2. Another Piss-Poor AleA Reluctant Rescue?

Easing past the open entrance into the courtyard, flanked on either side by low walls, Susanna's perceptions changed from hoped-for holiday merriment to teeth-grinding reality.

It wasn't holiday candles aglow and warmth that beckoned, but rather soot-grimed oil lamps in the upstairs windows, so depleted of fuel that the light given off through their smutted glass lamps was feeble indeed.

As she had pried loose wearied, benumb feet that stuck to the muddy earth as though it were paste, the last fifty yards had seemed five hundred, so that her chilled body's need of a warm respite had only magnified.

The carolers? The ones she'd thought so vibrant and revelrous? The ones singing to the heavens with such joy it had made her too-frozen-to-feel lips attempt to crack a smile through the light coating of frost?

Fuddle caps, one and all, she saw, approaching the heavy set of double doors leading into the foul, dingy-feathered tavern. Loud, rough men of varying ages and varying stages of inebriation, half in/half out of the building itself but all with hearty voices and lewd lyrics. Lyrics that made her icy eyebrows wing skyward now that she was close enough to hear words and not just a lively tune. The swillers also possessed hungry, hard eyes when they caught sight of her lone self dragging in behind the others.

Gulp.

Her feet wambled, as though to delay her arrival.

You ought not travel without a companion , Sarah had written, not for any distance.

Pah. Susanna was more likely to be the companion, now that she no longer existed in a state of wedded servitude.

"Wot's this now?" Blockading the entrance, one of the coarse revelers crowded closer. "A little chickadee come into our midst this night?"

She squirmed away from the outstretched hand and made it to the door, in time to grab the edge as someone exited, looking rather pea green and holding their stomach, racing toward the fence. Susanna didn't wait to hear the retching, scrambled past the doorway and inside, to the safety it promised. A room. A meal, and mayhap, if she were lucky, a bit of privacy.

"Oh ho, little bird," another voice rasped, more refined than the last, but no less frightening—especially when accompanied by a bulky presence barring her way. "Eh, not so fast."

One of the men, not the largest, but the tallest, stained clothing and a black gap between his lips where a tooth or three belonged—lunged for her.

She jerked back and hauled her bag up between them. "Where is the proprietor?" she aimed her query toward the dim, swarming interior as a whole, raising her voice over the ragged group of seven or eight pressing in, crowding round and blocking the way forward—and back out.

Like flies at a summer picnic, the tavern buzzed with people. Standing, sitting, laughing, yelling. Aye, there were even some carolers—two parents with five wee ones were singing heartily, trying to appease the youngest whose face was screwed up, red and wet from crying.

"Who owns this establishment?" she called again, frustrated when her voice faltered toward the end. She firmed it and did a bit of yelling of her own. "Proprietor! Innkeeper! Please, I bid your assistance."

Reaver the Impressive gave a light stretch against his human's foot. Impressive for his hearing, aye, but he also had a number of hidden talents as well. Ones he remained supremely confident of, whether they were visible at the moment or not.

He and the captain had been cooped up in this seething mass of humanity for hours. He felt the strain from the man he traveled with as the rain forced so many indoors.

His captain was impatient to be on the move.

Tedium didn't approach. It had already landed, and with a huge splat even worse than the stable horses made when they fizzled some foul-smelling wind or cacked a corkscrew.

Well, no…maybe the horse excrement was worse.

Which was neither here nor there. And Reaver didn't really want to be here any longer, either.

He was beyond ready for a good roll in the dirt. Given the weather of late, he would settle for a lovely squish in the mud.

But wait. His human's foot flexed against Reaver's flank. Well, ho ho. Something interesting was about to happen. Hopefully, something impressive…

Leo tensed.

Dread knotted his stomach, churned an urgency through him he wanted to ignore. Needed to ignore, for sake of his mission.

Stay out of trouble, Leo. No sense involving yourself, of doing anything worthy of note.

After all, though he'd griped and groused enough to explain his presence, beyond that, his goal was to blend. Go unnoticed, unremarked.

But trouble likes you. Have you forgotten?

Nay. Trouble traveled , it seemed. For what he watched, unfolding before him, was the sort of thing he'd expect to find in London or Portsmouth, not this far in, and in an outwardly sleepy village to boot.

Is that not why you are here? Following trouble…

Blast it all.

The fur beneath his socked foot vibrated. Growling? Or more snores? When the canine's body stiffened, he had his answer.

Trouble was afoot, by damn.

Leo, known the last dozen years as Captain Tucker, had remained in His Majesty's Royal Navy even after the cannonade and particular blast that knocked him on his arse, head bleeding, and stole his ability to hear and the rest of his seafaring career. Hoping the auditory loss was temporary—but now accepting that it wasn't—he had continued to work for the navy, though from a desk and landlocked, applying his experience toward strategics while learning new skills. One of significance.

Which brought him here—to this torpid-yet-sinister village off the main stage routes: his ability, up to a point, to make out what others were saying from across the room. As long as he had a clear path to their mouth—without a bottle or tumbler hiding their lips—and they talked long enough (or conversely, brief worked fine, if they spoke slow enough—which usually wasn't the case) he could scrape together what he needed, typically a place or date. A hint of their nefarious goings-on. Something to help his superiors direct their next actions. As to being here, specifically? At the weak-handed Filthy Pig?

He'd been following a crew known not for their polish or wits, but their greed. Their lack of law-abiding interest, the crimeful vulgarians. Hoping to glean useful information had given him a purpose in life again, one he relished. Even though, to the world he now inhabited, he was naught but one of many war-injured military men returned home to English shores with little to occupy his time, save whinging about the flooded roadways, the busted bridge and his lame horse.

