There was no other sound in the inn but theirvoices. Cassandra had eaten, turned out the tipplers, and departed.“She’s off home,” Bessie informed him, “to the wretched cabin herfamily squats in, unless one of her customers has other plans forher.” Brutus, it seemed, had his living-quarters in the barnnear his belovèd horses. Ben would be in good, if wordless,hands.
“I don’t think I can stay awake a minutelonger,” Cobb said, starting a second yawn before the first one hadfinished.
“It’s only eight o’clock, and it’s not everyday I get to break bread with a true gentleman.”
“Just this one glass of wine, then, or youmight haveta carry me to my bed.”
“Now, wouldn’t that be naughty?”
“You talk like a lady that’s been to school,”Cobb said, trying not to stare at the pink swell of her bosom andwishing to steer the conversation towards less perilous ports.
“Surprised, are you?” she said mischievously.“A lot of folks are.”
“An’ you run this place yerself?”
“Without a husband, you mean?”
“We don’t get many lady innkeepers in thispart of the world.”
“Well, there hasn’t been a MisterJiggins for over twenty years now. I’ve been on my own since I wastwenty — though I don’t look a day over thirty, do I?”
“Not a minute more,” Cobb agreedwillingly.
“And you’d never guess I was born and raisedon a miserable homestead in the Ohio bush country. My folks came upthere from Kentucky.” She paused as her eyes misted over, blew hernose into her handkerchief, and continued, while Cobb struggled tokeep his eyes open and the fire in the hearth began to falter. “Wegot caught in the Indian wars down there, the savages against thebluecoats and the bluecoats against the redcoats.”
“So you had to move up here?”
“We had to flee up here with only the clotheson our back. The Shawnees burned our barns and torched our crops — all that was left of them, that is, after the so-called Yankee armymarched past scouring for forage. I was just a toddler, but I canstill hear those mad cries and whoops. Not that I blame theShawnees any more, after what the civilized folk did to them first.So we had to flee to our neighbours, but it wasn’t long before aband of renegade Indians found all of us. My parents got me intothe woods, where we hid and watched another barn go up. The nextday, my father told me many years later, he crept back to ourneighbours’ charred cabin. The Glatt family were charred with it,six of them. Only one survived, seven-year-old Brutus.”
“An’ he’d had his tongue cut out so hecouldn’t tell what he’d seen?” Cobb said, suddenly awake.
Bessie finished off her wine and sat staringat the bottom of the empty goblet. “We brought him up here with us.We started over again along the Thames River. My parents savedenough to send me to school in Sandwich.”
“So, how’d you end up in the hotel businesshundreds of miles east?”
“I married Howard Jiggins, that’s how. He waseighteen years older than me, he owned a store in Windsor, and heoccupied a brick house with glass windows. Fortunately for me, hehad the good sense to get himself killed whilst out slaughteringdeer. I inherited the store, and a mortgage on the brick house.It’s a long story, but ten years later I put what money I had leftinto this place.” She sighed theatrically. “It, too, is mortgagedto the hilt, but still thriving, I’m proud to say.”
“An’ Brutus gets to care fer horses?”
Bessie beamed a smile at Cobb that suggestedshe had found him, despite the odds, as insightful as he washandsome. As groggy and disoriented as he felt, Cobb was able tobeam a smile back at her.
“I gotta hit the sack before it hits me,” hesighed.
“Then I’ll put you up in the room across thehall, the one I save for visiting royalty and American presidents.It’s got a feather mattress and a genuine china chamber-pot.”
While some of the heat had migrated from thefireplace in the dining-area to his bedroom, Cobb could still seehis breath as he struggled into the flannel nightshirt Macaulay hadpacked for him. His long underwear and wool socks remained inplace. He felt a bit foolish putting on Alfred’s nightcap, but didso anyway. He could hear Bessie Jiggins clearing away the clutterin the kitchen. He decided he had better christen the chinachamber-pot before collapsing under the thick comforter, and wasfishing around in the dark for it when he heard a whispered femalecurse close by. He eased open his flimsy door, and peered out intothe narrow hall.
Bessie was standing outside the door to herprivate quarters, bending over a candle she had placed on thefloor. (As she had shown him to his room a few minutes earlier, shehad given him a full description of the layout of The Pine Knot: the stairs beside his chamber led to a pair of rooms-to-let on thesecond floor; and at the far end of this hall she kept asitting-room and a bedroom for her own use.)
“I stubbed my toe,” Bessie called out whenshe spied Cobb’s nightcap in the dark. “Sweet dreams,constable.”
Cobb said goodnight again, but something madehim remain in the hall long enough to see Bessie reach down intoher cleavage past the handkerchief there and draw out a metalobject which, Cobb surmised, was attached to a chain or stringaround her neck. A treasured trinket of some sort? A familyheirloom? A loving miniature of Howard Jiggins who had died sothoughtfully?
The answer came immediately as, using theglow from the candle, Bessie inserted the object into the lock onthe door to her quarters. She unlocked it, dropped the key backinto its haven between her breasts, picked up the candle, anddisappeared inside. Well, Cobb thought, a lady with a figure likethat and good grammar to boot could not be too careful.
Cobb was in the midst of a heavenly dream. It wasone of those rare, absorbing dreams where you know you are dreamingand yet tempted to remain forever trapped in its sweet amnesia. Hewas naked. He knew it was him because the head and expression werehis own. The body, however, was that of Adonis or Dionysus or DonJuan — all glistening limb and taut flesh. And this particularCobb-Adonis lay cocooned in a cloud of swan’s feathers that soothedand titillated simultaneously. All this serenity and titillationwas disturbed (though ever so soothingly) by something softer thanswan’s-down, something he could feel but not see, easing up behindhim as he lolled onto one side. Soon he could feel its presencealong his shoulders and back and buttocks and thighs, a warm shadowmoulding its form and curvature to his own, settling like a lover’scloak all over him now, generating heat and prickles of light whereit touched and tantalized and — oh, my! — what an erection Adoniswas boasting. .
“Oh, Dora, luv, I thought you was out on acall,” he heard himself say, and suddenly he was not so sure heought to keep the dream going, there were other imperatives andobligations, and Dora wasn’t often in the mood of late. And then,as a set of female fingers closed upon the very instrument ofpassion, he knew it was time to awake — and do his duty.
He rolled over and wrapped his right armaround the ample, loving flesh of the fine woman he had married andremained faithful to all these years. He heard her moan breathily,and slid his hand down to squeeze her oh-so-generous rump andsilky-soft thighs — only to find his fingers fondling a leg nobigger than a spindle. Jesus! He was entangled in the mostcompromising position possible with Bessie Jiggins!
He had just sucked in enough breath to shoutsomething — anything — that might break the death-grip she had onhis erection when he realized that she was asleep. Deeply asleep,and snoring away like a sow with plugged nostrils. Evidently shehad slipped in beside him with dishonourable intent, for hernightdress was bunched up around her throat, and she wore nothingelse. Unfortunately (from her point of view) her own fatigue hadseized her at the most inappropriate moment, and she hadsuccumbed.