Chapter 63: Meg

"Has y'seen the new gul?" Mike asked, jerking a thumb over his massive shoulder. He was one of my favorite inn-keepers and a regular fountain of rumors and gossip. I looked where he pointed and saw a slim woman wearing the usual maroon skirt and a man's shirt with the sleeves rolled up. She had her long. brown hair tied back and hanging in a long hank and her face was flushed.

"Only started Monday," the big Irishman said. "I ain't even had time to board her m'sef, but Junior tole me she's right skittish."

Junior was the man's red-headed son who at sixteen or so was nearly as big as his father. The girl came toward us, and I took in her clear complexion and excellent posture. She was lean but surely a full-grown woman, perhaps twenty I thought and not more than eight stone.

"Wha's 'er name," Mike mused, and then called, "Meg, com'ere" and waved her to my table. "Siddown and meet a real gentl'man." He got up and went back to his bar and the lithe girl sat, eyes on her lap.

I offered her my hand. She barely touched it as I told her my name. "Is it Meg?" I asked.

"Not really," she said quietly, "but that's what he calls me."

Her voice was, my brain sought a word, cultured was the best I could find. Her words and tone were those of an upper-class young woman, one much more accustomed to the parlor than the tavern.

"How did you get here?" I asked.

"Happenstance," she said quietly, looking up into my eyes. Hers were brown, deep and dark and heavy lashed. "Bad fortune."

"A tavern wench?" I asked, raising my eyebrow and putting on a smile.

"It's a living. Nothing wrong with it, honest work, hard work it is." She sat up straight. Her shirt had no buttons and flapped open to show her white chest and the rise of her high breasts above her lace-trimmed shift. No stays as far as I could see, and I considered myself an expert on those.

"Really? No problems?"

"Not so far?" she said with a slight shudder.

"Where is your home?" I asked

She sniffed and looked out the dirty window. "Gone. Stolen, I suppose you would say."

I waited and drank my beer.

"Do you really want to hear?" she asked. The place was nearly empty in the mid-afternoon so I nodded, stretched my legs and sat back to admire her, trying not to picture her long legs about my waist, her face twisted in passion.

"I'm an only child, mother died as I was born. My father did his best, had me decently educated, even a tutor at one time, I'm reasonably well read and I can spin and sew, and then he died last year." She said all this to the window and then turned to look at me. "I was to be married. He was killed out near White Plains. He was a sub-lieutenant in some New York militia company. I've forgotten. We do not know where his body lies."

She paused, found a small kerchief and wiped her nose.

"My uncle, yes, well, my uncle has a problem. He gambles. He spent the dowry left by my father. He has encumbered our farm, my inheritance. He demanded that I marry his choice, a man he owed money, a man who has..." She stopped and took a deep breath.

I offered her my hand and she put hers in mine.

"I carried Robert's baby until, until we heard of his death. I fainted and fell down the back steps. Poor baby." She touched a small scar on her forehead.

I got her a glass of wine and she sipped while I admired her strength and beauty. Despite her second-hand clothes and reddened knuckles, she was a lady, an undoubted lady and had no business trying to be a tavern wench and casual whore.

"Where does your uncle live?" I asked.

She told me and I beckoned Mike to our table. "The young lady and I are going for a ride," I said.

He leered at me. "You break 'er in f'me, stretch 'er, that's the way."

I gave him a crown and took the girl to the livery stable where we hired a light rig. She sat beside me, not touching even at the hip, and we rode out into the country north of town, toward Germantown. She directed me to the lane and the wheel bounced up the rutted way to a big, but rather poorly-maintained house.

I helped her down and we went to the front door after I got the nosebag on the horse. Her uncle himself opened the door and stood there astonished. I introduced myself and said we had some business to discuss. He hemmed and hawed but let us in, and we sat at the dining table in a gloomy room much in need of paint or papering.

"This young lady, is, I believe, your niece and ward," I began.

"Who the hell are you?" he demanded.

"Her friend," I said with a cold smile. "You have wasted her inheritance, spent her dowry. Is that true?"

"In a manner of speaking, not that it is any of your damn business," he said, spraying spittle. His nose bespoke much brandy and his rheumy eyes seldom stayed in focus.

"Tell me about the man you wished her to wed," I asked.

"Yes, yes," he said, much happier, "a fine fellow, known him all my life, had a run of bad luck."

"Bad luck?" I said.

"Yes, poor man, his wife died very young."

"One wife?"

"Was there another? Perhaps," he said, looking at the cracked ceiling.

"There were three," the girl said. "And he killed them. Everyone knows about him"

"Vile rumors," the uncle said. "No, he's a good man. Has a temper I suppose, but, well, frail women, you know, sir, way a' the world."

"He beat them," the girl said, "with a whip."

"Husband's prerogative," the man said, pursing his lips. "Bit of discipline."

"Let's get down to cases," I said, "we want the deed to her father's property, and I want it clear, no loans or entailments, and a note from you for what you have misused, stolen might be a better word."

"Never," he said. "Not until she is twenty-five. It is in the will."

I drew my huge knife and laid it on the table, its point toward the man. He could not take his eyes from it once I had presented it.

"Now, sir," I said, "we can go to the law, such as it is, and swear out warrants, but would you not rather keep this in the family?"

He cleared his throat and looked from me to the girl to the knife.

"Or I can deprive you of various parts of your anatomy, ones no one could notice when you had your clothes on, plus a finger or two." I smiled at him and felt the edge of my blade.

"Yes, well," he said, "I'm sure, but, well." He sputtered.

"What was your dowry?" I asked the girl.

"A hundred guineas, gold," she said quietly.

"Do you have that?" I asked the man.

"No," he squealed, "nothing like that."

"What do you have?" I asked.

"Perhaps twenty in silver."

"Give it to her, and her deed. If it was collateral it is no longer."

He squirmed and begged but in the end we left with her deed and a heavy purse. I took her to the place where she had grown up, we pried the boards from the door and windows and she swept out the place. Most of the furniture, plain and sturdy stuff, was still there, just wood on wood.