Gregory’s indignation swelled to new proportions at hearing himself being described as a ‘sharp’. He’d never cheated or swindled anyone in his life.
‘It’s horrid, isn’t it?’ said Prudence softly, coming to stand next to him. ‘Having persons like that—’ she jerked her head in the landlord’s direction ‘—doubt your word.’
‘It is indeed,’ he replied. It was especially so since, viewed dispassionately, everything he’d done since entering this inn had given the man just cause for doing so.
‘Though to be fair,’ she added philosophically, ‘we don’t look the sort of people I would trust if I was running this kind of business.’ She frowned. ‘I put that very clumsily, but you know what I mean.’ She waved a hand between them.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I do know exactly what you mean.’
He’d just thought it himself. Her aunt had marked him as a villain the night before just because of his black eye. Since then he’d acquired a gash, a day’s growth of beard, and a liberal smear of mud all down one side of his coat. He’d been unable to pay for his meal, and had then started waving ladies’ undergarments under the landlord’s nose.
As for Prudence—with her hair all over the place, and wearing the jacket she’d borrowed from him rather than a lady’s spencer over her rumpled gown—she, too, now looked thoroughly disreputable.
Admirably calm though, considering the things she’d been through. Calm enough to look at things from the landlord’s point of view.
‘You take it all on the chin, don’t you? Whatever life throws at you?’
‘Well, there’s never any point in weeping and wailing, is there? All that does is make everyone around you irritable.’
Was that what had happened to her? When first her mother and then her father had died, and one grandfather had refused to accept responsibility for her and the other had palmed her off on a cold, resentful aunt? He wouldn’t have blamed her for weeping in such circumstances. And he could easily see that bony woman becoming irritated.
He wished there had been someone there for her in those days. He wished there was something he could do for her now. Although it struck him now that she’d come to stand by his side, as though she was trying to help him.
To be honest, and much to his surprise, she had succeeded. He did feel better. Less insulted by the landlord’s mistrustfulness, at any rate.
‘We do look rather like a pair of desperate criminals,’ he admitted, leaning down so he could murmur into her ear. ‘In fact it is a wonder the landlord permitted us to enter his establishment at all.’
Just then a tow-headed individual poked his head through the open window.
‘What’s up, Sarge?’
‘This ’ere gent,’ said the landlord ironically, ‘claims he has a horse and gig in your stable. Know anything about it?’
As the stable lad squinted at him Gregory’s heart sped up. Incredible to feel nervous. Yet the prospect that Jem might fail to recognise him was very real. He’d only caught a glimpse of him as he’d handed over the reins, after all.
Prudence patted his hand, as though she knew exactly what he was thinking. Confirming his suspicions that she was trying to reassure him all would be well.
‘Bad-tempered nag,’ Jem pronounced after a second or two, much to Gregory’s relief. ‘And a Yarmouth coach.’
Yes, that was a close enough description of the rig he’d been driving.
‘Right,’ said the landlord decisively. ‘Back to work, then.’
Jem withdrew his head and the landlord slammed the window shut behind him.
Gregory resisted the peculiar fleeting urge to take hold of Prudence’s hand. Focussed on the landlord.
‘So, we have a deal?’ he said firmly.
‘I suppose,’ said the landlord grudgingly. ‘Except now I’m going to have your animal eating its head off at my expense for the Lord knows how long.’
‘Fair point. How about this? If I’m not back within the space of one week from today, with what we owe for the meal we’ve eaten, plus the cost of stabling the horse, you can sell the beast and the...er...Yarmouth coach.’
‘One week from today?’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘I s’pose that’d do. But only if you put something in writing first.’
‘Naturally. Bring me pen and paper and you may have my vowels.’
The landlord screwed up his face and shook his head, indicating his reluctance to let them out of his sight even for the length of time it would take to fetch writing implements. Instead, he rummaged in his apron pocket and produced what looked like a bill and a stub of pencil, then slapped both on the table.
As Gregory bent to write the necessary phrases on the back of the bill he heard the sound of a coaching horn. Closely followed by the noise of wheels rattling into the yard. Then two surprisingly smart waiters strode into the coffee room, bearing trays of cups and tankards.
The landlord swept Gregory’s note and the pencil back into his pocket without even glancing at them, his mind clearly on the next influx of customers.
‘Get out,’ he said brusquely. ‘Before I change my mind and send for the constable anyway.’
Gregory didn’t need telling twice. He snatched up the valise with the incriminating stays with one hand, and grabbed Prudence’s arm with the other. Then he dragged her from the room against the tide of people surging in, all demanding coffee or ale.
‘Come on,’ he growled at her. ‘Stop dragging your heels. We need to get out of here before that fat fool changes his mind.’
‘But...’ she panted. ‘How on earth are we going to get wherever it is you planned to take me without your gig?’
‘Never mind that now. The first thing to do is find a pawn shop.’
‘It will be in a back street somewhere,’ she said. ‘So that people can hope nobody will see them going in.’
‘It isn’t a very big town,’ he said, on a last flickering ray of hope. ‘There might not even be one.’
‘If there wasn’t the landlord would have said so,’ she pointed out with annoyingly faultless logic.
Condemning him to the humiliating prospect of sneaking into some back street pawn shop. After all the times he’d lectured Hugo about the evils of dealing with pawnbrokers and moneylenders.
‘And I don’t see why you have to walk so fast,’ she complained. ‘Not when we have a whole week to raise the money.’
‘We?’ He couldn’t believe she could speak of his possessions as though they were her own. As though she had some rights as to how he should dispose of them. ‘I am the one who is going to have to pawn my watch.’
‘I’m sorry. I can see how reluctant you are to part with it. But you know I don’t have anything of value.’
‘Not any more,’ he fumed. ‘Thanks to you.’
‘What do you mean, thanks to me?’
‘I mean that you had my purse. Which contained easily enough money to last until the end of the week. I can’t believe how careless you are.’
‘Careless? What do you mean? Are you implying it’s my fault you lost your purse?’
‘Well, you were wearing my jacket when those oafs jostled it out of the pocket.’
‘What oafs?’ She frowned. ‘Oh. You mean when we came in here?’
He