Discreet Young Gentleman Read Online Free PDF Page B

village, a pretty little market town on the River Alne. Dean expected Rob to hang out the window for a better view, and he wasn't disappointed.
    "Look, my lord." Rob pointed down the cobbled High Street at a large two-story building. The bottom half of it was built of grey and brown stone, rounded arches framing each window, while the upper story was cheerfully patterned in rectangles of white plaster framed by dark wooden beams. "Now there's half-timbering for you."
    "I think that's the old Town Hall, if I remember correctly," Dean said. "My friend Peter and I used to ride over here instead of Stratford, on the off chance we could keep his mother from knowing we were having a few drinks. Tudor buildings all over the place—look, there's a whole row of timber-framed shops."
    Rob craned his head to look. "Nice." He nodded his head toward the church at the far end of the High Street, a clock hanging oddly on one corner of the tower. "Unusual church. What's it called?"
    Dean racked his brain, calling up the days when he and Peter had been frequent visitors to the town. "St. Nicholas, I believe. The tower is.. .Norman?"
    "Perhaps not quite so old." Rob squinted back down the street. "14th, 15th century.
    Where shall we dine?"
    "I suppose you'll want the Swan. It's fairly new, very clean, and the food is good."
    "I can get that anywhere," Rob protested. "A town this well-preserved must have something with a bit of history to it."
    "Well..." Dean hesitated. "If you want character, there's the Red Lion. It's old enough to have crumbs under the tables dropped by Saxon knights—and probably does. I doubt the floor's been swept since the Conquest."
    Rob grinned in pure delight. "Sounds wonderful. Are we likely to suffer much from the food?"
    Dean felt himself smiling in return. "Not if we stick to bread and cheese. And the witch's ghost doesn't curse us."
    "There's a ghost? How fascinating!"
    "You can't believe in such things."
    "No, not really," Rob admitted. "I just like stories."
    "Ghost stories?"
    He shrugged. "Oh, any stories. But hauntings are a popular subject. Along with romances. Tragedies." "Wars." Dean nodded. "Heroes."
    "The best stories contain elements of all of them." Rob leaned forward, his handsome face radiating hope. "Can we please go to the Red Lion?"
    "I suppose," Dean said. It would be cruel, and pointless, to deny such a simple pleasure. He wondered how old Rob was, and how long he'd been practicing his unsavory trade. It must be nice to have a holiday, to enjoy traveling with someone who had no intention of using him. "Bound to be cheaper, anyway."
    Still, he looked wistfully at the Swan, just across the street, as they approached the Red Lion. The Swan's sign was brightly painted, and the roar of conversation was heard in frequent snatches as the door opened and closed repeatedly to a busy midday trade. The entrance to their choice, not of the charming Tudor construction so evident elsewhere but something even older and much plainer, stayed forlornly shut. The crude depiction of a lion hanging above the door had faded to a dull orange. Dean, studying it, was certain that the sign hadn't been painted in the ten years or so since Peter used to insist on riding over to tease the pretty daughter of the landlord.
    They pushed open the door and entered within, where the inn's air of genial neglect matched the decrepitude of the sign outside. The tables, dark with age, tilted on uneven footings, their tops scarred by a thousand careless knives. Once, the walls had been whitewashed, but it had apparently been a very long time ago, for they now showed the grey of decades of smoky fires.
    Dean didn't recall the inn being quite so derelict in his youth, but back then there had been other distractions. The winsome serving girl, Patsy if he remembered correctly, was not in evidence
    today. Instead, a withered old hag, one eye completely whitened with cataract, creaked slowly to her feet from a table near the bar, peering