Merely the Groom (Free Fellows League 2)

“Weel,” Douglas drawled. “Since she’s already been abandoned to the mercy of strangers, the least we can do is show her some.”

“You be merciful,” Tillie told him. “I’ll make certain she earns her bed and board.”

And I’ll make certain she doesn’t have to, Colin vowed, suddenly fiercely determined to thwart the innkeeper’s wife and rush to the aid of the unknown lass who waited at the window, watching for the return of her errant spouse.

He smiled a satisfied smile as he formulated a plan of action. He’d have to be a bit more frugal with his remaining coin and provide a full accounting of where it went to Jarrod when he returned to London, but it was a small price to pay to save a lady from the humiliation of having to perform manual labor in order to appease the innkeeper’s wife. It would be a noble sacrifice, and noble sacrifices appealed to Colin’s sense of chivalry.

He was, after all, a hero—albeit a shadowy, anonymous one. But a hero just the same, and every hero understood that doing his duty involved sacrificing his comfort for the good of someone else. Especially when that someone else was a damsel in distress.

Colin remained concealed until the sound of their voices grew less distinct, signaling the fact that the innkeeper and his wife had left the kitchen and moved to the inn’s common room. He couldn’t see what they were doing, but the rattle of pewter and cutlery against wood, the scraping of iron over stone, told Colin that Douglas and Mistress Douglas were busy attending to their morning chores: stacking pewter plates on the sideboard, laying out the mugs and utensils in preparation for breakfast, and stirring the coals banked in the massive hearth, coaxing them into a roaring flame.

He released the breath he’d been holding and quietly eased out of his hiding place. In order to reach the stairway that led to the upstairs sleeping rooms and the comfort of his rented bed, Colin would have to pass through the common room, and he hadn’t a prayer of crossing it without Douglas or Mistress Douglas seeing him. Unless he entered the Blue Bottle in the same manner in which he’d exited without being detected last evening.

Heaving a weary, inaudible sigh, Colin retraced his steps. Carefully unlatching the kitchen door, he slipped over the threshold and into the morning mist.

The air was heavier than it had been when he entered. Colin used the fog to his advantage, hugging the stone outer wall of the inn as he made his way from the back entrance to the Blue Bottle to the small laundry that adjoined it.

Colin had learned on one of his previous stays at the Blue Bottle that the window of his bedchamber overlooked the roof of the laundry. He’d decided upon first glance that the roof and the inn’s narrow ledge could be used as something more than a roosting spot for pigeons. They provided an ideal means of coming and going undetected, provided one was agile or foolhardy enough to pull oneself onto the laundry roof and then up onto the narrow stone window ledge in the dark of night.

Colin was agile enough, having first gained the necessary skill and stealth at Knightsguild, and having subsequently added years of practice in pursuit of pleasure and in the service of his country.

When Jarrod had recruited Colin for this particular line of work, he had reminded him that sneaking in and out of windows in the dead of night was one of his specialties—as a good many society ladies could attest.

Jarrod was right. Sneak thief work was one of the things he did best, but that didn’t mean he found it palatable. Climbing through windows had never been Colin’s preferred mode of entrance. Years of practice had made it possible for him to conquer his fear of heights, but with age came wisdom and the healthy sense of fear with which he’d been born.

In the past few months he’d begun to realize that skulking about dark alleys, frequenting unsavory establishments, climbing in and out of upper-floor windows had lost a great deal of its allure. And climbing in and out of the window of the Blue Bottle Inn was no exception. It was a long way from the second floor window to the cobblestones below, and Colin had suddenly realized that he was in no hurry to meet his maker or test the flames of hell.

All things considered, he’d rather have taken the stairs.

But he’d lost that option when he’d lingered a bit too long in the alley, staring up at the woman in the window. He wondered how she’d feel if he slipped into her bedchamber instead of his own and offered to watch over her and keep her warm for the night, wondered suddenly if she would watch for him at the window when he left, the way she watched for her errant husband.

For there was no question that Colin would leave. He always left. His life was one long, dangerous mission after another. He left on assignments and never looked back, never wondered what it would be like to stay. Never wondered what he was missing. Never wondered if anyone regretted his leaving.

His work didn’t allow for such luxuries, and Colin hadn’t allowed himself to dwell upon it. Not since that long-ago day when he’d discovered his betrothal contract had been broken, and Esme Kelverton was lost to him forever. If any of the women he’d left behind had ever watched for him the way the woman in window watched for her loved one, Colin wasn’t aware of it. And if the truth were known, he’d always liked it that way. He was, after all, a Free Fellow, and Free Fellows didn’t give any thought to sentimentality. Until now…

Chapter Three

“O what may man within him hide, though angel on the outward side!”

—William Shakespeare, 1564-1616

Measure for Measure

Gillian stood at the window, shivering in the cold and damp long after the man in the black cloak moved out of her line of view. She leaned closer, staring down at the street below, wondering suddenly where the man in the black cloak had gone.

He’d been there one minute, then vanished into the fog the next. Gillian almost doubted she’d seen him at all. But the quickening of her pulse when she’d caught sight of the tall figure in the morning mist told her there was no reason to doubt her vision. He had been there. She hadn’t imagined him. She hadn’t been jumping at shadows.

Gillian exhaled, and her breath frosted the thick glass, obscuring her vision even more. Pulling her shawl tighter around her shoulders, she swiped the end of it against the windowpane in the vain attempt to bring the alley below into sharper focus.

But for what purpose?

She had been staring out of this window for days. Waiting and watching in vain.

Her pulse might have raced at the sight of him, but the man in the alley wasn’t the man she’d hoped to see. Because the man in the alley wasn’t her husband.

Her husband. Gillian straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin a notch higher, and sighed. She, who had never done an impulsive thing in her life, had eloped with a dashing stranger—a hero—a spy—one of the brave, shadowy figures who slipped in and out of France and the Peninsula in order to help England win the war against Bonaparte. She still wasn’t quite able to believe it.