Edith Layton by Gypsy Lover Page B

lisps. And so, who is this lady?”
    The crowd grew still.
    Meg turned to Daffyd, newborn fear in her wide eyes.
    “Oh, that,” he said, in his most refined accents. “Well, my dear,” he told the serving girl, “If I’d asked after my sister, would you have been so quick to help me? No, I don’t think so. Or so I have found it to be in these past days. You might have thought I was chasing my sister to force her to marry against her wishes. That’s what I hear she’s been telling people all along the road so they’ll help her and I won’t find her. But I must. In truth, she’s a rich young girl besotted by a very bad man who wants her fortune. So it’s much easier to say she’s my love, and get answers, then say she’s my relative and have people try to protect her. Women are soft hearted, brothers can be painted as villains. Come, my dear, don’t you agree?”
    The girl smiled.
    “Now, my lady here,” Daffyd went on, “is helping me in my quest, and since there are questions only a woman can ask, she travels a bit apart from me until nightfall. She says my sister is her cousin. Because after all, I ask you: Who in the world has any sympathy for in-laws?”
    There were nods and chuckles. The men who had held him began backing away. At last Daffyd could breathe easily again. He turned his head and put his lips against Meg’s ear as though he were brushing a kiss there. He felt her stiffen, and quickly whispered, “We have to stay here, if only for the night. It’s too late to travel on with any safety tonight.”
    She swallowed hard. He could hear it. Then she nodded. “We have to talk,” she whispered back.
    “Oh, never doubt it,” he said.
     
    The room they were led to was sumptuous, by the Magpie ’s standards. It was large, there was a fire in a hearth: two chairs, a table, a wardrobe, and a huge, high bed. Daffyd wondered if the sheets on the bed were still warm. He was certain someone had been turfed out so he and Margaret Shaw could be put in. His calm in the face of disaster and her histrionics had convinced the innkeeper they were Quality. The Quality were famous for their queer habits and mad starts. And whatever else they were, the Quality were needed for the prosperity of any inn.
    The men who had almost hanged him had each apologized humbly and then vanished into the night. The innkeeper had bowed so much he looked like a Mandarin. The servants rushed to make sure their every need was met. But their only need now was for the night to pass.
    Daffyd looked at his new roommate. She was pacing.
    “This will never do,” she muttered.
    “It has to,” he said, leaning back against the wall. “Tell you what: toss me a coverlet, I’ll sleep on the floor. You’ll be safe as a nun. I won’t touch you—unless you want me to.”
    She stopped and stared at him.
    He flung up his hands. “An attempt at humor. Nothing else. It’s been a hard night. So it wasn’t veryfunny. I can’t help it. My humor was bruised, too. Of course I won’t bother you. Especially after what happened yesterday. Fine way to thank you, that would be. I owe you, you know.”
    She spoke through gritted teeth. “But if people hear we stayed together, my reputation will be ruined.”
    “So will mine. Don’t worry. No one knows us. I didn’t use my real name. Did you? Even if you did, it doesn’t matter. Here, they believe you’re my wife. We’ll never see them again. Who else would see you or know you if they did?”
    “Well, the Runner,” she said slowly.
    “But he’s not here. So no one knows. Right?”
    She nodded.
    “So you’re safe. And so am I. See, I really am grateful to you and would do almost anything to thank you,” he said sincerely. “But not marry you. I’d hate to have to do that.”
    Her eyes flashed, then narrowed. “I do not want to marry you!” she said in a violent whisper. “I saved you because I knew you were innocent of kidnapping that child. Any Christian woman would have done