Her new client was indeed a handsome specimen. He was outfitted in city style, with a closely cropped Brutus do, just brushed forward over his temples. His jacket of Bath cloth sat well on his lean and muscled frame. Esther saw only a profile of his face, which made her eager to see the rest at dinner that evening.
Dinner did not turn out as expected at all. The first letdown was that Mr. Fletcher was not in the dining room. There wasn’t a decent eatery in town other than the inn. The man must have gone a few miles down the road to Windsor, which annoyed her. Another vexation was that the roast beef, her chef's best dish, was overcooked. It was as dry as day-old bread.
Lady Gloria Devere swanned into the room, dragging a trail of ancient shawls behind her. Wool paisley vied with stripes and chiffon flowers. From the sagging tendons of her neck hung her sole piece of jewelry, a string of pearls. Her skin was the same pale hue, almost transparent. Her russet hair had faded to the indeterminate shade of yellowed linen and was thin on top. Without her title she would have been small ornament to the inn. Esther spoke loudly in greeting. “Good evening, Lady Gloria.”
The dame stopped by their table for a word. “Chilly this evening,”
she said in a quavering voice, with a hitch of the paisley scarf. “I’m afraid you’ll find the beef was just a teensy bit dry, Miss Lowden. At the castle Papa used to feed the end pieces to the servants.”
Her rheumy eyes scanned Esther’s plate for comparison. “I stopped by Mr. Ramsay’s office just now to tell him, but there was no answer when I knocked.”
“I shall take Cook to task for it,”
Miss Lowden assured her.
“And perhaps you could tell Mr. Ramsay my windows are due for a washing. The traffic raises such a dust, but there, I cannot expect the amenities of my late father’s castle at an inn.”
She smiled imperiously and left.
Lady Gloria was always catered to. Her unprepossessing appearance added nothing to the establishment, and as she had come to cuffs with her entire family, there was no hope for any business from them, but still, it was pleasant to be able to mention Lady Gloria when speaking of the inn.
Esther and Lady Brown went to Buck’s office to deliver her complaints and to catch up on the day’s doings. “Were you out, Buck?”
Esther asked. “Lady Gloria said she got no answer.”
“I spotted her coming and locked the door,”
he confessed. He told them all the little happenings at the inn. A tiff between a couple of the maids, a lost serving platter. “It’s likely sitting right on the shelf. Nell couldn’t find water in the sea.”
A string of fish-scale pearls left behind by a customer, and what should he do with them? “Fish-scale,”
he said, nostrils quivering. “I look forward to the day we can turn her sort from the door.”
It was nine-thirty before the ladies rose to go home. Buck was lively company. There was some manliness lacking in him, but he would make anyone a wonderful husband, and he made Esther a competent manager. He was a good oiler of upset clients and as suspicious as a housewife of any shortage in the wine cellar or pantry.
“I’ll call one of the boys to accompany you ladies home,”
he said, when they were ready to leave.
Just as they stepped into the lobby, they met Joshua Ramsay coming in the door. He seldom visited the inn. It “broke his heart”
to see the fine old mansion sunk to entertaining travelers and to realize the family was now beneath reproach. His brows went up, and his nostrils pinched in displeasure to see Esther issuing from the office door. It flashed into her head that he was going to cut her, but in the end he bowed briefly and said good-evening.
Lady Brown gushed forward to make him welcome, but Esther adopted a stiff, formal tone to repay his hesitation. “To what do we owe the honor of this visit, Mr. Ramsay? You arrive a trifle late for dinner,”
she said coolly.
“I am just returning from London and decided to stop for a bite to save my servants the bother of cooking at this hour.”
“You’re brave, tackling the heath after dark. Go on into the dining room. They’re still serving, but I advise you away from the roast beef. It’s dry as dust. Buck and I have just been ordering a new stove for Peters.”
“I shall accompany you home first,”
Joshua replied. “You are returning home now, are you not? Or had you planned to join the muslin company in the tavern?”
Lady Brown emitted an audible gasp. Esther was extremely annoyed with him, especially as a new guest had just come downstairs and stood listening. From the corner of her eye she noticed he was done up in the first style of elegance. He was tall and dark—her first thought was that he was Beau Fletcher, but she soon realized her error. He was not quite that tall or dark or handsome.
“You will find no lightskirts here,”
she informed Ramsay. “If that is what brought you, you came to the wrong place. You ought to have stopped at the Black Knight. I hear they cater to men of your kidney.”
