Free Last Night's Scandal by Loretta Chase Page B

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    The ladies had made short work of the large basket Cook had prepared. Now empty, it rested on the carriage floor at Bailey’s feet.
    Looking on the bright side, though, one couldn’t ask for more entertaining company for a long journey.
    They traveled on, the two older women telling hair-raising stories about their younger days until, at last, at Waltham Cross, they reached Hertfordshire.
    Given the easy pace, the same team probably could have taken them another ten miles, to Ware. But the coachman would stop here, at the Falcon Inn, to change horses. The Carsington family made the same stops, at the same posting inns, every time, the selection based on many years’ traveling experience. On Olivia’s copy of Paterson’s Roads , the dowager had marked the stops and written down the names of favored inns.
    “At last,” said Lady Withcote as the carriage entered the courtyard.
    “I’m perishing for a cup of tea,” said Lady Cooper. She knocked on the roof with her umbrella. “I know we mustn’t dawdle, dear. We won’t be but a minute.” Olivia doubted that. She’d have to hurry them along. “I’ll go with you,” she said. “It’s dead dark, the yard’s poorly lit, and it’s raining.” She could hear it now, a patter on the carriage roof.
    “Lud, child, we don’t need a nursemaid to walk a few steps,” Lady Cooper said indignantly. “I hope I’m not so decrepit as that.”
    “Certainly not,” Olivia said. “But—”
    “If we’ve been here once we’ve been here a thousand times,” said Lady Withcote.
    “I could find my way blindfolded and drunk,” said Lady Cooper.
    “You’ve done that,” said Lady Withcote. “Coming home from one of Lady Jersey’s breakfasts, as I recollect.”
    During this exchange, a servant opened the carriage door and put down the step.
    Unsteadily, the ladies descended.
    “That was a party ,” said Lady Cooper. “Nothing like it nowadays. Only one paltry, dull affair after another.”
    “Nobody ever gets killed anymore.”
    The coach door closed, cutting off their voices. Watching from the window, Olivia soon lost sight of them. The rain turned them into a pair of dark shapes, Lady Cooper a trifle shorter and plumper than her friend, before the gloom absorbed them completely.
    Olivia sank back into her seat.
    Though, according to Mr. Paterson, they’d traveled only eleven and a half miles, it had taken nearly three hours. The bustle and excitement of their hasty departure was long behind them. With that distraction gone, the storm of anger and hurt returned.
    That stupid, obstinate, ungrateful man.
    She wished she’d pushed him harder. She wished she’d had her umbrella with her. She’
    d have enjoyed knocking it against his thick skull.
    Well, she’d teach him to try those high-handed tactics with her. She’d thought he understood her—but no, he’d turned into a man, and he behaved the way they all did.
    Minutes passed. Rain drummed on the roof and on the cobblestones, dulling the clatter of Page 42
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    wheels and the clop of hooves. Even in the small hours of morning, on a dark, wet night, travelers came and went. Coaching inns never slept.
    In spite of her temper—or perhaps worn out by it—she must have dozed, because her head jerked upright at the sound of voices outside the carriage.
    The door opened. There stood the coachman and several other men, including two of her great-grandmother’s footmen, all holding umbrellas.
    “If you please, miss,” said the coachman. “A bad storm blowing in.”
    “It’s very bad, miss,” said the other man—the innkeeper, apparently. “And getting worse by the minute. I urged the other ladies to wait until it blows over. I judge it won’t be more than an hour or two.”
    A gust of wind wailed through the courtyard, trying to take the umbrellas with it. The drumming had swelled to a