She did not know this man, and she did not believe him to be the protector her father had hoped he would be. A dull sense of panic had been rising in her for the past few days like a nasty wellspring that might eventually bubble up and overwhelm her. Now she had left Bath, any meagre acquaintances she might were over a hundred and fifty miles behind her.
Hannah would have already taken up her new position and she had precious other friends. Lady Ralph no longer responded to her letters and Canon Whitehaven seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth. Of their ex-pupils, several had written her pretty letters when they had first left Hill school, but those had naturally tailed off with time when they had entered society or married.
It was a bleak thought, that this was the only family left to her. This blonde, laughing, drunkard with eyes full of spite and malice for all he was so pretty.
“Sadly, I already have one viper-tongued shrew in residence at Vance Park,” he said with mock-regret. “My viscountess, the Lady Caroline. I had hoped... but there. Things rarely turn out as we anticipate.” He passed her locket back to her.
He had hoped she would be some simpering miss who would cast herself on his chest and beg for his clemency, she thought with shrewdness. Perhaps he had thought to find a gentle confidante in his half-sister. A sort of saintly shadow of his long-forgotten mother. Willing to flatter and cajole him and hang on his every word. Their mother certainly would have she realized bitterly.
“In short, madam, you are not what I expected.” He drew out a cigarillo case and without asking her permission and lit up a thin dark cheroot. Her nose wrinkled for it smelt vile. He noticed her reaction and smiled again. “I cannot see that we would suit.”
A strange way of putting it, she thought. Almost as if he were jilting her.
“I agree,” she answered shortly. If he thought she was going to beg for his mercy, he was sadly mistaken. “Perhaps you should set me down at the next inn and I can make my own way back to Bath at the next opportunity.” It was a bold statement, full of stiff-necked pride for she knew both how little remained in her purse and how little was left for her back in Bath. In truth, nothing.
His eyes flared and for one horrible moment, she thought he would take her up on it. “No, no, there can be no question of anything of that sort,” he said vaguely, his mind clearly miles away. “You are my own flesh and blood and gently reared. I cannot see you cast out on the streets.”
Her back stiffened, but it was no more than the truth. After paying the costs of Papa’s funeral she was practically destitute. Still, courtesy would have dictated he did not draw this to her own attention.
“No, I must see you provided for...” He trailed off, sunk in sudden thought. He tugged on his lower lip in contemplation.
“Perhaps you have a small cottage on your estate,” she suggested with sudden desperation for she did not like the unholy gleam now shining in his blue eyes. “I could give lessons from there - art or music lessons? Or perhaps your wife will know of some acquaintance who has need of a governess?”
“Teaching? There’s precious little demand for lady’s lessons around Penarth,” he said dismissively. “As for Caroline, any acquaintance of hers would have no respectable use for you. No, I have a much better notion.”
“And that is?” she asked with a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach.
“Why marriage, of course,” he said slowly. “That is the traditional manner ladies are provided for, is it not? And as your fond brother, am I not required to provide a match and a suitable dowry?”
Mina felt her color rise. “You are insolent, my lord. My father asked for no such favor!”
“Now don’t go back to being all formal,” he sighed. “Did you not address me as brother earlier?”
“I will never do so again,” she said angrily. “You do not deserve the title.”
He smirked. “Well, then let us get around this obstacle by calling one another by our given names, at least whilst we are the two of us alone. I will be Jeremy and you will be Mina.”
She glared at him across the carriage as he took another liberal swig from his flask.
“And just how do you propose to serve up this husband for me?” she asked caustically.
“I have someone in mind, Mina,” he admitted. “Someone who... shall we say, wants something from me?”
“You are indebted to him?”
“Not exactly.” He shrugged.
“What should compel him to offer for a relative stranger then?” she asked with mounting ire.
“Oh, he will make no such offer,” he chortled.
“If he does not offer then the whole thing is impossible!” she pronounced with some feeling of relief.
“We shall turn up at his doorstep, then send for a parson and a veil, dear sister. He will speak the vows, though I will need some private conversation with him beforehand.”
She stared at him open-mouthed. “You are joking, my lord.”
“Jeremy,” he corrected her.
“Jeremy, I think you have run quite mad!”
“I have never been more serious in my life; my dear Mina, I assure you.”
She had to break off her words as the carriage which had been climbing a slope, came to an abrupt halt.
Lord Faris twitched the curtain and gazed bleary-eyed out of the window. Mina peered past him but could make out precious little for it had grown dark and blustery outside. In the distance loomed a solitary and lonely looking inn. Mina bit back an exclamation of annoyance for she had thought they were to reach their destination before nightfall, not put up at yet another roadside tavern.
Jeremy reached up with his silver-topped can and hit the roof three raps. “Make for The Harlot,” he called.
The Harlot? Surely, she had misheard him. “Do we make for that inn?” Mina asked in dismay.
“We do,” he said thickly and turned his empty flask upside down.
“Are we staying the night there or are you simply stopping to refill your flask?” she asked coldly.
“You’d best learn to curb that tongue, young lady,” he said, wagging a finger at her. “Or I very much doubt married life will be easy for you.”
Mina glared at him, but his eyes had drifted shut and did not open them again until the carriage came to a halt. For a moment he gazed about him, blinking as though unsure of his surroundings. “Do my ears deceive me, or can I hear fisticuffs?” he asked before darting with a bound from the carriage.
Mina leaned forward to peer out of the open carriage door. There was certainly a raucous crowd in the vicinity. Whoops and yells and jeers could be heard from what sounded like a very rough and ready bunch. They did not sound at all like the sort of people you would wish to meet on a dark night. She craned her neck out until she could see the coachman.
“Where are we?” she asked.
He did not answer, simply pointed wordlessly to the swinging inn sign with his whip. Mina glanced up and saw an inn sign of a busty woman with plunging neckline and the name The Merry Harlot proclaimed over her tumbled, blowsy curls. Drawing her cloak closer about her, Mina hastily retreated inside the carriage.
The public inns they had frequented along their journey had been respectable hostelries that kept good tables and comfortable beds. She had thought Lord Faris liked his comfort far too well to stay anywhere disreputable. This place, however, was of an altogether different caliber. She could only suppose he had gone in search of more alcohol to fortify his plunging spirits.