Page 15 of Lady Isla and the Lord of Rogue (Merry Spinsters, Charming Rogues #6)
Chapter Nine
The Angel was an infamous public house located on St Giles High Street.
Highwaymen and other criminals, imprisoned in Newgate, traditionally stopped there for their last drink before they were executed at Tyburn Tree.
They were usually followed by a horde of onlookers, and the atmosphere tended to be one of overall excitement, as though this were a village fair, not an execution. Or so they said.
Isla descended from the carriage and lifted her head to study the seedy, run-down building.
Did Lucian Night stop here, too, for his final drink, before he went to his disastrous execution?
A cold shiver ran down her spine. She pulled her shawl closer.
She stepped aside as a coach pulled up next to her, spattering her with mud.
The Angel was also a coaching inn, but certainly not one of the reputable sort.
The Quality, certainly, would never dream of stopping there.
They would frequent the more expensive coaching inns away from St Giles, such as the Golden Rooster.
And if they had to make a stop here, they would never deign to descend and enter the inn but wait in the carriage, whilst the drinks were brought out to them.
Isla regarded the inn with trepidation. Should she really set foot inside it?
“This looks like a perfectly fine place to have some tea.” Teddy stepped up to her, offering his arm.
She’d brought along Teddy again. Teddy, who had no clue what was going on.
Teddy, who thought they were on another excursion to pass the day.
He’d spent the entire coach ride talking about his favourite horologist, Thomas Tompion.
She knew a lot more about this seventeenth-century horologist than she cared for.
Interestingly, though, she had not found his discourse boring or pedantic, and welcomed the distraction; otherwise, she’d be worrying herself into a state regarding the upcoming meeting.
But Teddy distracted her beautifully. The passion in his voice, the sparkle in his eyes and his overall lively demeanour as he discussed his favourite topic had awakened an interest in her as well.
She watched his animated face during the entire ride to St Giles.
“Imagine that, Lala—” Her heart warmed when he used the nickname, which he did more and more often.
“Tompion’s longcase clock from 1680 and a double-pull table clock are still functioning to this very day!
What they produce nowadays cannot compare.
” He pulled out a pocket watch. “Do you see this? I bought it on Bond Street the other day, thinking it must be of good quality. But look, the timing is already incorrect, even though it ran perfectly well in the shop.” He flipped the case shut.
“My plan is to take it apart and to fix it and put it together again.” He looked at her with a boyish smile.
“How many hours do you spend taking clocks apart and putting them together again?” Isla had asked, regarding the timepiece in his hands.
“Maybe five, no, six hours. The first thing I do after I rise, and even before breakfast, is go to my workshop. Did I tell you about my workshop? I have transformed one room dedicated specifically to clockwork.” He described in detail what the room looked like.
Then he interrupted himself and looked at her, shyly.
“I would love to have a workshop in our new home as well.”
Isla blinked. “By all means. Of course, you shall have as many workshops as you like, and you can mount as many clocks as you want on the walls.” Though she privately thought that the incessant ticking would, in all likelihood, drive her to insanity.
“Thank you for indulging my eccentricities,” he said.
“I know my interests are unusual and they have elicited many comments from certain persons. Currently, it is more fashionable to be interested in poetry, or painting nature; botany, geology and biology are all perfectly fine interests for a gentleman to have these days, but not the mechanics of man-made machines, such as clocks. They are said to lack emotion and romance. Though I say with a certain amount of conviction that machines and engines are our future.”
“You shouldn’t mind so much what other people say about your eccentricities, as you call them,” Isla retorted.
“I am the least person to object to them, having so many of my own. After all, here you are again accompanying me on one of my strange excursions. You must think I must have fallen in love with this terrible part of town.” She indicated with a hand outside the carriage window, where they passed the worst part of the rookery.
“Not so strange at all,” Teddy retorted eagerly.
“I have heard of your charities, for it is well known that Lady Isla is one of the biggest benefactresses in town. You not only support hospitals but orphanages, and I had heard of your ventures into the less reputable parts of town to save the lost souls long before we even met.” It was true, for Isla had, in the past, liked to seek out the less fortunate to provide help and support.
