Free Summer Lightning by Cynthia Bailey Pratt Page A

horse chestnuts. “Come on,” he said in a grinding whisper. He took her arm and turned her again toward the stairs.
    “What is it, Mr. Dane?”
    “The management has asked us to leave.”
    * * * *
    “Damn and blast them to hell,” Jeff said, striding along the hall. He still towed her along by the arm, though he seemed to have forgotten about her. “It’s a fine thing when a man can’t even do right by a fellow creature without a bunch of prudish old women . . . that Dilworthy ... he saw the state you were in last night! What could any decent man do but make sure you were all right?”
    Hestopped outside her door. Edith felt as though she’d been dragged along behind a runaway train. Heheld out his hand for her key. “Pack up your things, Miss Parker. I’ll get my grip and we’ll shake off the dust of this place in two hoots.”
    “Surely there’s no reason to leave so abruptly, Mr. Dane,” Edith said, digging in her bag for the key. They were the first words she’d been able to slip in.
    “I don’t stay where I’m not wanted, Miss Parker. They’ve made their feelings clear on the subject.”
    “But all I have to do is explain . . .”
    “I’m not having my business told to a bunch of busybodies just to stay here another night. It’s not worth it.”
    Mr. Maginn had been threatening but he hadn’t stormed as impressively as this. Jefferson’s responsive face had become stony, only his hot eyes showing his anger. His voice was tight and hard as he thoroughly castigated everyone in the hotel, excepting only the young hallboy and herself.
    Yet she wasn’t afraid as she had been frightened of Mr. Maginn. She knew instinctively that Mr. Dane would never harm her. “So, what hotel will we go to next?”
    “We’re not.” He took the key out of her hands, turned it quickly in the keyhole and pushed open her door. “I’ve got Waters’ word that he’ll take the meat. So we’re going home.”
    “All right.” The way Mr. Dane combined the two of them into an “us” warmed her as though she had entered a room and everyone had turned to welcome her. “I haven’t a bag to pack my new clothes in. Do you think you could advance me a few dollars?” Asking him for more money brought a hot blush into her cheeks.
    “I forgot.” The anger seemed to die down in his eyes. “I’ll run out and buy you one. Get your stuff together to be ready to go when I come back.”
    “Thank you, Mr. Dane. Shall I pack for you?”
    “I’ll take care of it. I don’t travel with much.”
    In her room, Edith wasn’t sure she’d made it clear that Mr. Dane was to be repaid for the valise. She considered going down to catch him, but the idea of passing before all those critical eyes turned her knees to water. Coward though she might be, Edith shrank from that ordeal.
    After laying out her new clothes neatly on the bed, Edith remembered she had not yet written to thank Mrs. Waters and her mother for their charity. Fruitlessly opening and closing the desk drawers, Edith realized that there was not a scrap of paper to be had in the room. And the only pen she found had a broken nib.
    Twice she walked to the door. Twice she turned back. Orpheus gave an inquisitive chirp. “I know,” she said, shutting her eyes. “I’m as spineless as a jellyfish. It’s not as though they’re going to eat me, and I must write Mrs. Waters. I can’t be so basely ungrateful as not to reply to her kindness.”
    The hall of the castle was lit only by flickering torches. The shadows fought the light as Lady Jessica crept down the stairs into the great cold halt. The secret papers were in the mighty hewn oak table that Sir Ivor used when holding his corrupt Court of Justice. She halted on the rough steps as two guards, their swords clanking against mailed legs, passed below her. Lady Jessica longed for the safety of her tower room. But no ... Lord Jeffrey’s life depended on those papers! She would not fail him.
    “Pardon me,” Edith