Page 18 of The Duke's Price
She went off into her room, and the innkeeper watched her go. “That pretty child. It is monstrous to think of it, her and that man. How can I help you, Monsieur and Madame?”
“Can you tell us where we can buy a carriage?” Perry asked. “Now? In the middle of the night? I am, of course, prepared to pay a premium. Money means nothing compared to the safety of my wife and child.”
“He was aguérilla, this Garcia?” the innkeeper asked.
“He was the second in command of the band known asLos Demonios,” said Bella.
The innkeeper’s eyes widened. “El Diablo’s people? Certainly, the young miss must not fall into their hands. I shall sell you my carriage, Mr. De-Ath.”
Perry went down with the innkeeper to see the carriage, using the servants stairs to avoid Garcia and his men. It transpired that the innkeeper’s wife had been angling for a better carriage. The innkeeper was blunt about it. “I am charging you more than the carriage and team are worth, Mr. De-Ath, but you are rich. Also, I and my people are taking a risk, keeping information from one of those demons. You will pay my price, yes? And then the little miss will be safe, my wife happy, and all of us shall have what we want except that swine Garcia.”
The price he named was extortionate and once more reduced Perry’s cash reserves to almost nothing, but Perry supposed he was buying the inn’s silence as well as the carriage and team. He agreed. “We are very grateful,” he assured the innkeeper as sincerely as he could, as the man robbed him blind.
The innkeeper somewhat redeemed himself by helping Walter and Perry to harness the carriage, since Perry wanted as few people as possible to know when they left and in what vehicle. Garcia and his men were on the other side of the inn, the innkeeper said, and undoubtedly fast asleep. He had heard Garcia talk about visiting every inn in Toulouse to ask after the De-Ath party.
“He will not get much cooperation. I shall spread the news that he was with the Demons.”
That couldn’t hurt, and even without the people of Toulouse being deliberately obstructive, checking all the inns would take Garcia most of the day. Perry and his people would have a fair start. The sky was clear, and the moon, though past full, would be in the sky before they left the last lights of Toulouse. They should be able to travel quickly on a good road.
With the innkeeper’s help, and with Ruth and Bella carrying a trunk between them, they fetched the luggage in one trip, loaded the carriage, and said their thanks and farewells. The innkeeper waved them on their way. “Good luck to you and your ladies, sir,” he said, “and a plague on Garcia and all his men.”
Perry took the driver’s seat for the first part of the trip. Walter would be able to manage in full daylight, so Perry would take a rest then, but not now. Not with chancy visibility, an unfamiliar team, and an unknown road. He had no doubt of his own ability to keep his precious cargo safely on the road.
Precious cargo? What sentimental claptrap. He had made a promise and he was keeping it. That was all. Added to that, Ruth Henwood had still not paid her fee. And if he began thinking about the evening’s entertainment and where it might have led, he would overturn the carriage himself.
Ah, Ruth. I fear you will be my ruination.
Ruth was exhausted,and sore all over. Between moonrise and sunset some sixteen hours later, they had travelled from Toulouse to Carcassonne, stopping only to change horses and attend to the needs of their bodies, Walter and De-Ath taking it in turns to drive.
They used different names at each stop, hoping to throw Garcia off their trail. Bella and De-Ath thoroughly enjoyed inventing them, each trying to top the other with more and more ridiculous suggestions.
Exchanging stories had entertained them for most of the journey. De-Ath and Walter had an inexhaustible store of tales. Bella had had some hair-raising adventures as a child causing as many problems for invaders as possible. Ruth, by contrast, hadled a calm and uninteresting life, apart from one incident in her youth, when her first position had ended with her and her pupils having to make a wild escape.
But that adventure was not fully hers to share, and even that had led to six years of peaceful village living. She could, however, and did share the adventures of the Redepennings, the family she had come to regard as her own.
She spoke of Rede, the Earl of Chirbury, his years as a trapper in Canada, and his romance with Ruth’s first pupil and almost sister, Anne. Also, his cousin Alex, and his desperate escape from villains with his now wife, Ella. Both of them injured and weak, they had sent Alex’s manservant to draw off the pursuers and had ridden in comfort from Cheshire to London on a canal boat.
Alex’s sister Susan had fallen in love with her husband when they pursued her daughter and a French spy up the Great North Road. Dear Mia, married to Alex’s brother Jules, had faced off and defeated a kidnapper who was trying to steal her stepson, and a group of French spies who had made a prisoner of her husband. And who could have expected that the love Kitty, Anne’s sister, had for a gamekeeper would led to an all-out battle for control of a village in the far north of England?
It helped to pass the time, even with repeats as one driver replaced another, saying, “Get Miss Henwood to tell you about…” or “You won’t believe what her Highness said about…”
Even so, in the last couple of hours they had run out of stories, or perhaps just out of energy. Surely, at the speed they had been going, they had left Garcia far behind and could afford to stop for the night at Carcassonne?
Ruth heaved a sigh of relief as they turned into the stable yard of an inn.
“He might just be going to change horses,” Bella said gloomily, referring to De-Ath, who was driving.
But when the carriage stopped and De-Ath opened the door, he said, “I’ll take a couple of rooms for the night, but we’ll be on our way first thing in the morning. I don’t want to give Garcia time to catch up.”
The inn was a bit rougher than last night’s place. “We will eat in the ladies’ room,” he instructed the innkeeper. “Whatever you have hot, and as fast as possible. A jug of wine with it. A bath to be delivered to the ladies’ room as soon as the meal is cleared.”
The ladies’ room, he said.So,he did not mean to continue what they had started. At least tonight. Was Ruth pleased or disappointed? She was too tired to decide.
Money changed hands and the innkeeper nodded and agreed to everything.
Over the meal, a delicious stew with crusty bread, De-Ath said to Walter, “I have one more errand this evening. Are you awake enough to come with me?”
“Always,” Walter replied.
