“You accept what I say very easily.”
“Well, as was said by Shakespeare in Hamlet, ‘There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ Papa also said to keep an open mind and never cease to question and learn. He felt the way to judge what was good or bad was to ask oneself, ‘What harm does it do to the innocent?’” She shrugged. “I heard that from the time I was a small child and it stuck with me.”
“Not a bad piece of wisdom for a parent to leave a child with.”
For a while they just drank their tea and ate the sandwiches. Try as she would, Primrose could think of nothing to say to convince him to save his own life and leave her to face her own troubles. She understood why he would not. For him it was far easier to stay and face the danger than to run for his life and leave her to face it alone. That probably tasted of cowardice to him. The newly dubbed Sir Bened Vaughn would never give in to cowardice.
She watched the other couple sharing the parlor get up to leave. They walked by with their arms wrapped around each other’s waists and the man was whispering in the woman’s ear. If the woman’s blushes were any indication, those words were very heated ones.
“Newlyweds,” she said after they were gone.
“Or ones having an affair.”
“Cynical man. Why would you think such a thing?”
“Because I believe her husband has just come looking for her.”
Primrose suddenly became aware of a loud disturbance outside the door. She listened closely and heard a man demanding to know where his wife was, that he had watched her come into the inn to meet her lover. He also went into great detail about what he planned to do to the rogue who had stolen his wife from him. She had to give the angry man credit for being creative even if it was in a bloodthirsty way.
“That is just sad.”
Bened laughed but never took his gaze from the window overlooking the stables. “True more often than not.”
“What are you looking at? Have my aunt’s men come back for you?”
“Nay. I am watching a lover flee the scene of the crime he did not have time to commit.”
She breathed a sigh of relief then frowned. “He did not even stay to try to help her.”
“She has a better chance of soothing her husband than he does.”
If the loud voices she heard were any indication, that soothing was going to take a long time. Then there was the sound of a blow and a scream of pain. She did not even have time to get to her feet before Bened was up and out the door. Off to protect someone else, she thought as she stood up and followed him.
The young woman who had been cooing and flirting with her lover a short time ago now lay on the floor weeping. Bened was holding a big, homely man back by the arms and talking to him in a low, hard voice. Primrose turned her attention to the woman as it appeared no one else cared to interfere. She crouched next to the woman, wincing when she looked up for she was going to have a badly bruised eye soon.
“Does he hit you regularly?” she asked, and watched those bruised eyes narrow in a sly way.
“He beats me all the time, m’lady,” she said in a trembling voice.
“Do not lie to me. He should not have hit you as you are much smaller than he is but do not try to turn this into a lie that will stain his name forever. But you are hardly innocent in all of this. If you did not want him, why did you marry him?”
“He has his own shop.”
That was probably the most honest the woman had been in a long time. “A poor reason to tie your life to a man you obviously do not want.”
“What do you know with your big, handsome gent? Not all of us have such choices.” The woman used her own skirts to wipe the tears of pain from her face. “I had to think of my future.”
Primrose stood up, took the woman by the hand, and helped her to her feet. “Then stop trying to destroy it.”
Once she knew no one had forced the woman to marry her big husband, Primrose lost all sympathy. She still thought the man had not been right to strike someone so much smaller than he, a woman not trained in the ways one can defend oneself or the strength to use them, but it appeared her erring was not even done out of love. She had not even asked after her lover.
It was several moments before the pair were calmed enough to leave. By the looks on the faces of the others at the inn, they had not been surprised by the scene they had witnessed and Primrose sensed sympathy lay with the husband. All she hoped was that the man would not hit the woman again no matter how hurt and angry he was. She headed back into the parlor to get her coat.