The Earl of Christmas Past (Goode Girls Romance #5) - Kerrigan Byrne Page 0,15

“And yer fair share of sorrow, too. Else why would ye be here alone what with Christmas bearing down on ye? If ye doona mind me asking, why’s yer family in Paris without ye?”

Her pitying look speared Vanessa through the ribs as she cast about for an answer. “Well I—”

“Tell me the young, cheap whisky isn’t making me see things, Priestly,” a nasally, masculine, British voice slurred with a bit of a lisp. “Tell me this isn’t little Vanessa Latimer, wot?”

Vanessa turned to see that the men who had been playing cards at the edge of the bar now crowded close around her, effectively trapping her onto the tall stool upon which she perched. They each had an empty glass in their hands, and the one who’d addressed her swayed, dangerously.

“By Jove.” His dark-haired friend—Priestly, she presumed—might have been passably handsome but for sporting a pathetic, thin mustache. He leered down at her from marble-dark eyes held way too close together. “I thought she looked familiar when she blew in, but she was in such a state of disarray I didn’t care to look at her. She cleans up rather well, though. I could almost believe she was respectable.”

“Yes,” the first one intoned, combing his hands through fair hair made greasy with too much pomade. The scent of it was nearly overpowering. “Quite respectable. But we know better, don’t we?”

The food turned to ashes in her mouth. Vanessa locked everything down just as she’d taught herself to when preparing for just one such encounter.

“Gentlemen,” she greeted soberly. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced and, therefore, it is not polite to approach me thusly.”

Priestly’s eyebrows shot up. “My, aren’t we all grown up and putting on airs? What do you say to that, Gordie?”

Gordie’s watch chain gleamed as he leaned in obscenely close, his breath reeking of scotch. “We’ve heard tell you spend your time galivanting to exotic places. Learning, no doubt, exotic skills.”

Priestly all but tossed his glass to Bess. “I’d take a whisky, but not the kind that tastes like we’ve licked a peat bog. The good stuff you’re no doubt hiding back there. And I’ll make a bloody ruckus if you water it down.”

Vanessa let out an outraged breath, ashamed of her countrymen. “That’s beneath you, gentleman, talking to a proprietress like that.”

Gordie leaned even closer, forcing her to bend over backward to escape him, which caused her to bump into Priestly. “I’d rather you were beneath me.”

“I beg your pardon!” she huffed. She’d been heckled before, but not so publicly. Nor so rudely.

“Really, Gordie, don’t be vulgar; we’re sharing a room in this shitehole, there’s not privacy at all.”

Gordie’s suggestive expression caused the gorge in Vanessa’s stomach to rise into her throat. “We can share other things. We’ve done it before.” He raked her with a glare miraculously overflowing with both disdain and desire. “Woman like her will let you put it anywhere you like.”

Before he even finished his last word, her entire bowl of stew lurched from the table and was heaved into his face, the scalding gravy latching onto his skin.

A shrill scream erupted from him as he clawed at himself, trying to wipe it off.

Vanessa’s hands were still clenched at her sides. She’d never even reached for the bowl.

She looked across the bar at Bess in time to see that the whisky bottle she’d retrieved was snatched from Bess’s hands and smashed over Priestly’s head. The jagged neck hung in the air as if brandished by an invisible hand, ready to plunge into the man’s throat.

“Sweet Christ in heaven.” Bess crossed herself and made a few other signs against evil as well.

It was her ghost. Even though she couldn’t see him, there was no denying it.

“John,” Vanessa gasped into the empty air next to the floating bottle. “Johnathan, don’t.”

The bottle dropped.

Priestly turned on her. “You putrid slag! You’re worth no more than a—”

His entire body flew back as if it had crumpled. He landed on the table by the fireplace, splintering it and scattering half a dozen drunk and slightly dozing Douglasses.

The highlanders launched into action, leading with their fists, assuming, no doubt, they’d nearly missed a tavern brawl.

Gordie managed to wipe mutton out of his eyes in time to catch a fist to the jaw, dropping him to the floor immediately.

Vanessa whirled to Bess, who wiped her hands on her apron and reached beneath the bar. “Go back to yer room, dearie. I’ll restore order here.” When she extracted a plank the size