The Perfect Princess (13 page)

No one asked. No one was curious. No one gave her a second glance, or noticed the appeal in her eyes, or the silent messages she tried to pass. No one noticed that she wasn’t a young man but a woman in men’s clothing. And no one noticed that beneath the saddlebags he held loosely over one arm, Maitland concealed a pistol. The landlord, a dull, shabby fellow, brightened only when Maitland placed a sovereign on the counter and ordered sandwiches, coffee, and hot water to be brought to their room. The landlord didn’t even ask how they had got there, but seemed to assume that they’d arrived on horseback and had left their horses in the livery stable.

Though she had traveled extensively, Rosamund had never once stayed at an inn. Her father wouldn’t hear of it. The Clarendon, His Grace’s London address, didn’t count because the duke’s suite of rooms was on the
ground floor and had its own entrance. God forbid that she should mix with any of the hotel guests! And on her various journeys, there were always friends or acquaintances of the duke to welcome her into their homes and see to her comfort. She had chafed at these restraints because she was always surrounded by old people, and Callie had fired her imagination with tales of the Pelican and the Castle, superior inns on the road to Bath, where manners were free and easy, and one could sit down to dinner with perfect strangers and be fast friends by the time the last course was served.

One comprehensive glance informed her that the Black Prince wasn’t the kind of inn Callie had in mind. The ceilings were low, the floor was crooked, and there was hardly enough room for two people to pass on the stairs. As for the patrons, the few that she saw coming and going, they looked like horse thieves and spoke in a dialect she could hardly understand.

The landlord rang a hand bell. When no one answered it, he bellowed, “Becky!” and rang the bell again.

A moment later, a young woman in a mobcap came from the back of the inn, drying her hands on her apron, muttering to herself all the while. When she saw Maitland and Rosamund, she stopped dead and her eyes widened.

Rosamund’s heart lurched.
This is it
, she thought.
Rescue at last!
Maybe Becky recognized her, or maybe she recognized Maitland. Yes, it must be Maitland, because Becky could hardly tear her eyes from him.

The landlord said something, but Rosamund didn’t hear. She was waiting for the maid to scream; she was thinking ahead, trying to figure out what she should do. Should she run? Should she swoon? Should she throw herself at Maitland? She chanced a quick look at him.

Why was he smiling?

Becky didn’t scream. She fluttered her eyelashes; she simpered; she picked up a candle and told them to follow her.

They were flirting! Maitland and the chambermaid were flirting! Maitland, who couldn’t open his mouth without uttering a threat, was exchanging pleasantries and blandishments with the chambermaid as though he were a beau at one of Almack’s fashionable assemblies, and Becky a highborn lady.

Naturally, there were no blandishments for her. Only the barrel of his pistol, now digging into her back as she trudged up the stairs.

Becky entered the room first and lit the candle on the mantelpiece from her own candle, then she put the flame to the kindling in the grate.

“This is our best bedchamber,” she gushed. She patted the only bed. “Our beds are clean. You won’t find no bugs in this here mattress.”

Bugs? Bugs in the mattress?
thought Rosamund, horrified. She’d never heard of such a thing! It didn’t matter. There was only one bed. Maitland could have it. She would make do with the floor.

“And,” said Becky, opening a closet door with a flourish, “the commode, you know, with the—ah—convenience in it.” She giggled.

“Charming,” enthused Maitland, flashing the maid a warm smile. He turned to Rosamund with the vestiges of his smile still creasing his cheeks.

She hardly recognized him. He really was quite handsome when he smiled. Now she began to understand why the maid was so giddy. Thank God she had more sense than to be taken in by the scoundrel’s smile or his baby-blue eyes that were crinkled at the corners. She was equally immune to his broad shoulders and hard, muscular body. Her own brothers could give him a run for his money, and they were taller, too.

If Casper were to walk into this room, Becky wouldn’t even notice Maitland.

Still, the villain did have something. Presence. That’s what she’d thought when she’d first laid eyes on him. Presence. Virility. Power. He was a man to be reckoned with. And now, it seemed, he was a flirt as well.

Revolting!

