A Rag-mannered Rogue Read Free Page B

certainly have missed the stagecoach to London. Even taking the faster mail, it would be nightfall by the time she reached Grosvenor Street, and there was no saying what suitable accommodations could be arranged. One thing was certain—she would not stay with Lady Haverlea, who treated her mama so shabbily, no matter what the connection!
    No, it was surely better to spend the night in front of a warm fire and continue on in the morning. By all accounts, the hostelry that rose before her in a cheerful mass of gray stone and rosewood shutters was excellent.
    But how vexatious to have on only a half-mourning traveling gown and muddied shawl! Not to mention no chaperone or proper baggage . . . Miss Tessie bit her lip. In London it would not have mattered. The city was sufficiently big to permit anonymity. She would pass for a merchant’s daughter or a governess, or even a superior upper servant. Here there were bound to be questions. Country folk were all the same. Quickly, Tessie assembled some sort of story, then turned toward the neat cobbled path leading up past the stables. Just her luck to have hailed Mr. Dobbins, when if she’d only had a little patience, she could have wheedled Jack, the carrier’s boy, to take her up in his chaise.
    She shook off her childish pout and replaced it with the wider, more sensuous smile of a beautiful woman halfway through her eighteenth year. It was wasted on the cobbler’s boy who eyed her saucily as she passed, but it lifted her gloom a little. No point pining and repining. She was not a wet goose! Indeed, no! Miss Theresa Evans Hampstead was made of sterner stuff, as anyone with half a wit would attest to. And if she was not to be conveyed to London that day, she might just as well step out of the drizzle.
    Rain was dripping from her bonnet, but she scornfully ignored the rather sobering notion that she doubtless looked a fright. Pure vanity—she had no time for such nonsense. She clutched at her valise and marched forward.
    The posting house, now that she had passed the stables and taken a closer look at bright awnings and cheerful plant boxes, seemed warm and inviting. She could just make out a fire through the windows, and even though it was morning, tapers burned merrily to offset the heavy, gloomy drapes and the dullness of the day.
    Of a sudden, Miss Theresa Evans Hampstead—otherwise known to all her intimates as Tessie—was hungry. The forty-two gold sovereigns weighed heavily in her reticule. She felt rich. And, though annoyed at Mr. Dobbins’s lack of chivalry, she was nevertheless pleased to see the last of him. Poor company he was, forever prosing on about this or about that. And boastful! He had bored on in his dry way a full six miles about his hunting prowess and several more about riding unicorn.
    Miss Hampstead sniffed, though the corners of her mouth tilted upward rather wickedly. She doubted whether poor Mr. Dobbins possessed three horses frisky enough to put it to the touch. But when he had tried to kiss her at the Postlethwaite toll, it had been the outside of enough. She really did not regret stomping meaningfully on his hessians, even if it had resulted in a long and bitter tirade about “fanciful chits who needed taking down a peg or two.” Not to mention, of course, being deposited but two miles later at this unknown outpost miles from anywhere fashionable and probably far removed from Upper Grosvenor Street, her preferred destination.
    Mr. Dobbins’s ardor, she presumed, had waned to all but nothing.
    Tessie shrugged. She’d wanted an adventure, and now she had it. She dusted down her traveling coat, and with a slight tweak of her bonnet, she stepped inside.
    Â 
    â€œMight I organize a room for the night?” Her voice was like soft velvet, belying her youth and obvious shortcomings of dress. Her gown, she knew, was positively provincial, and though her pearls were of the finest quality, they were presently