The Nightingale Legacy by Catherine Coulter Read Free Book Online Page B

like they’re afraid to say exactly what they mean for fear of getting smashed.”
    “Where are you going in Cornwall? No, don’t spit it right out, make me work for it a bit. I live in Cornwall, you see, and I was wondering if perhaps we would be neighbors one of these days.”
    “Work for it, sir.”
    “Very well. I live near Goonbell.”
    “You’re making that up. Oh, thank you, Mr. Tewksberry. I’m sorry I spilled the tea. This smells delicious.”
    Mr. Tewksberry harrumphed, saw that Lord Chilton didn’t look at all discomfited by the strumpet’s presence, and managed a stingy smile. “I will keep Clorie away from you, miss,” he said, “but she’s not happy, no, she’s not. She doesn’t trust you an inch.”
    “I appreciate that, Mr. Tewksberry. Now, sir, Goonbell? That’s an absurd name, surely you’re making that up.”
    “I’ve been found out. Very well, then, I live near Playing Place, which is close by to Cripplesease.”
    She laughed and choked on her tea, spitting it out on her bodice. “Oh dear, look what you made me do.”
    “At least you’re wet all over now, not just your skirt.”
    “Playing Place, what nonsense. Cripplesease, that’s quite impossible.”
    “Twelveheads.”
    “I can’t drink any more tea, else I might spit it on you and that would never do.”
    “Actually, one of those is the truth, or very nearly.”
    “Do you know where I come from, sir?”
    He raised a black brow, saying nothing at all. Finally he spoke. “I wager that if I just sit here, you’ll blurt it out momentarily.”
    “I come from Affpuddle.”
    “A lovely place. I spent several quite contented weeks there with my mistress, Mrs. Oddsbottle.”
    She gave it up, drank her tea, and just sat there, concentrating on keeping her mouth closed and listening for Mr. Mackie and the doctor.
    “Yes, Isabella Oddsbottle. I did encourage her to have her name officially changed, but she refused, said she wasquite fond of Isabella, it was her grandmother’s name.”
    She refused to take the bait. As for Lord Chilton, he sat back in his chair, crossed his hands over his chest, and wondered at himself. He’d actually been speaking to a strange young lady—she was both unknown and eccentric—and he’d enjoyed himself thoroughly. He wondered what the devil she was up to. He didn’t believe for a minute that the Owen upstairs lying sick was her brother.
    Was she eloping with him?
    He was content to wait. Oddly enough, he was interested in finding out exactly who she was and who Owen was. It was late, the taproom warm, the brandy settled smoothly in his belly. He fell asleep.
    Caroline stared at him. He was asleep; the man had the gall to fall asleep right in front of her.
    She heard the front door of the inn open, innumerable male voices all talking at the same time, and smiled. The gentleman wouldn’t snooze for much longer, not with this approaching racket.
    Mr. Mackie stood in the doorway of the taproom, bent down, naturally, since he was at least a foot taller than the portal.
    “The bone masher, missie. Walt here smelled ’is breath but good and it didn’t flatten ’im. ’E can walk a straight path too, thus Old Bones shouldn’t kill yer brother.”
    “Thank God for that,” Lord Chilton said, not looking up.
    “’Is name’s Dr. Tuckbucket.”
    “Oh no,” she said, rising. “I wonder if he hails from Mumbles. I understand that most of the Tuckbuckets do.”
    She heard Lord Chilton chuckle as she left the taproom. Like his laugh, his chuckle sounded rusty.
    A strange man, she thought, climbing up the narrow staircase after Dr. Tuckbucket, who did indeed appear to be walking without too much assistance from Mr. Mackie.

5
    O WEN HAD COME down with a very bad cold, so bad, in fact, that Dr. Tuckbucket poured an entire bottle of his own special tonic down his throat while Caroline held him down and told him not to be such a coward while he was coughing and wheezing and telling her she was a