Free Cheryl Holt by More Than Seduction Page B

were weak, her body trembling, and she staggered over and flopped down on the mattress, rolling to her back and gazing up at a crack in the ceiling.
    Oh, how would she ever face him in the morning!
    Humiliated, ashamed, confused, more forlorn than she’d ever been, she cried herself to sleep.

 5 
    Anne stood on the stoop, trying to be gracious, but privately gnashing her teeth. Even on her best days, her neighbor, Willie McGee, was difficult to tolerate, but with how harried her life had recently become, she hadn’t any patience to abide his swaggering and braggadocio. She needed a polite way to get him moving, but he was regaling her with details of his latest criminal conquest, and he wouldn’t shut up.
    He was fascinated by law enforcement, by transgressions and felons, and he fancied himself as a sort of unofficial petty magistrate, a rural Bow Street runner, who was the sole barrier between peace and anarchy in the Bristol area.
    Though he owned the adjacent property, and earned a stable income from farming, his passion was the pursuit of lawbreakers. He was forever chasing after culprits, seizing them, and delivering them to various judicial entities. In the pasture behind his house, he’d even built a small gaol, where he incarcerated offenders prior to transporting them.
    Citizens purchased his assistance for a fee, and he provided a beneficial service for those who hadn’t the resources or time to prosecute wrongdoers themselves. Still, rumor had it that he employed unscrupulous methods, that he couldbe bribed to manufacture evidence, that he wasn’t beyond charging an individual on false facts if the money offered was sufficient.
    She didn’t believe the chatter, mostly because he seemed harmless, more boast than substance. He liked to impress with his narratives of valor and danger, but how many of them were actually true was open to debate.
    At age forty-one, he wasn’t maturing very gracefully. He was bald, his skin swarthy and pockmarked, and he didn’t bathe much, which was nauseating when she was so fussy about individual hygiene.
    He stunk, and his clothes needed a thorough laundering.
    He was short, not much taller than herself, but his shoulders were broad, his arms and thighs beefy, and he was very strong, so he appeared much larger than he was. A bachelor, who lived with his shy, spinster sister, Prudence, he was an odd duck, with peculiar hobbies and a quirky character.
    When Lady Eleanor had first dumped Stephen in her lap, Anne had deemed Willie the perfect choice to convey Stephen to Bristol Manor. He had a large wagon, with an enclosed bed that he used to convey outlaws, and Stephen could have reclined in the back for the journey, so she’d sent him a note, asking him to visit, but now, with how events had untangled, she rued contacting him.
    “I’m sorry I bothered you, Willie,” she said, eager for him to go. “I had a client who needed a ride, but he—that is,
she
—found another carriage.”
    Willie was no fool, and he noticed the slip of speech. “Oh, Anne, don’t tell me you’ve considered having a man on the premises.”
    “I’d never do anything that idiotic,” she lied.
    “Good. This is a conservative community, and you need to maintain your reputation. It’s bad enough that you’re operating this place by yourself.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “People talk, Anne. And what they say about you isn’t always kind.”
    A master at innuendo and insinuation, he was constantly hinting that he’d been apprised of the
real
story, the secrets to which others weren’t privy, and she refused to react. Very likely, no one had uttered two words about her, and she wouldn’t give him any fodder for the gossip mill. Besides, by passing herself off as a widow, she quelled speculation about her independent conduct.
    “I’ll keep your advice in mind,” she blandly agreed.
    Puffing up, he stuck out his chest, convinced that he’d made an important point. “Have you reflected