Chapter Five
Miss Frostell took her time getting down from the coach. Theo, travel-sore and suffering a powerful thirst, gave up waiting for her to overcome her scruples, or whatever might be causing the delay, and strode into The Red Lion coaching inn by himself.
‘I require two rooms and a private parlour,’ he informed the landlord, noticing only that the man was short and as thin as a reed before he resolutely turned away his gaze, and regarded instead the portrait of a fat woman in a great wig that hung over the fireplace.
The landlord bowed low. Theo never troubled himself to dress to suit his eminence; nothing about his dusty driving coat, with its meagre two capes, could have provided any real clue as to his status, nor the favourite old hat crowning his unbrushed locks. Still, in
