He imagined trying to speak to his mother about putting her affairs in order and felt a familiar and potent urge come over him—the strong desire to be elsewhere. London. Or Paris. Or better yet, Peking. He hardly realized that Dr. Turner was rising to depart, or even felt the sleet on the back of his own neck as he escorted the physician under an umbrella to lodging at the Antlers. He woodenly expressed his gratitude for the doctor's forethought in making a professional nurse available for as long as his mother might require it, and promised to convey all instructions to the local surgeon. When he stood in the street again, he could think only that he needed fortification before he could face his maman. Not to put a fine point on it, he needed to be deeply, blessedly, besottedly drunk.

Not at the Antlers, of course. Nowhere in Shelford. Feral instinct pointed him toward a small alehouse that he recalled having passed on the Bromyard road. He was not a habitual tippler; he liked to keep his wits about him too much for that, but barring Peking, drink seemed the only recourse. He began to walk, holding the umbrella until the wind threatened to collapse it, and then put his face down and strode into the stinging drops.

At the pace he set, it was hardly more than a quarter hour before he saw the low thatched roof and cheerful smoke rising up through the sleet. As he pushed open the door, the scent of damp, sweaty wool and home brew engulfed him, carried outside on the rumble of laughter and talk.

He shoved his way in among the crowd of laborers and idle sportsmen. The Bluebell was clearly one of those places deplored by moralists in lecture and print, where all levels of society mingled on free terms. A convivial gathering to escape the weather, relentlessly masculine but for a barmaid who could give back as good as she got—it was just the situation Trev preferred at the moment. He used his smile to ruthless advantage, obtaining a tankard from the barmaid and a jeer from the table she ignored on his behalf, but he bought them all a round and dragged up a stool, downing his ale in one long draught. He knew well enough how to purchase a welcome here.

The crowd was in the middle stages of alcoholic mirth, singing bawdy songs and wagering on whether a carter could lift a table on his back with five men atop it, when a pair of gentlemen joined the company. They stood near the door, peeling out of wet overcoats and checking the oilskin covers on the locks of their rif les.