Free No Place for a Lady by Joan Smith Page A

tomorrow?”
    “No, I have asked Miss Thackery to join us. I hope you don’t mind.”
    “I should have told you to invite her. That was remiss of me.”
    It was the gentlemanly thing to say, yet I was a little disappointed that he was not disappointed at her coming. He soon went upstairs, and Miss Thackery joined me. She had made tea and brought a tray to the saloon. We discussed how we would rearrange the room tomorrow, now that we were rid of most of the excess lumber. I would ask Mullard to chop up the few remaining pieces for firewood. Miss Whately could have one of the spare carpets, and no doubt one of the other tenants would be happy to take the other off our hands.
    Miss Thackery noticed the wine decanter was empty and asked Mrs. Scudpole to bring a fresh bottle. She brought it and said grimly, “This is the last bottle in the house.”
    “Surely my aunt had a wine cellar? Did you look in the cellar?”
    “I got this one from the cellar. The last one.” She gave us a dirty look and left.
    I did not mention the watch to Miss Thackery. She would want to turn Sharkey off at once, but I kept thinking of the poor man—having to support himself and his mother and four sisters. Another tenant to feel sorry for.
     

Chapter Seven
     
    It had been arranged that I would take over my aunt’s bedchamber, while Miss Thackery slept in the room we had both used the night before. We retired early, which was a very good thing, for from one o’clock onward, we scarcely got a wink of sleep that night. At one o’clock, Miss Whately came home utterly foxed. The colonel was in a similar condition. We had determined earlier that the tenants each had their own key for the front door, but the job of inserting a key in the lock was beyond the combined talents of the pair of them. They banged on the door, frightening the life out of Miss Thackery and myself. When we tiptoed into the hallway, armed with a poker and a water jug respectively, the giggles and singing on the other side of the door told us what was going forth.
    There they stood, leaning against each other for support, smiling like a pair of moonlings. Miss Whately’s bonnet was knocked sadly askew, and her gown looked as if she had slept in it. The colonel’s cravat hung around her neck. He looked excessively rakish with his cravat missing from his toilette.
    “Oh Mizz Cummings, I’ve gone and forgot my key,” Miss Whately said, and laughed uproariously. She held the key in her fingers, but it was a key from the colonel’s ring that was wedged partway into the lock.
    The colonel smiled blearily when the door opened. “You see I am in deshabille,” he said, slurring the words. “This young miss took my cravat. She could talk a cow out of its heifer.” He looked at his key—and at the open door. “Told you mine would work,” he said to Miss Whately. “Always opens my door.”
    “I’m glad something about you works, Jack,” Miss Whately replied, with a lecherous wink in my direction.
    She stepped in; the colonel tried to follow. I let Miss Whately pass, but put my arm out to bar him from the door. “Good night, Colonel,” I said firmly.
    “Eh? Why, it is the shank of the evening. Renie has asked me up for a glass of wine.”
    “You have already had quite enough wine.”
    “I have not touched a drop! I have been drinking brandy.”
    He tried to barge past me, but his innate breeding prevented him from manhandling a lady. Soon he discovered something else to divert him. My dressing gown had come a bit loose as I worked to keep him out. He peered down it and said, “I say! That’s a bit of all right!”
    “Colonel Stone!” I exclaimed, clutching my gown about me.
    “Don’t mind him, dearie.” Miss Whately smiled in a fatuous way and slid his cravat around my neck. “He talks a good game but there is no vice in Jack, is there, darling?”
    “No, no. I am Simon Pure.” He smiled, reaching to snatch my gown open.
    I gave his hand a hard slap. “Go