“That was kind of him.”
Charlie nodded. “He was a good, humble man. But when he died, Hugh inherited most of his hard-earned property and none of his goodness. Puffed-up prig.”
“Is that your biased opinion of his character, or the general consensus?”
“Have you never met him?”
“Only in passing. He dealt directly with Frank and later John when contract issues or the occasional delay had to be addressed.”
“Then I shall let you draw your own conclusions.”
“Too late for that! You might have thought of that before you prejudiced me against the man. How am I to win him over now?”
“Thora Bell butter up any man? This I have to see.”
They turned into the yard of the Andover coaching inn, where Charlie was obviously well-known and well-liked. The ostlers greeted him warmly, took charge of the coach and horses, and accepted the coins he handed them in return.
When Charlie helped Thora down, she noticed the ostlers’ curious looks and silently rebuked their mothers for not teaching them that staring was rude. Charlie smiled and offered her his arm, and she forgot about the ostlers. She laced her arm through his, and together they walked through town toward their destination.
“Wise not to show up at the deputy postmaster’s door with the company vehicle,” she said dryly.
“I thought so. No need to raise questions. Or his ire. Besides, tonight I am not a coachman; I am a gentleman escorting a lovely lady to a party.”
“Go on with you.” She nudged him, then added, “I hope I don’t embarrass you. You looking so . . .”
“Handsome. Go on, I know you want to say it.”
“Handsome. And me looking so . . . grey.”
“Beautiful is the word I believe you are looking for.”
“In this gown?”
“Well, I would prefer you in Royal Mail red, but I am grateful you are here with me in any case and in any dress. You could wear sackcloth, Thora Bell, and be the most fetching woman in the room.”
She swatted his arm. “Enough now. That’s going it a bit brown.”
“Not at all. I have only just begun.”
They reached the stately red-brick house with white trim and door, opened by a footman. Inside the entry hall, they were met by their hostess—a sweet-faced creature with blond ringlets befitting a woman half her age. But she was undeniably attractive in a frothy pink-and-cream satin gown, and a gentle smile on her lightly lined face.
When her benign gaze landed upon Thora’s escort, her smile widened and her blue eyes sparkled. “Charlie Frazer!”
He bowed over her extended hand. “Mrs. Hightower. What a pleasure to see you again. You look enchanting, I must say. Have you discovered the fountain of youth? For I declare you have’na aged a day since your eighteenth birthday.”
“Oh, go on with you.”
Thora recalled responding in similar fashion to Charlie’s flattery and hoped she had not sounded as simpering.
“I am delighted you accepted my invitation,” Mrs. Hightower said. “Truth be told, I did not think you would.” She turned to Thora, her smile resolute. “And who is your companion? I do not believe we’ve met.”
Charlie sent Thora a warm glance. “Allow me to present Mrs. Thora Bell. A dear friend.”
“Ah. Mrs. Bell. Frank Bell was your husband, was he not?”
Thora nodded.
“A charming man, and a trying loss, I’m sure. Welcome.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Hightower. That is very kind.”
“Please, call me Eudora.” The woman tilted her head to one side, blond coils bouncing. “Thora . . . That is an unusual name, but I like it. Very strong.”
“Yes, it suits her,” Charlie remarked. “She is one of the strongest women I know—both in character and brute strength. Do not challenge her to arm wrestle, if you know what is good for you.”
Thora dug an elbow into his side.
With an indulgent dimple, Eudora said, “I had not planned to, Charlie, I assure you.”
A gentleman hailed Charlie from across the room. “Well, if it isn’t Charlie Frazer. Hang me, it is good to see you again, old man. Still cracking the whip for king and country?” He turned to another fellow. “Sedgwick, come and meet the finest whip I ever had the good fortune to meet and the unlucky fortune to fight.” The man put his arm around Charlie and pulled him into a circle of men, regaling them with tales of Charlie’s exploits, both on the road and in the boxing ring.
She’d forgotten Charlie had been a pugilist in his younger days. So that explained the other nickname he’d mentioned—Lightning Lefty.