She knew what it was like to be homeless.
To be an orphan. To be uprooted and not to know where one belonged.
To be driven to do what one had to do to survive, even if it meant lying and stealing.
Teddy would never know, but she herself had once stolen handkerchiefs, timepieces and purses. Together with Jem.
Her eyes shifted back to the sombre building in front of her.
The Angel. What an ironic name. She turned to Teddy, suddenly having made up her mind to tell him the truth.
“This is no charitable visit. I am here to meet someone. An acquaintance from long ago. A man. A childhood friend, to be precise. We haven’t seen each other for over twenty years.
I asked Lucian Night to help me find him.
” The latter she hadn’t exactly planned on telling him, but there it was. The words had tumbled out of her mouth.
He regarded her calmly. “Let us meet the fellow, then.”
She returned his regard. “You don’t mind at all that your betrothed has sought out the worst criminal in the London underworld to help her find her old friend. Whom we are about to meet right now.”
Teddy scratched the back of his neck. “To be sure, it is somewhat irregular. But I must admit I’m rather curious now what the fellow looks like. And,” a grin stole across his lips, “I confess I crave a good, strong cup of tea.”
The Angel inside was exactly as she'd expected it would be.
Dark and dingy, with suspicious-looking characters skulking in every corner.
Isla paused nervously by the entrance, but Teddy strode right into the room like it was the most natural thing in the world and as though he were accustomed to frequenting places like this.
Did Isla imagine it, or did a hush settle over the room when they entered?
She felt the stares of a hundred pairs of eyes on her like pinpricks.
There were probably only a dozen or so people in the room; quite possibly fewer.
The innkeeper, a fat, bald man with a greasy apron, stepped forward from behind the bar and eyed them with small, beady eyes.
He sized them up and recognised them for Quality.
Isla wished she'd not put on her best velvet walking dress, nor her fine new bonnet; this, together with the reticule and umbrella in her hand, surely gave her away for who she was: a lady of Quality. But for some reason, she'd wanted to look her best when she finally met Jem.
After her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room, Isla's gaze swept across it, but it appeared Jem wasn't there yet.
She was momentarily relieved. She' d agonised the entire morning over what to wear, and she'd changed clothes three, four times until she'd settled on the current ensemble.
Now she wished she'd chosen a simpler dress, a less elaborate redingote, for the one she was wearing now was of dark green velvet with golden frogging in a criss-cross pattern in the military style that was so fashionable these days. It made her look expensive.
Isla stepped close to Teddy, who lifted his hand with his walking stick, hailing the innkeeper as if they were old friends.
The innkeeper paused and stared. “We’d like a table somewhere private, somewhere that isn't in a dark and draughty corner.” Teddy looked around.
“Preferably somewhere where people don't blow the smoke of their pipes into our faces, either. By the window or the fireplace would be best.” But alas, these tables were occupied. There was an elderly man sitting by the window; a group of men were next to him, apparently drunk and playing dice. Isla was too nervous to register what happened next, but the innkeeper, who’d leered at them only a moment before, froze, jerked and stood to attention, and made a movement with his hand that Isla couldn’t interpret.
As if on command, everyone at the tables got up and left.
Isla and Teddy were the only ones remaining in the room, save for the innkeeper, who bowed.
“What happened?” Isla whispered to Teddy, looking around in confusion. “Why did everyone leave?”
Teddy shrugged. “I said we needed privacy, so I suppose that is what we got.” He lowered his voice. “Very obliging of him, don’t you think? ”
The innkeeper was behaving oddly, but Isla could not focus enough to wonder why.
She sat at the table, tugged off her gloves, and kept surveying the room, which was entirely empty.
Teddy took his place across from her. Isla wondered whether it had been a mistake to take him along, whether she should tell him to sit elsewhere.
What if Jem was intimidated by his presence?
As soon as she thought that, she nearly laughed, for Teddy was the least intimidating person in the entire universe. He was now conversing with the innkeeper about what beverage to order.