Page 86 of Almost a Bride
“But why?”
Her frightened eyes made him ache to reassure her, and he smiled to hide the knot of grief gripping his chest. “I need to enter London as myself, to prove that I have nothing to hide.”
She trimmed his hair and beard, and he took a sharp knife to the whiskers left on his face. He’d been wearing that beard for well over a year. As he looked into the cloudy hand mirror, he could see that his skin was paler where the beard had been.
He suddenly felt more like himself, more confident that he could convince the queen and her government that he had only done their bidding.
He definitely enjoyed Roselyn’s startled look as she studied his face, and the blush that she tried to hide.
~oOo~
As the sun set and the sky reddened across long fingers of clouds, Roselyn rode beside Spencer into the narrow streets of Southwark on the southern bank of the Thames, where she and Philip had lived. Returning reminded her how much she hated London, from the traitors’ heads mounted in warning on London Bridge, to the rats and refuse overflowing the trenches in the center of every street.
In London itself she had always ridden by carriage, but as a resident of Southwark she had walked everywhere. Now, mounted on a horse, she felt the overhanging floors of the houses pressing in on her. She’d forgotten the smells of a crowded town, forgotten the constant noise of vendors calling, “Hot apples,” or “Fresh herrings,” and the never-ending sound of hammer on metal.
Everywhere people pressed in on her, startling Angel. Roselyn wanted to crawl into Spencer’s lap and let him hold her, but that would be cowardly. So instead she concentrated on him, on the stunning face revealed under his beard. His handsomeness awed her.
He ducked beneath a tavern sign, then rode down a narrow alley. She tapped Angel’s flanks to catch up with him. A courtyard and garden opened up behind the tavern, with a crowded stable for guests’ horses.
“This is it,” Spencer said, dismounting, then limping over to help her to the ground. “I know the owner well. We’ll leave the horses here and continue across the Thames by wherry.”
“Why by boat?”
He put his arms around her and nuzzled her ear. “Because my home is best approached that way.”
“Of course,” she breathed, suddenly excited and nervous to see his home. Surely if he were guilty, he would have fled London, not shown his clean-shaven face and taken her proudly to his family.
She knew then that she trusted him, that he was telling her the truth. Wouldn’t a man being chased by his enemy run the other way, instead of facing his accuser? She would give Spencer the pouch, in hopes that it would help him make everything right, and then they would have plenty of time to discuss their life together.
After he had made arrangements to temporarily stable their horses, they moved off through Southwark, picking their way through the garbage on the streets.
“Where are we going?” Roselyn asked as she clutched his hand and balanced her saddlebag with the other.
“To the river. I think the best place to hire a wherry is down this street.”
“No, this way,” she said, veering opposite the way he meant to go. “I lived near here.”
She saw his face pale, then he put his arm around her and gave her a fierce hug.
“You’re a brave woman,” he said hoarsely, “but I still say this is the street.”
She tugged on his hand. “But I’m certain—”
Her voice faded away as three dangerous-looking ruffians emerged from the shadows of an alley behind Spencer. Spencer’s own face was wiped of all emotion just as a man’s hand gripped her elbow and yanked her back against him. Her nose felt assaulted by the smell.
“Gentlemen,” Spencer said smoothly, wearing an amused expression. “I suggest you let the lady go and be on your way.”
The hand gripping her elbow only tightened, and a rumbling voice said, “We’ll be takin’ yer purse, man. The odds be four to one, eh?”
Spencer swiftly brought his cane up hard, cracking it against the temple of one of the brigands, who promptly collapsed into a sewage-filled trench.
“Three to one,” Spencer said.
Chapter 26
Two of the brigands grabbed Spencer, and Roselyn screamed as the third covered her mouth. She tasted dirt and beer and something so vile she wanted to gag.
Though she fought, the man dragged her down a dark alley. The last she saw of Spencer, he had pulled the sword from its scabbard, and was threatening one man while trying to dislodge the other who had an arm wrapped around his neck.