Eudora Hightower watched him go, a faraway look on her pretty face. She was clearly still smitten with Charlie.
Then the woman seemed to recall her surroundings and turned a warm smile on Thora. Her gaze traveled discreetly over Thora’s grey-and-black gown. “You still grieve your loss, I see.”
Thora nodded. “Some losses are difficult to forget.”
“Yes, they are. . . .” The woman said softly, her eyes once again seeking out Charlie among the gathered men.
Thora glanced around the crowd and recognized a tall thin man standing near the fireplace. She had not spoken to Hugh Hightower in recent memory, but now that she laid eyes on him again, she recalled seeing him over the years when he’d stopped at The Bell on Royal Mail business or inspections.
Hugh Hightower crossed the room to them, a scowl on his face. He had clearly seen Charlie—and perhaps had noticed his wife’s limpid gaze as she looked his way.
“Eudora, what is Frazer doing here? Tell me you did not invite the man.”
“I did, my dear. I happened to see him in town and it seemed the right thing to do, what with his connections to the Royal Mail.”
“It is hardly a congenial connection.” He noticed Thora. “Oh, pardon me.”
Mrs. Hightower said, “My dear, may I present Mrs. Thora Bell.”
“Ah, Mrs. Bell. From the inn in Ivy Hill?”
Thora was impressed he would remember her. “Yes. The inn has been in my family for several generations. First as The Angel, and then as The Bell.”
He nodded. “I remember The Angel. A well-kept establishment. And your parents were . . . ?”
“Harold and Mariah Stonehouse.”
“Ah. Mr. Stonehouse. An excellent man and an excellent innkeeper.”
Poignant pleasure ran through Thora at his words. “Thank you, Mr. Hightower. I quite agree with you.”
“A pity to see the old place fade. But then age does that to us all, I fear. Present company excluded, of course.”
A snappish retort leapt to Thora’s lips, but she bit it back. She wanted to speak up in The Bell’s defense, but aware of the gentlewoman before her, and of the social situation, she thought the better of it.
A footman approached and offered Thora a glass of ratafia from a silver tray. She accepted it to give her hands something to do, though she had never cared for the sweet cordial, or spirituous drinks in general. But Frank had. Too much so.
From behind her, she heard Hugh Hightower’s terse whisper, “A coachman and an innkeeper’s wife? Really, Eudora. Think of our reputations.”
“We are not so high-and-mighty, Hugh. You work for a living, as did your father before you. . . .”
Thora sipped her drink, pretending not to hear. Pretending the words did not prick her.
Across the room, Charlie was entertaining his eager listeners with swashbuckling tales of highwaymen, recapturing French prisoners-of-war along his route, and plowing through snowdrifts as high as his horses’ withers.
Thora felt herself shaking her head and smiling at the true, though exaggerated, accounts. The man ought to pen adventure novels.
The Hightowers moved on, and Thora lingered on the edges of the assembly, not minding feeling out of place but frustrated knowing she was doing nothing to help their cause.
Charlie returned to her side at last. “Sorry—di
dn’t mean to abandon you. May I fetch you another glass of whatever that is?”
“No, thank you. Horrid sweet stuff.”
“Any luck with Hightower? Saw you talking to him.”
“I’m afraid not. Other than he remembers my father kindly.”
Charlie nodded and glanced across the room at their host and hostess, busy greeting more guests. “I know I ought to do something to ingratiate myself, but I can’na stomach the thought of pandering to him.”
Thora sighed. “Nor I.”
“Then don’t,” Charlie said. “Your only task tonight, trying though it may be, is to look at me adoringly and laugh at all my jokes. And to look beautiful on my arm, of course, though you do so already without any effort at all.”
Thora sent him a sidelong glance. “And why am I supposed to look at you adoringly? So Eudora will be jealous?”
“No,” he replied, expression suddenly sober.
“Wish she’d never let you go? Chosen you instead?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“So she’ll see at least one woman finds me worthwhile.”