Joshua knew by the glint in Esther’s eye that she was about to become impossible, and he changed his tune. “What do you think kept me so late, Esther?”
he asked, and laughed at her surprise.
Her attention wandered again to the newcomer, and she noticed he was staring at her, surprised at such warm talk. He looked the sort of client she wished to attract to the Lowden Arms, and for him to witness an unseemly argument in the lobby on his first night vexed her. On the other hand, Joshua’s bold remark could not go unchallenged. “I see I am behind the times! Perhaps I should ask Buck to hire me a few females.”
“Esther!”
Lady Brown’s eyes bulged in shock.
Ramsay’s lips opened to object, and Esther continued speaking to forestall him. “I’ll be sure to tell him where I got the idea. Perhaps you could suggest some lightskirts, Josh, from among your broad acquaintance with the species?”
The presence of a few customers in the lobby was all that prevented him from reading her a lecture. He just shook his head and laughed uncomfortably. “It will be a wonder if you don’t end up in the suds, the way you carry on.”
“I made sure you thought I was there already.”
“Come along, I’ll take you home. I shan’t enjoy dinner, wondering what you’re up to if I leave you here.”
He offered one arm to Lady Brown, another to Esther, and they proceeded to the front door. Before they had gone two steps, the door opened and an extremely bedraggled couple came staggering in. The man carried a hat whose crown was torn loose. He held a handkerchief to his left eye, and there were signs of blood on his shirt. The woman was completely distraught. “Help! Someone help us! We’ve been robbed,”
she gasped just before falling in a heap at their feet.
The hem of her skirt was well dusted. Her slippers also bore signs of rough usage. Her whole toilette, once stylish, was in disarray, with her hair tumbling down and her hat askew.
“What happened?”
Joshua asked the man.
“A highwayman—the one they call Captain Johnnie,”
he said, then bent over his wife. The newcomer, who had been lurking at the foot of the stairs, darted forward and lifted the swooning lady to save her elderly husband the effort.
“The office,”
Esther said, pointing to Buck’s lair. The man carried her in as easily as though she weighed nothing, and she was a hefty lady. Esther, following behind, noticed his broad back and his well-cut jacket. “Put her on Mr. Ramsay’s sofa,”
she told him.
The man laid his burden down gently. “Some wine—feathers to be burned. Perhaps Miss—”
He looked a question at Esther.
“Miss Lowden. I own the inn,”
she said, admitting the truth in the excitement of the moment. “Buck, some wine.”
Buck darted for wine, Esther rang for hartshorn, and the victim’s husband hurried forward to chafe his wife’s hands.
“I’ll send for a doctor,”
Esther said to no one in particular.
When she went for a footman, the newcomer followed her. After the footman was sent off, the stranger remained outside the office with her. “Perhaps it would be better if we did not clutter up the lady’s sick room,’
he suggested. “I am Mr. Meecham, a guest in your inn.”
“I’m afraid we’re giving you a poor opinion of our hospitality, Mr. Meecham.”
“Not at all. Offering help to distressed victims is admirable.”
Mr. Meecham proved, on close examination, to be congenial. It was difficult to decide his exact attraction. He wasn’t spectacularly handsome or anything of the sort. He was tallish, with dark brown hair, friendly brown eyes, and a good face, but it wasn’t a face to keep a lady awake nights. Yet his combined features seemed somehow to amount to more than their discrete parts. Esther’s first suspicion that he was a trifle high in the instep proved unfounded. There was a spark of liveliness in him.
“I was referring to the little argument you overheard in the hallway,”
she admitted. “Mr. Ramsay is a neighbor and dear friend. We rally each other and sometimes get carried away.”
He smiled forgivingly and quit the topic. “I fear that poor old lady has fallen victim to Captain Johnnie. What a plague the man is. It’s shocking that nothing’s done about him. I have to travel the heath often myself and go in trepidation of my money—to say nothing of my life.”
Esther, listening closely, sensed a good customer, if he traveled this way often. “Shocking,”
she agreed readily. “I should see how the victim is doing.”
Lady Brown exited from the study at that moment. “She’s come to,”
she announced with an air of relief. “It was Captain Johnnie’s work, certainly.”
“I shall speak to Bow Street next time I’m in London,”
Mr. Meecham said firmly. “They should step up the patrols on Hounslow Heath.”
