Chapter 3

T his godforsaken night couldn’t get any fucking worse.

The downpour that’d stalled Latimer’s travels to meet his future wife, hadn’t bothered him. After all, rain, more rain, and even more rain seemed to be the only variation in English weather. Hell, he’d welcomed any delay of his inevitable—but valuable—fate of becoming the husband of a widowed duchess.

But this? This was a bloody bridge too far.

Soaked from head to toe, Latimer wrestled with the burden tucked under his right arm. As he made his way through the deep puddles covering the cobblestone path, Latimer dodged the tiny fists of fury pummeling away at him and continued his determined approach to The George Inn.

“Quit you’re damned squirming,” he muttered.

“Put me down, you miserable son of a cod sucker,” the lad spat in return.

If Latimer weren’t so drenched, cold, and fucking miserable he’d have grinned at the mouth on this one.

Alas, as he pressed the old handle of The George Inn to let himself inside, Latimer couldn’t muster a single damn.

A warm rush of warm and cheer-filled revelry came up to greet him.

The smaller—and useless—pair of villagers who’d gotten Latimer to help retrieve the boy, trailed in slowly behind them.

The moment the sheepish pair were inside, they scurried past Latimer and made for the bar. By their harried expressions and stunned eyes, they’d rather have faced the raging tempest than the raging, foul-toothed lad.

In fairness, the scamp had been nothing short of a pain in the arse.

“That’s right,” the child shouted with an impressive force that nearly penetrated their busy surroundings. “Better run, ye bastards.”

The angry boy grew in Latimer’s estimation.

Only for a moment.

The scrawny child brought his foot forward and nearly managed to publicly unman Latimer.

“Ye bloody fucking bastard.”

Latimer grunted. “Aye. I’m all those things.” And more. “But you’re an ungrateful, little shite.”

“Let me go, yer daft bugger.” The drenched boy wrestled to be free. “Told ye and those other two sods enough times, I need to be out there lookin’ fer me master’s carriage.”

Sharp teeth managed to pierce Latimer’s wool cloak, jacket, and shirt, and Latimer cursed. “Would you stop your blubbering,” he growled, and then set his burden down on his feet.

Latimer expected the scamp to run. Instead, he marched right over until the tips of their both fine—surprisingly on the lad’s account—leather boots touched.

“Blubbering? Blubbering? Oi ain’t some lad.” He slapped a fist against his narrow chest. “Oi’ve got fifteen years on this miserable earth.”

He gave him a look-over. Aye, waif-thin, undernourished, the lad had London streets imprinted on every part of his gaunt, cynical, features. “You’ve got some loyalty to the master who left you behind.”

“He didn’t leave me behind.” Rage tightened the boy’s hard mouth. “There were two bloody carriages.” The boy stuck up two digits and waved them angrily. “I was travelin’ with Her Ladyship’s younger sister. When we stopped at an inn a way’s ahead and the other carriage never arrived, she became all distraught; wanted to go back and search. I volunteered to take a mount with my brother, head to this inn, and look. If she wasn’t at the other, she’d be here.”

It was actually an even greater testament to the lad’s devotion to his employers that he deigned to answer Latimer, a man whom he’d happily send to the devil.

“And the other driver didn’t think to double-back?” Latimer drawled.

“And leave the young miss unattended or put her in danger.” The loyal lad looked at him like he’d sprung horns. “Ye ain’t too smart are ye?”

“This from the boy who offered to wait outside, in the pitch black, in the middle of a tempest, to try and flag down a carriage that might or might not be coming by?”

“Fuck ye.”

An equally frail, but slightly taller boy, came stampeding over. “They’re ’ere, Caleb! Arrived they did more than an hour ago.”

A muscle worked in Latimer’s jaw. “ Over an hour ?”

The pair of like-coloring and like-looking boys ignored him outright.

“Mayhap closer to two,” the still nameless lad clarified.

“You were out in those hellish elements over two hours?” Latimer growled.

“Bloody Saints in Heaven be praised,” Caleb whispered.

Relief, the first emotion young Caleb had shown other than rage, washed over the sharp plains of his face.

Latimer, on the other hand, felt a fresh stirring of fury. “You’re praying over the wrong people, lad,” he advised.