Thora’s heart went out to him, and she took his arm. “Oh, Charlie . . . of course you are.”
The musicians struck up a vigorous reel, and Charlie immediately brightened.
“Ah! A Scottish reel. Say you’ll dance with me, lassie.”
“I have not danced a reel in years. But for you, I shall try.”
“Excellent. Just follow my lead.”
By the time Charlie and Thora finished the reel, they were surrounded by admiring and cheering onlookers. Charlie certainly knew how to entertain a crowd.
Everyone beamed admiration at the handsome man in the kilt. Everyone except their host.
While they were catching their breaths and drinking cool punch, Hugh nudged his way into the crowd encircling Charlie.
“Why, if it isn’t the son of my father’s coachman,” Hugh began. “All dressed up like a gentleman, or rather, gentlewoman. That skirt you’re wearing is several inches too short for decency’s sake and several decades out of fashion.”
Charlie replied evenly, “This is the kilt my father wore when he saved your father’s life.”
“Smells like it. Never heard of a laundry? Time for the rag man, I’d say.” He smirked as though a joke, but he was the only person smiling, though one or two people chuckled nervously.
Thora put her arm through Charlie’s and squeezed a warning, and he managed to stifle the angry retort she saw ready to burst forth.
Hugh’s lip curled. “Did you know? Frank Bell attempted to court my Eudora as you did years ago, but she wouldn’t have him either.”
Thora blinked in surprise. Frank had admired Eudora before her?
Hightower went on, “It’s somehow fitting that you are here with the wife of another of Eudora’s castoffs. A dour little widow in the bargain.”
Charlie’s jaw jutted and his nostrils flared. “Not one more word, Hugh. Or so help me . . .”
“Mother of a pair of ne’er-do-wells, if memory serves.”
Eudora gasped, and Thora stiffened, ready to strike the man herself.
Charlie fisted his hand. “What’s it to be, Hightower. A punch in the eye, or your most closely guarded secret revealed?”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Which?”
“Either one.”
Pop! Charlie delivered a quick punch to the man’s face, and the tall man stumbled backward.
“Dash it, Frazer.” Hugh recovered his balance and lunged forward, delivering a surprisingly forceful blow to Charlie’s jaw.
“Charlie!” Eudora Hightower cried in alarm, her little hands fluttering over her mouth like the wings of a frightened dove.
Her husband sent her a scathing look and swung again. But this time Charlie was ready and ducked, avoiding the blow. Then he grasped Hightower around the middle and shoved, sending both men sprawling to the floor.
Around them the musicians squealed and squeaked to an abrupt halt, and dancers stumbled and turned to see what the fuss was about. Suddenly the other men in their circle broke from their stupefied trance and rushed to intercede, some grabbing Charlie and hauling him off, others helping Hightower to his feet and then holding him back.
Charlie shook off his would-be captors, but Thora took his arm in a relentless grip. “Come, Charlie. We have overstayed our welcome. Pray forgive us, Mrs. Hightower.”
Eudora’s eyes were still wide and her mouth slack but she managed a shaky nod. Thora had no words of apology to waste on Mr. Hightower, deputy postmaster or not.
Thora pulled Charlie out of the house and down the street. “Well, you certainly won’t be invited back there anytime soon.”
He sighed. “True.”
“Why, Charlie? You knew he was trying to provoke you. Why did you let him succeed?”
“I tried to resist. I bore his slurs about my kilt and country. But I could’na abide hearing him belittle you.”
“Oh come, Charlie. Let us be honest. You were defending your own pride. Not mine.”
“But he was looking down his long nose at us both.”
“Charlie, I realize I am not the social equal of the Hightowers or most of the other people there, and I don’t care. I grew up in an inn, catering to the likes of such people, as well as many higher in rank. In fact, the highborn were usually kinder and less demanding than those who’d scratched their way up a mound of their own making. People like Hugh waste no opportunity to let everyone know they are somebody and demand to be treated as such. Hightower may live up to his name in stature, but he is a small man, Charlie. And it would take a great deal more than his few insults to injure me.”