She jumped when his arm suddenly encircled her shoulders and he squeezed hard. “My brother has an inflammation of the throat,” he said, “and has lost his voice, so I’ll answer for him. We’re attorneys on a rather delicate mission, and I’m afraid I can’t tell you more than that.”

He pressed a coin to the girl’s hand. “For your trouble,” he said.

“Oh,” breathed Becky, and “Oh” again when Maitland sketched an exaggerated bow and opened the door for her.

She gazed raptly up at him. “The taproom will be open for another hour. If you wants me for anything, anything at all, that’s where you’ll find me.”

Maitland sighed. “Unfortunately, my brother and I have a mountain of work to get through before we meet with our client tomorrow, but if you could bring the sandwiches I ordered, the coffee and hot water, I’d be more than grateful.”

Becky beamed. “I’ll do that right away.”

Maitland shut and locked the door. He looked at Rosamund and his smile vanished. “Why are you pouting?” he asked.

“Pouting!” She gasped, and her chin came up. “I am
not
pouting. In fact, I’ve never been more amused in my life.”

He tilted his head to one side and regarded her quizzically. “Is your aristocratic nose out of joint because the maid didn’t fawn all over you? How could she know, after all, that you’re a duke’s daughter?”

He’d got that backwards. It wasn’t Becky’s behavior that annoyed her, but his. She didn’t want to tell him that, so she said, “I assure you, I never give a thought to the fact that I’m a duke’s daughter.”

He gave a hoot of laughter. “Thousands might believe you, but I certainly wouldn’t. I remember you, you see, from Lisbon. I was there, at a ball you attended. You were lovely to look at, but God forbid that you should lower yourself to mix with the other ladies. You might as well have been a marble statue.”

She longed to defend herself, to tell him that she wasn’t haughty and cold, but shy and tired of being fawned over. Knowing that he wouldn’t believe her, she simply turned her back on him, tossed her hat on the bed, and threw off Harper’s greatcoat. Then she went to stand in front of the fire.

She turned to face him. “Colonel Maitland,” she began, and stopped. His teeth were clenched and his eyes were closed. He’d removed his hat, but he hadn’t moved from the door. He was slumped against it, and his face was ashen. She was alarmed at the change in him.

“What is it?” she cried out.

His eyes opened. “Sit down,” he said, and pointed to the bed.

She did as he said, but she kept her eyes on him. He looked as though he was going to faint.

He slung the saddlebags on top of the table and set his pistol down within arm’s reach. When he shrugged out of his coat, then his jacket, she stared. His shirtfront was matted with dried blood. And when he slowly, painfully, pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it on the floor, she gasped. There was a white linen dressing tied around his back and chest and it was blotched with fresh blood just above his left breast.

“Who did this to you?”

He didn’t look up, but opened one of the saddlebags and produced a number of items that he began to set out
in careful order: a bundle of clean linen rags; scissors; a jar of something; and a silver flask. “Who do you think did it?” he said. “Whoever murdered Lucy Rider.”

It took her a moment to make the connection. He was referring to the night his mistress was murdered, the night he claimed her murderer had stabbed him, too. “But I thought that wound was superficial,” she said.

He looked over at her. “It’s not life-threatening, if that’s what you mean. I’m not at death’s door. It’s just that the damn thing won’t heal.”

The prosecutor, as she remembered, had made the case that, after killing his mistress, Maitland had stabbed himself to support his story that some unknown person had tried to kill them both. He couldn’t just slip away from the girl’s room, the prosecutor said, because too many people saw him go up the stairs. That’s why he had to make it look as though someone had attacked him, too. As for his alleged attackers, the boy and the man—why had no one seen them?

He’d killed his mistress in a fit of jealous passion, the prosecutor said.

Maitland jealous? Maitland kill a woman in a fit of passion? She just couldn’t see it. It was her impression that women didn’t rate very high with the chief of staff of Special Branch.

Something else came back to her. Maitland could have avoided a sentence of death if he’d claimed that Lucy had struck the first blow. But this he would not do. Not once had he wavered from his story: there was a boy waiting for him outside Lucy’s room, a boy who entered first and walked to the bed. Lucy was already dead. Then someone stabbed him.

“Did you murder Lucy Rider?” she asked quietly.

“No,” he replied, “but I don’t expect you to believe me.”