Caleb’s vitriolic hate returned in full force. “Yer expecting my gratitude fer hauling my arse back?”

Latimer smirked. “I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

“Who is this ?”

That whispered query came from the more well-spoken boy, brought Latimer’s attention over.

“I take it this is your brother?” he drawled.

“Aye.” The boy nodded. “Eadric.”

“Don’t answer ’im!” Caleb exploded. “He’s a goddamned bastard, ’e is.”

Without a backward look, the littler brother grabbed Eadric’s hand and tugged him away.

Latimer cupped his hands around his mouth. “You’re welcome,” he shouted after the pair.

Caleb lifted a single digit high over his head. “Fuck ye, ye blighter.”

The bigger brother cast an apologetic glance in Latimer’s direction.

The moment they’d lost themselves in the crowd, Latimer gave his head a rueful shake.

Drops of water went spraying everywhere, which reminded him all over again he’d braved that godforsaken weather for a miserable shite who needed far more help than just being plucked from a storm.

The balding, buck-toothed, proprietor, Mr. Felchin, who’d enlisted Latimer’s help, joined him at the entrance.

“It’s been quite the evening, Mr. Latimer,” he gayly greeted, smiling as if he hadn’t sent Latimer on a thankless assignment.

Latimer shrugged out of his soaking wet cloak.

“So many guests,” Mr. Felchin continued, all too happy to carry on a conversation with Latimer, the last man to ever want a bloody conversation. The proprietor’s smile deepened. “And so many surprises, t—oomph.”

Mr. Felchin grunted and staggered under the weight of Latimer’s heavy cloak.

“I want a bath readied.” Without looking back, Latimer headed upstairs, issuing directives as he went. “A bottle of brandy. A boiling pot of coffee.”

There came a solid thwack and the rapid patter of the smaller man’s footfalls as he struggled to catch Latimer. “Er…uh…yes, Mr. Latimer. You see—”

“The only thing I need or want to see is my bath, brandy, and coffee.” No. Correction. “My boiling pot of coffee,” he amended when he reached his rooms.

Before he could enter, Mr. Felchin managed to squeeze his stick-thin frame between Latimer and the door, blocking the entryway. “I am afraid you cannot go in there, Mr. Latimer.”

“You mean, I can’t go in my room?” he snapped.

The innkeeper’s head moved somewhere between a nod and a shake.

Oh, bloody hell.

“Rain broke through the ceiling?” he said, running a weary hand over his face. “It’s fine.” He’d slept in far worse conditions than a room with a leaky roof. “I’ll make d—”

“Oh, no. Nothing as bad as all that.” Mr. Felchin rushed to alleviate that worry. “Our walls and roof are quite strong. As you might recall when you arrived and I showed you to your accommodations; The St. George’s Inn has been around—”

“I’m not looking for a history lesson,” he clipped out.

The small man’s gigantic Adam’s apple bobbed wildly. “I…there…you see, given the conditions outside, the inn is even more filled than usual. Not that we aren’t always busy here at The St. George’s Inn, but this is to the point I’ve had to rent out the stables and my—”

“ Felchin ?”

The innkeeper spoke so fast, all his words rolled together. “In your absence, a new, highly distinguished guest arrived, and I had no choice but to give over your accommodations. Mr. Latimer,” he belatedly added.

Latimer just stared at the red-cheeked fellow. “You gave my room away?”

Mr. Felchin gave a tug on a cravat nearly two decades out of fashion. “I had no other choice.”

“If this is some bloody jest, be warned, I’m not easily amused.” No, Latimer wasn’t ever amused. He’d been born angry and hard.

Mr. Felchin drew back like the thought alone was more offensive than his having given away the room Latimer had bought and paid for. “I’d never jest about anything as serious as occupancy at The St. George’s Inn, Mr. Latimer. Worry not, I took the liberty of moving your belongings to a very safe location in my—”

A guttural growl started in his chest and rose quick to Latimer’s throat.

The color slipped from Felchin’s cheeks, signifying the moment the daft bastard recognized both his folly, and the danger he found himself in.

Giving up his sentry at Latimer’s—now someone else’s—doorway, the galling proprietor edged himself along the wall, and away from Latimer.