Charlie winced. “I am sorry, Thora. I had hoped to improve The Bell’s chances, but I have hindered them instead.”
“Well, he is an insufferably arrogant man, insecure as well, which are often two sides of the same coin. Just as vanity and insecurity are two sides for many women.”
“Hugh Hightower . . . insecure?”
“Wouldn’t you be? If you knew the woman you love admired another man? Perhaps even wished she had married someone else? Can you imagine how that must feel?”
“Yes, I believe I can.”
She looked at him, surprised by his somber expression. Did he mean Eudora, or . . . ? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Instead she asked, “Would you really have exposed his most closely guarded secret?”
“No.”
She lifted a hand. “Don’t tell me what it is, but . . . has it anything to do with Eudora?”
“It might. But I shan’t say more.”
“I wouldn’t want you to.”
Charlie shook his head. “He should have known I would’na reveal it. I do have some honor, after all.”
“Then why threaten to?”
“To give him a choice.”
She lowered her chin and regarded him in disapproval. “To give yourself an excuse to hit him, I think you mean.”
Thora felt she had chastised the man enough for one night. She pulled a handkerchief from her reticule and handed it to him. “Your lip is bleeding.”
He paused on the street and dabbed his mouth with it. “I suppose I have lost any chance I had of getting that kiss?”
She looked at the bloody lip and swollen cheek. “Definitely not a tempting prospect at the moment.”
Though she was just slightly tempted. A part of her wanted to kiss his cheek and soothe his wounded face and his wounded pride. But she resisted. It wouldn’t do to reward such behavior, she reminded herself briskly.
They continued on their way.
“It’s a good thing you punched him when you did, Charlie,” Thora said, sending him a sly smile. “I was about to challenge him to arm wrestle. Then he would have learned the true meaning of humiliation.”
Chapter
Thirty-Five
Later, atop the Quicksilver, they rode in companionable silence back to Ivy Hil
l, Charlie now and again reaching up with his free hand to massage his jaw. “Hugh has a better arm than I would have credited. I’m out of practice to let him land a blow in the first place.”
“You’re not a young man any longer, Charlie.” She elbowed his slight paunch. “Lightning Lefty is long gone.”
“Ach, Thora. Must you always be so blunt?”
She inhaled a long breath, noticing the aromas of freshly scythed grass and lavender in the air. “I have been blunt since I was a little girl, Charlie, and I shall no doubt be blunt when I am old and grey. Or should I say, older and greyer.”
“I hope I shall be there to see it.”
“Sounds like a fate most men would prefer to avoid.”
“I am not most men.”
“As I am realizing more and more.”
She felt him focus on her profile. “You look beautiful by moonlight, Thora. Your eyes outshine those poor stars.”
She turned to look at him. Saw his eyes glimmering as they roved her features. Felt him press his shoulder into hers. His knee . . .
“Lightning Lefty may be dead,” she observed, “but I see Charming Charlie is alive and well.”
He grinned in reply, then winced at the pain it caused.
They rode the rest of the way in silence, Thora gazing up at a thousand stars, and at candles in every window as they passed wealthy, wasteful Wishford—like a hundred more stars lighting up the night.
When they rattled though The Bell’s archway and into the stable yard at last, Thora noticed Gabriel Locke sitting on a bench whittling, a postillion asleep beside him. Gabriel rose and nudged the young man awake, saying, “Go and let the guard know the Quicksilver is here.” The lad hurried off to do so, and Mr. Locke walked forward to hold the horses while Charlie dismounted and helped Thora down.
By the courtyard torches, he gave the coachman a second look.
“What happened to you, Charlie? Are you all right?”
Charlie blustered, “Oh, ay. I tried to steal a kiss, and Mrs. Bell let me have it, all right.”
“Don’t pay him any heed, Mr. Locke,” Thora said. “Heaven knows I don’t. He speaks more nonsense than any man I know.”
While Gabriel took charge of the horses, Charlie escorted Thora to the inn door. “I wish I could stay,” he said in a low voice.