Their eyes locked and held, then she said in the same quiet voice, “Did you murder Lucy Rider?”

It looked as though he might yell at her, but he combed his fingers through his hair—a gesture she was coming to recognize—and he said simply and quietly, “No. I did not.”

She didn’t know why she believed him. She hardly knew him. But she knew how she felt, and it seemed as though a dark cloud had been lifted from her mind.

She winced when he pulled the dressing away from his chest and doused the wound with whatever was in the silver flask. His face clenched in pain, and he put the flask to his lips and swallowed. It was brandy, of course. She could smell the scent of fermenting grape. After a moment or two, he breathed deeply, put down the flask, then made a pad with one strip of linen, poured brandy on it, and shoved it under the binding to cover the wound.

“Aren’t you going to change the binding?” she asked. “it’s loose and soaked with blood. You’ll never staunch the bleeding like that.”

“What would be the point? I’d never manage to do it up again.”

She got off the bed. “I’ll do it.” When he reached for his pistol, she sat down again. “Fine,” she said angrily. “Bleed to death. Frankly, I’m surprised you’ve lasted this long. No wonder your wound opened. You shouldn’t have carried me out of Newgate, and you certainly shouldn’t have rowed us here in that leaky rowing boat. Have you no sense? With a wound like that, you must exert yourself as little as possible.”

He stroked his nose with his index finger. “I couldn’t ask you to row,” he said, “because you might have brained me with an oar.”

“I’m serious!” She was getting angrier by the minute. He seemed to think she was a simpleton. “What you should have done from the very beginning was find a place close to Newgate where you could have rested up for a few days, to give your wound time to heal. All this
dashing about from one end of the country to the other has achieved nothing. We’re practically back where we started.”

“That’s what happens sometimes when you’re on the run. And we didn’t exactly dash from one end of the country to the other. Chelsea is on the outskirts of London. Tell you what, Rosamund. Next time I break out of prison, I’ll let you make all the arrangements.”

She didn’t share his amusement. “I suppose you’re going to hire horses and we’ll ride out of here tomorrow morning? Wonderful. I can hardly wait. How long do you think you will last when the bleeding starts again?”

He stared at her with narrowed eyes. After a moment, he said, “Come here.”

As she crossed to the table, Maitland moved the pistol well out of her reach. He used the scissors to cut away the binding, then put those out of her reach, too.

He handed her a clean bandage. “Do it,” he said.

She looked down at the table. “What’s in that jar?”

“Ah . . . basilicum powder.”

“Good. At least you’ve come prepared.”

He watched as she unscrewed the lid and liberally sprinkled the powder on a fresh dressing. “How do you know so much about dressing wounds?” he asked.

The only real doctoring she’d done was in her father’s stables. Just as building carriages was her father’s vocation, taking care of sick horses was hers.

“Well?” he prompted.

She said ironically, “You know how it is, Colonel Maitland. We ladies of the manor are expected to take care of our serfs.”

He bit down on his lip, another habit she was coming to recognize.

She dimpled, and moved his hand so that she could apply the fresh pad. When she saw the wound, she frowned. “Nasty” was all she said. But it was worse than nasty. The edges of the wound had separated slightly and
fresh blood oozed from it. But the brandy had done its work. It had loosened the dried blood. She set down the dressing with the basilicum and took the brandy-soaked pad from his hand to finish the job, then she dipped her head and sniffed. “You’re lucky,” she said. “It’s quite clean. If you lie down, I’ll sprinkle it with basilicum.”

He was looking at her oddly. “Lie down,” she said.

His eyes crinkled at the corners. “And have you hit me over the head with that jar? I don’t think so. Just bind the wound, Rosamund.”

She sucked air through her teeth, but that was the only sign she gave of her annoyance. She positioned the dressing over the wound, told him to hold it, then she picked up a long strip of linen to bind the dressing in place. Only then did she take stock of the situation. It suddenly occurred to her that he was half-naked, and she would have to put her arms around him.

Why had her breathing suddenly accelerated?

She said crossly, “We’re trying to stanch the flow of blood, Colonel Maitland. Use the heel of your hand and press the pad into the wound. Yes, I know, it hurts. But that can’t be helped.”