“It was the right thing to do,” Felchin whined, in tones as weaselly as the man himself.

“Was it?” Latimer whispered.

Failing to detect the ominous steely underlaying of his words, the stupid fellow stopped. “Oh, yes. You will understand. This is an important guest, sir.”

“Ahh. Unlike me,” Latimer said, with a false sense of understanding. “Never tell me… Nobility?”

“Yes.”

For the proud way in which Felchin drew back his shoulders and tugged on his lapels, the King of England himself, may as well have been slumbering on the other side of Latimer’s door.

The lackwit continued on all too proudly. “Not every day we get high quality folk in this corner of Hitchin.”

“I wonder why?” Latimer jeered.

“I do not know. We’re a small village but we have—”

Mr. Felchin gasped. “You, cannot go in there, sir!” he squeaked.

Latimer turned slowly and the frail-looking fellow’s brief show of bravery faltered.

“Who is going to stop me?” he asked casually. Latimer, not taking his eyes off a quaking Mr. Felchin, cracked his knuckles. “ You ?”

By the way the small man’s trembling fiercened, one would think he’d been the one helping a small lad whose cruel employer had left him behind in the rain.

Mr. Felchin’s mouth moved like he wished to put up a protest, but then wisely closed it, and hastened off in the opposite direction.

When he’d gone, Latimer fished the rusted room key from his pocket and inserted the small bit of metal into the equally rusted hole.

Hesitating, he leaned his right ear close to listen. The medieval oak boards, however, blocked out any hint of sound on the other side.

After a moment, he let himself in.

The same way the aged lock and key made a silent entry impossible, so too did the noisy hinges that’d probably not been creased in the nine hundred or so years since the inn had been constructed.

Still, for Latimer’s best-efforts at a stealthy entry, it should turn out, he needn’t have bothered, anyway .

A deep, juddering, snore filled the room.

The bloody bastard, cozy, comfy, and happily dreaming in Latimer’s goddamned bed, was dead to the world.

Not the room. “ My room,” he muttered to himself.

A healthy fury sizzled within him. That was the way of these bloody bastards. Be them nobs who called themselves friends or made themselves partners to men outside their lofty ranks, at the end of a long, London day, they ultimately took what they wanted.

And in this case—he sharpened his gaze on the mounds of covers—this particular lord, had availed his fat, lazy arse of Latimer’s beds.

He allowed his eyes to adjust to the darkened space.

Latimer looked to the dwindling fire.

The fancy guest Mr. Felchin had so proudly touted, hadn’t even bothered to stoke the bloody fire, which’d nearly gone cold. More likely, the bastard didn’t know how .

The small table in the far corner remained littered with the leftovers of the veritable feast Felchin welcomed him with.

A glass of claret sat empty. The bottle beside it, half empty.

Latimer’s empty belly grumbled recalling all the many times he’d been hungry over the years and had to steal and fight for stale and rotted scraps tossed as refuse into the streets.

Now this fat, drunken, lord, with his corpulent belly full, lay dead to the world.

Another loud, unbroken snore filled the quiet, the sounds of which breathed into Latimer, a fresh round of hatred for all noble lords and ladies.

This time, Latimer didn’t worry about the noisy groan of floorboards as he approached the tosser who’d robbed him of a room and nicked his bed.

When he reached the rickety wood frame, he stopped. Even with Latimer towering over him, the drunken nob slumbered like a babe.

But then, why wouldn’t he?

Latimer’s lip peeled into a reflexive sneer. While he’d been out rescuing an ungrateful lad—a lad who in hindsight was clearly employed by the gentleman — this bastard had gorged himself on wine and food until he’d collapsed into his present stupor. All in the comforts of Latimer’s own rooms, no less.

His fury welled. With fingers numb from the freezing rain, he snatched a corner of the stack of blankets—blankets that’d been intended for Latimer.

“Wakey, wakey. You’ve stolen the wrong man’s room,” he snarled, tugging at the covers. “Do you hear that, Your Royal…Hi…” Latimer froze with the blankets halfway off the slumbering nob.

The sleeping bastard wasn’t a nobleman, at all…but a delicate, modestly-attired, lady.

Bloody hell.