The Consolation Prize (Brides of Karadok #3) - Alice Coldbreath Page 0,21
three hours ago she had felt she was fighting for her liberty in the face of a reluctant bridegroom who would be more likely to abandon than aid or abet her.
Armand turned in his saddle. “Stay close to me,” he recommended, quite needlessly, for Una had no intention of letting him out of her sight. He led her down a veritable warren of side-streets, some so narrow they had to wait until the stream of people subsided before they could ride down them.
Each street seemed to grow darker and less respectable-looking as they went on, and Una felt a twinge of alarm, observing some of the looks they drew from passers-by. She fancied she now knew why Armand had looked askance at his new outfit. They did not fit in with the inhabitants of these narrow-cobbled streets one bit.
Finally, her husband reined in before a rowdy-looking inn that had a large statue of a crow with an open beak huddled on the roof like a squatting gargoyle. Armand glanced up at the open window where two women, alike enough to be sisters, sat looking down on the street below, clad in somewhat low-cut dresses.
Armand doffed his jaunty feathered hat at them and called up a greeting. Both ladies broke out in simultaneous surprise. “Why, if it isn’t Sir Armand. I scarce recognized you, togged out in that regalia.”
“Don’t you look the proper gentleman!”
“Ladies, I have made my fortune,” he responded, beaming. He swept an arm toward Una. “A rich widow has consented to throw her lot in with mine. Behold my good lady wife, the Lady Una.”
Both women gaped at Una in open curiosity. “She never!” blurted one, while the other gasped, “Fancy!”
Una rallied at once. “Good day, ladies,” she said pleasantly. Neither one seemed disposed to answer her with anything more than a bold, assessing stare.
“Is my man still here?” Armand asked casually. “I rather lost track of him, with all said and done.”
“I expect you did,” said the first, with a toss of her head. “Wiv you up and gettin’ leg-shackled and all!”
“He left,” put in the other with an indignant huff. “Skipped out on his room wivout paying his board,” she said, with a sideways glance at Armand.
“Funny,” he said with a shrug. “I could have sworn you insisted we paid up front, Bess, my love.”
“Well, you might,” she snapped. “But he never!”
“And we thought you’d skipped out and all, when you never returned last night!” the other added spiritedly.
“A most understandable conclusion to make,” he agreed sorrowfully. “I shall make reparation, of course, for your inconvenience,” he said, soothing their feathers noticeably. “I suppose it’s too much to ask that he left my pack in your keeping?”
“He might have left some sundry things what we had to have moved down to the cellars,” said one with a shrug. “We didn’t have no room to spare for things what got carelessly left behind by folks what skips out wivout paying their bed and board.”
“I am most profoundly grateful,” Armand said with a small bow, “that you set my things aside for safe-keeping.”
The other cocked a speculative eye at Una. “You’ll be able to pay for his room, now your fortune’s made,” she said, and Una thought that Armand had not seen this particular turn of events, though it seemed quite inevitable to her. She could only suppose him lamentably lacking in self-preservation instincts.
“Of course,” he agreed cheerfully and swung down from his saddle. “Send out that lad of yours, Dickon, to stand guard here with the horses and I’ll come inside and pay my way.” One of the women retreated from the window and moments later they heard a side door open. “You’ll be alright to remain here while I retrieve my pack and buy some information?” Armand asked Una in low tones.
Una nodded, only thankful he did not expect her to abandon her horse and all its treasures to be robbed. Dickon stumped out, an amiable looking giant.
“You stand guard now over my wife and horses and you’ll be well paid for it, my lad,” Armand told him, patting his arm. Dickon nodded and took his horse’s bridle. “I won’t be long,” he added, though Una was not sure if that was her benefit or Dickon’s.
When Armand disappeared into the door, the woman he’d called Bess leaned out of the window again. “Here love, what did your last man do?” she asked curiously.
Una blinked, but as Bess was falling out of the front of her dress,