Esther presented him to her aunt. Lady Brown seemed unimpressed, perhaps because she was busy looking around for Mr. Ramsay. “Where is Joshua? He was going to take us home,”
she reminded her niece.
“The tall gentleman you were speaking to?”
Mr. Meecham inquired. “I noticed him leave the hall as we came out of the office. I believe he’s dining now.”
Esther’s anger was on the point of boiling over, to be so ill-treated in front of a handsome young client. To add to her mood, Lady Brown went into one of her tirades.
“You have given him a disgust of you, loitering about the inn at this hour, talking broad. And how are we to get home?”
“I would be happy to escort you,”
Mr. Meecham offered at once. “I’ll call my carriage.”
He wasn’t to be left with the impression that they were carriageless. “We only live a step away. A footman will escort us,”
Esther said.
“Jack’s gone off in the gig for a doctor,”
Lady Brown pointed out.
“Good gracious, there are a dozen boys running around.”
“But I would be very happy to escort you,”
Mr. Meecham insisted.
The talk during the short walk was all about Captain Johnnie. Mr. Meecham won Lady Brown’s favor by his condemnation of the Royal Scamp and promptly lost it again when he hinted that he would be honored to be allowed to call on the ladies the next day.
“Very kind, but we never receive strangers, Mr. Meecham,”
Lady Brown said firmly.
Unfazed, he replied, “Then I shall return to the inn and see if I can render any service to the unfortunate couple who were set upon by the highwayman.”
“How very kind. Thank you, Mr. Meecham," Esther said warmly, for she thought Lady Brown was rather exceeding her authority. And besides, Mr. Meecham was really very attractive.
When the ladies entered their saloon, Lady Brown immediately began to berate their escort. “That is the very sort of incident that gives Joshua a disgust of your running the inn, Esther. How contrary it is that he should have come bounding in just as we left.”
“If he had escorted us home as he said he would, this incident would not have occurred,”
Esther pointed out. “Mr. Meecham was very polite. I think you were a little short with him, Auntie.”
“A gentleman does not consider himself on calling terms only because he has lent a hand in a little emergency, my dear. You do not have the advantage of having been presented and having learned the niceties of polite behaviour. I daresay in the country such jumped-up manners pass, but they do not do at court.”
“Well,”
Esther pointed out, “we are not at court, and
I
think Mr. Meecham was well behaved.”
Before they fell into any further altercation, Lady Brown retired, just mentioning that she would not be undressing for an hour, and if Mr. Ramsay happened to stop by en route to the Abbey, she would be available to play propriety. As Mr. Ramsay didn’t stop by, Esther soon went to her own room.
It wasn’t till the next morning that Joshua Ramsay stopped at the dower house, and to the surprise of both ladies, he was accompanied by Mr. Meecham. Lady Brown blushed and said, “Why, Joshua, I had no idea you were a friend of Mr. Meecham.”
“As it turns out, we have several mutual friends,”
Joshua explained, “though we didn’t meet till this morning when I went to the inn to hear about Captain Johnnie’s latest victims. Mr. Meecham was at Harrow with my cousin and knows some of my cousins from Devonshire as well.”
“We’re delighted to welcome you, Mr. Meecham.”
Lady Brown smiled and sent off for coffee, to make up for the preceding night’s curt dismissal.
Mr. Meecham displayed not the least offense. “We thought you might be interested to hear about the victims—Sir Charles and Lady Higgins,”
he said.
“We have been on thorns all morning,”
Lady Brown confessed.
Joshua took over the telling of the story. “The reason the couple arrived on foot at the inn is that Captain Johnnie, after relieving Sir Charles of his purse and his dame of her jewels, set their horses free. The horses bolted, leaving the couple stranded on the heath.”
“Then it cannot have been Captain Johnnie,”
Esther exclaimed. “He would never be so ungallant.”
“A gallant thief is a contradiction in terms,”
Joshua informed her. “You might as well say a clever moonling, or dark sun, but it will take a wart on his nose or a squinty eye for you to admit the man’s a yahoo. He didn’t find as much blunt as he hoped to, and the wife had very few jewels about her. Only a little watch and her wedding rings. He poked the crown out of Sir Charles’s hat, thinking he had something hidden in it, then dumped the contents of his wife’s reticule on the ground. That is when he discovered she had her diamonds sewn into its lining. In revenge he made them turn their horses loose, and fired off a shot to be sure they didn’t linger nearby. He held his gun at Sir Charles’s head, so there was no arguing with him.”