His horse wasn't lame. Not one bit. And the stable master knew it, as Ol' Mikey also traced this crew's scambling acts, Mikey being a prime intelligencer himself, and only one of two other men anywhere within 100 miles Leo knew he could count on.

But, for the nonce, he was on his own.

In the four seconds since sensing trouble, he'd drawn on his boot. Now sat, muscles tight, attention affixed on the rabblers. One hand clenched round the tankard, the fingers of the other fisted below the table in Reaver's scrubby fur. The rangy group he'd observed all day (alert for the information he sought) had grown more soused and bolder with every song, every sip…

When he'd watched them daunt away the overworked, ill-prepared proprietor once food ran out two hours ago (and seen the outworn word man take his harried wife and daughter upstairs, abandoning the brazen serving wench to whatever coin and calmness she could claim), he'd suspected something like this loomed.

The modest tavern wasn't on the primary stage route, but the flooded bridge that detoured travelers the last two days also ensured an influx of riff-raff, over and above the usual. While he hadn't spared a moment's surprise when the impinged family abandoned ship, neither had he planned for this:

A lass in need of a rescue.

"Well, hell," he whispered beneath his breath, wishing now he'd consumed more of the rottenish ale. Enough so that he would have slid into unconsciousness and out of responsibility.

But nay. Looked as though the bold-spirited, black-maned little miss didn't realize quite how deep she was sinking and might drown if he didn't rouse his reluctant self to jump in and swim out beyond his tidy, shadowed shore to save her…

"Innkeep! I would bespeak a room." Confound it, no one was rushing to answer—or to come to her aid.

What did you expect? Not Sarah's words this time, but Susanna's own pragmatical mind arguing back with commonsensical certainty. No one helped during the last seven years of miserable marriage either.

Ah, but she'd not told a soul how sorrowful her situation had turned. Easier to hide her woes beneath the beautiful trappings of the fanciful, uncomfortable home she had practically become trapped inside rather than admit her mistakes.

And with her brother off at sea and their parents deceased, Susanna had persevered, had accepted her lot, pretending it didn't suck at her soul, draining the very life from her, with every year that passed…

You did want adventure on this journey, did you not? Which is why you defied propriety and set out on your own.

Freedom, by God's grace. She finally had it now and would savor every experience she could. Would defend it with her last breath.

Determined not to be disadvantaged again, she feinted back and forth, up and down, looking beyond and in between the seething body of imposing disreputables looming far too close, hoping to locate someone responsible. An escape path. Anything she could use?—

But nothing. Not a single empty table that she could see—though that might be in part that despite her efforts, she could not look through the jackanapes that persisted in hounding her.

The toothless one she'd named Toothy in her mind, just to be brassy—something Mr. Mitchell would have punished there towards the end—sidled so close she could smell the rot of his breath as it blasted hot and fetid across her face. "Our chickadee desires a room of 'er own, she does!"

That prompted laughter and leers—and from more than just the men aggrieving her now. Two others, seated not far away, plunked the tankards they'd been holding, now drained, on the table and stood to join the circle surrounding her, closing it in even more. The size and number of men had gone from frightening to terrifying.

How quickly it had happened, too. From reckless adventure to dangerous jeopardy in a trice.

The cankered nasties grinned. Licked lips. Flexed fingers. Stripped her frozen form clear of clothes with their depraved gazes.

Even though her heart started beating faster and the taste of panic edged sharp and sour into her mouth, she held her ground, feigned outward calm. They had no idea, despite her terror, despite her past—mayhap because of it—that she knew how to deal with this sort of lecherous behavior. These types of base-minded brutes.

Trouble is oft afoot for those misfortunate enough to not be aware. Sarah, again. The London burnish gleaned from living and working in the city evident. Sarah, who knew things, had shared much in her missives over the years. Missives that had grown in length and frequency when Sarah's sister had begun ailing. Dear heart, wherever too many idle hands—and minds—gather, the dregs tend to clump together, you see, and will make use of any opportunity to strike.

Please, Susanna, Sarah had written in her most recent letter, wait until I can join you or, at the very least, until we can secure your safe passage before venturing out beyond your village.

But no. After nearly eight years tied to first a harmless but selfish man who then became an indifferent and sometimes rude one, and who eventually became a rather harmful one full of ill-disguised ill intent, Susanna no longer intended to wait for anything. Or anyone. No matter how well meaning.

To that end, she quit waiting for rescue, filled her lungs and roared, "Stay back! Back , I say, you miscreants!"

She swung her valise at the sinister, black-eyed one who prowled intimidatingly close. "This is a respectable inn," she told them, practically spitting now, more than a little incensed that not a single person wanted to involve themselves (even the singing family with the crying tot had gathered up their children and bustled to the far side of the room), " not a brothel! Where is the innkeeper?"

Toothy pulled her backside against his front and clamped his beefy fives over her breasts as the others only laughed and nudged elbows.

She swung again, only to have her bag snatched from her grasp by one of the biggest louts she'd ever seen, face beard obscured by a dead squirrel or three.

"Wot's in 'ere now?" Squirrel Beard growled at her, frowning as though miffed she'd clouted his stomach before he wrested both satchel and control from her. "'Eavy for a wee bird, it is."

"Give that back!" Lunging forward, grappling to reach her possessions, she bucked and kicked. The constricting hold around her middle only tightened.

"Eh, play sweet, now." Putrid breath assailed her nose, the beginnings of true fear starting to burn where he touched—his clutching fingers now fighting hers which sought to pry his hold free. "We's not 'eartless bastards after all. Ye'll get yer coin, just as soon as we get a stab at yer crack?—"