When we got ashore, he helped me out of the dinghy and told me to go to The Happy Hag. He said you would be at the tavern later that evening, so I should not lollygag around if I wanted get transportation back to Scotland before you arrived. I was to tell Hag I was your wife, and she would help me get passage on another ship.”
That was true. It would take some work on Hag’s part, but she would get it done and then charge him the price of his ship for her help when he came into the tavern in the evening. But Peter knew he was going to meet the captain of another ship before his meeting at The Happy Hag. He had made arrangements for Máira’s trip home first thing when he’d come ashore.
“What time did he bring you ashore?”
“It was seven o’clock. I know, because my meal arrived promptly at half past six every morning I was on theMaribelle,and several of the crew were awake.”
“I had left the ship by then and was already making arrangements for you to be on a ship home this morning.”
Her blank stare said she didn’t believe him. He didn’t blame her. His first mate would have no reason to lie to her. Even he couldn’t see a reason why Peter would fabricate such a story. Why had he circumvented Elias’s plans? Had Peter known he’d been kidnapped?
No. That couldn’t be. Jack and Billy had thought he’d hidden Máira somewhere in town, so Peter had left the ship with Máira prior to Jack and Billy kidnapping him.
He needed to speak with Peter and find out if the mission was in jeopardy, then kill him if treason was the reason for his deception. “Did you make your way directly here?”
