Adjusting her hood, she faced the tavern. To list, it seems. Carefully checking the cobblestones in front of her for additional pitfalls, she made her way through the crowd of uninterested people outside, toward the door.
He saw her the moment she entered the tavern.
There had been no question that she’d been lying earlier in the evening about her brother’s looking for a tavern in town. There was little chance that the Earl of Allendale needed his sister’s interference to find his way to a pub.
Which begged the question, why on earth was Lady Calpurnia Hartwell looking for a tavern?
And what on earth was she doing inside a tavern in the middle of the night? Had she no concern for her reputation? For that of her family? For that of his sister, for God’s sake? He’d placed Juliana’s reputation in her care, and here she was prancing into a public house, bold as brass. She was certain to get herself into trouble.
Ralston leaned back in his chair, whiskey in hand, his attention focused entirely on Callie, who was frozen just inside the doorway of the tavern, looking equal parts fascinated and terrified. The room was packed with people, most in various stages of drunkenness. He’d selected one of the more reputable establishments in St. James. While he could have sent her to Haymarket or Cheapside to teach her a lesson, he had predicted—correctly—that this place would be enough to set her back on her heels.
She pulled her cloak tight around her, eyes darting around the room, not sure where to direct her gaze to retain the calm demeanor that her upbringing required. A burst of masculine laughter startled her into turning toward a large group of men seated at a long table to her left. The men were eyeing a barmaid as she set tankards of ale on the scarred oak tabletop, revealing her ample bosom to the appreciative patrons. Callie’s eyes widened as one particularly forward man grabbed the buxom server and pulled her, squealing, onto his lap for a rude grope. Callie snapped her eyes away from the scene before she could see the next, certainly more scandalous, scene in the tableau.
Unfortunately, she turned toward another, more mutually accommodating couple. To her immediate right, a young woman showing an indecent amount of skin was running a long, feminine finger along the jaw of a gentleman clearly in search of companionship. The two were whispering to each other, lips scant inches apart, eyes locked in a passionate gaze that could only result in one thing…something even the innocent Lady Calpurnia Hartwell could understand. The couple did not notice Callie’s quick intake of breath before she catapulted herself farther inside, heading for the back of the tavern, straight to an empty table in a dimly lit corner—and to him.
If he weren’t so angry with the ridiculous woman, he would be amused.
As she made her way through the crowded room, she tried desperately to avoid touching or even brushing accidentally against the other patrons—an impossible task in the crush of humanity that stood between her and the sanctuary of the empty table within her sights. She seated herself without looking at the people nearby, in an obviously desperate attempt to regain some semblance of calm. She sat with her back to him, but the hood of her plain woolen cloak had fallen back, and he watched as she collected herself and waited for a barmaid to approach. Her hair was up, tucked into a horrid lace cap, but a few auburn curls had escaped and were brushing against the nape of her neck, drawing his attention to the lovely, straight column, flushed with excitement.
For a fleeting moment, he considered what it would be like to kiss the skin there. The scene at the Allendale ball earlier in the evening had confirmed his suspicions that Lady Calpurnia Hartwell was an eager and passionate woman. Her responses were irresistibly uninhibited—so different from those of the women he usually partnered—he couldn’t help but wonder how she would react to his touch in other, more scandalous places.
What was she doing here?
She could be discovered at any moment, by any number of people with connections to London society—she was in St. James, for God’s sake! If that weren’t enough, she had also entered the tavern alone, without protection; were she discovered by the wrong sort of man, she could find herself in a very serious and unpleasant situation. He noticed she held a square of paper firmly in both hands, as if it were a talisman. Could it be a love letter? Was it possible she was meeting a man here?
Of all the irresponsible things she could have done, this might well be the most rash. She tucked the parchment into the pocket of her cloak as a barmaid approached.
“I shall have a whiskey please. A scotch whiskey.”