Anita Mills by The Rogue's Return Read Free Book Online Page B

schoolboy, she’ll be forgiven. But if it worries you, tie it for her.”
    “A schoolboy in Stultz’s best,” Bertie muttered. Nonetheless, he sighed his resignation. “I ain’t registering in my name, you know. And I ain’t tying her cravat.”
    “What about shoes?” Anne looked down at her ruined slippers.
    “Stuff something in the toes of Bascombe’s.”
    “No! Dash it, but the coat is enough! You ain’t a-giving her m’boots! Let her wear yours! Hoby—”
    “Mine are far too large for her.”
    Cribbs, who had been listening, bemused by it all, spoke up. “Beggin’ yer honor’s pardon, sir, but what’m I ter tell Davies?”
    “Tell Mr. Davies we are to stop at the Red Hart,” Dominick answered. “And tell him that if anyone asks, we are come from St. Albans.” He looked to Bertie and Anne. “And for the time being, you are both employed by Mr… er … Wrexham—Thaddeus Wrexham and his nephew … Oliver, I think. And I am the boy’s tutor, Mr. Bendell.”
    “I’d rather be a Smith,” Bertie grumbled.
    “Ordinary names tend to arouse suspicion, Bascombe.”
    “How the deuce am I supposed to sign that? I don’t—”
    “W-r-e-x-h-a-m.”
    “Well, I ain’t putting anything more’n a T for the other one, I can tell you.”
    But Dominick’s attention had returned to Anne. “Miss Morland, while we are stopped, I suggest you get down and wrap yourself in his greatcoat. And when you arrive, you will lean on me and pretend to be sick. Cover your mouth in such a way as to obscure your face. Bascombe, give Miss Morland something for her feet.”
    “Deuced cold fish about this, ain’t you?” For a long moment Bertie eyed Dominick Deveraux with dislike; then he sighed. “Cribbs, get the top boots.” Turning away, he mumbled under his breath, “Knew I ought to have brought m’valet—he wouldn’t have stood for this.”
    But as Anne stepped down from the coach and reached for the heavy coat, she heard him repeating softly, “W-r-e-x-h-a-m” over and over.
    “Oh, the poor lad,” the innkeeper’s wife clucked over Anne’s wan face. “Had me one like that meself—couldn’t ride in the farmer’s cart e’en. Well, you bring him on in.”
    “Need a cold collation in a parlor,” Bertie ordered importantly. “And beds for the day.” As the woman’s eyebrows lifted, he amended, “And perhaps the night, if m’nevvy ain’t able to travel.”
    She nodded. “I’ll give ye a chamber of yer own, sir, and have Hannah show them up t’the other. ’Tis two guineas apiece fer the rooms, and extra fer the meals.”
    “No!” Anne choked.
    “Eh?”
    Dominick’s arm tightened about her waist in warning; then he spoke up. “Actually, I should prefer a separate chamber myself. Oliver is given to nightmares, I’m afraid, and he tosses and moans when he sleeps.”
    “Ye don’t say!” The woman peered more closely at Anne, who quickly covered her mouth as though she were about to retch. “Hannah!” she bawled. “Come help! Now! Oh, lawks—not on my clean floor! Hannah! First door on yer right at the top o’ the stairs, sir—you go on. Aye, and ye can have the one next to it.”
    As Dominick Deveraux helped her up the steps, Anne could hear the woman telling Albert Bascombe, “Mrs. Grendell’s boy was like that, sir—they couldn’t sleep a wink fer his thrashin’ about. Mr. Marsh said ’twas worms that did it. A sprinkle o’ gunpowder and five draps of kerosene o’er a lump of sugar put an end to it, ye know.”
    Bertie shuddered. “A wonder it didn’t put an end to him.”
    “Now, I could fix ye some, and ye could give it her him ere he eats, ye know. Best to use it whilst the stomach is empty. It don’t work otherwise, Dr. Marsh says.”
    “Makes me queasy to think on it.”
    “Sometimes, Mr. Wrexham, ye got ter do what’s right fer the boy.”
    At that moment Anne’s stomach rumbled audibly. Dominick dropped her arm and leaned against the hallway wall, his