Mary Balogh: Simply Unforgettable

The carriage was indeed slithering and sliding as it plowed its way through the heavy snow. Peters, Lucius thought, was probably enjoying himself more than he had in many a long day.

“I daresay you would say that,” he said, “since you have your own coachman trained to proceed at about half the walking speed of a gouty octogenarian. But what have we here?”

He peered out through the window and saw that the slithering had been occasioned by the fact that the carriage was being drawn to a halt. They had arrived at what appeared to be an inn, though it was a decidedly poor specimen of its type if this first glimpse of it was anything to judge by. It looked more as if it might be a community center for the drinkers of the village that must be close by than a stopping place for respectable travelers, but, as the old adage went, beggars could not be choosers.

The inn also looked somewhat deserted. No one had cleared any snow away from the door. The stables to the back of the building were shut up. No light flickered behind any of the windows. No reassuring plume of smoke was billowing from the chimney.

It was something of a relief, then, when the door opened a crack after Peters had yelled something unintelligible, and a head complete with unshaven jaws and chin and a voluminous nightcap—in the middle of the afternoon—peered out and bellowed something back.

“Time to wade into the fray, I believe,” Lucius muttered, opening the door and jumping out into the knee-deep snow. “What is the problem, fellow?”

He interrupted Peters, who was in the process of informing the man of his startling and quite uncomplimentary pedigree from his perch on the box of the carriage.

“Parker and his missus has gone away and not come back yet,” the man shouted. “You can’t stop here.”

Peters began to give his unbidden opinion on the absent Parkers and on unshaven, bad-mannered yokels, but Lucius held up a staying hand.

“Tell me that there is another inn within five hundred yards of this one,” he said.

“Well, there ain’t, but that ain’t my problem,” the man said, making as if to shut the door again.

“Then I am afraid,” Lucius said, “that you have guests for the night, my fine fellow. I suggest that you get dressed and pull your boots on unless you prefer to do some work as you are. There is baggage to carry inside and horses to attend with more on the way. Look lively now.”

He turned back to hand down Miss Allard.

“It is a relief at least,” she said, “to see your ill humor turned upon someone else.”

“Do not try me, ma’am,” he warned. “And you had better set your arm about my shoulders. I’ll carry you inside since you did not have sense enough this morning to don proper boots.”

She favored him with one of her shrewish glares, and it seemed to him that this time the reddened tip of her nose did indeed quiver.

“Thank you, Mr. Marshall,” she said, “but I shall walk inside on my own two feet.”

“Suit yourself,” he told her with a shrug and had the great satisfaction of watching her jump down from the carriage without waiting for the steps to be set down and sinking almost to her knees in snow.

It was very hard, he observed with pursed lips, to stalk with dignity from a carriage to a building several yards distant through a foot or more of snow, though she did attempt it. She ended up having to wade, though, and flail her arms in order to avoid falling after one inelegant skid just before she reached the door, which the nightcapped occupant of the inn had left open.

Lucius grinned with grim amusement at her back.

“We picked up a right one there, guv,” Peters commented.

“You will keep a civil tongue in your head when referring to any lady in my hearing,” Lucius said, bending a stern gaze on him.

“Right you are, guv.” Peters jumped down into the snow, looking quite uncowed by the reproof.

“It looks as if I may indeed have my ale,” Mr. Marshall said. “And it looks as if you may have your tea if we can get a fire going and if there is tea hidden away somewhere in the kitchen. But I despair of my beef pie—and my suet pudding.”

They were standing in the middle of a shabby, cheerless taproom, which felt no warmer than the carriage, since there was no fire burning in the hearth. The servant who had opened the door to them and then not wanted to allow them inside despite the inclement weather came lumbering in with Frances’s portmanteau and deposited it on the floor just inside the door together with large clumps of snow.

“I don’t know what Parker and the missus will have to say when they hears about this,” he muttered darkly.

“Doubtless they will hail you as a hero for hauling in extra business and double your wages,” Mr. Marshall told him. “You have been left here all alone over the holiday?”

“I have,” the man said, “though they didn’t leave till the day after Boxing Day and they are supposed to be back tomorrow. They give me strict orders not to let no one in here while they was gone. I don’t know about no double wages, but I do know about missus’s tongue. You can’t stay here the night and that’s flat.”

“Your name?” Mr. Marshall asked.

“Wally.”

“Wally, sir, ” Mr. Marshall said.

“Wally, sir, ” the man repeated sullenly. “You can’t stay here, sir. The rooms ain’t ready and there ain’t no fires and there ain’t no cook here to cook no victuals.”

All that was painfully apparent to Frances, who was about as deeply sunk into misery as it was possible to be. Her only consolation—the only one—was that she was at least alive and had solid ground beneath her feet.

“I see that a fire is ready laid in the hearth here,” Mr. Marshall said. “You may light it while I go outside to bring in the rest of the baggage. Though first you will provide the lady with a shawl or blanket so that she may remain moderately warm until the fire catches. And then you will see about getting two rooms ready. As for food—”

“I will step into the kitchen myself to reconnoiter,” Frances said. “I do not need to be treated like a delicate burden. I am no such thing. When you have finished lighting the fire in here, Wally, you may come and help me find what I will need to produce some sort of meal that will satisfy five people, yourself included.”

Mr. Marshall looked at her with both eyebrows raised.

“You can cook?” he asked.

“I do need food and utensils and a stove if I am to succeed,” she told him. “But I have been known to boil a kettle without causing the water to turn lumpy.”

For the merest moment she thought that the gleam in his eyes might be amusement.

“That was beef pie in case you did not hear it the first time,” he said, “with plenty of onions and gravy—without lumps.”

“You may have to settle for a poached egg,” she said, “ if there are any eggs.”

“At the moment,” he said, “that sounds like a worthy substitute.”

“There are eggs,” Wally said, his voice still sullen as he knelt to his task of lighting the fire in the taproom hearth. “They are supposed to be for me, but I don’t know what to do with them.”

“One would hope, then,” Mr. Marshall said, “that Miss Allard does know and is not merely indulging in idle boasting when she promises poached eggs.”

Frances did not bother to reply. She pushed open the door that she guessed led to the kitchen while he went back out into the snow to help his coachman unload the carriage.

The building was chilly and cheerless. The windows were small and let in very little light even though there was so much whiteness outside. Her feet inside her boots were wet and cold. The inn was not dirty, but neither was it sparkling clean. She dared not take off either her cloak or her bonnet lest she freeze. There was no one to see to her needs except for one slovenly, lazy serving man. There was no one to prepare a hot meal—or even a cold one for that matter. And she was alone here with one bad-tempered, ill-mannered gentleman and three crotchety menservants.