An Arrangement of Sorts by Rebecca Connolly

naught, would you?” He moved for the door, then stopped and turned back. “What does this so-called brother of yours look like anyway?”
    She folded her arms and looked out of the window, her jaw clenched.
    “Come on, Moira,” he said in a quiet, but still harsh tone. “I don’t have time to patch up your pride at the moment. If you want to find this idiot and get on with your life, I need to know what he looks like so I can ask about him. I need a good description.”
    “Fine,” she spat, still not facing him. “But only so I can get away from you faster. Charles is shorter than you by a good six inches. He is thin, has brown hair, blue eyes, and is slightly freckled. He also has decent teeth. Is that enough for your precious description?”
    “It will do. Set some sheets by the window before you go to bed.”
    She half turned to look at him, her curiosity obviously piqued. “Why?”
    He was tempted to say so he could jump from it, but she was already agitated as it was. Adding more fuel to the fire would not help matters. “Because I do not think we should be sleeping in the same room. Thanks to your insistency, we only have the one. I will climb out of the window and sleep in the stables.”
    She sniffed and shrugged. “Fine. As you wish.” She turned back around and went to the window, arms still folded. Her left leg shook slightly, as if she wanted to tap her toe, but was resisting.
    “Thank you. Good night,” he said, opening the door and stepping out. He paused a moment, then stuck his head back in. “And I do hate the name Rupert. Terrible choice.”
    She whirled and the fury in her eyes was enough to make him a little nervous. He shut the door quickly before she could decide to throw something at him.
    It was much later when Nathan made his way back up to the room, feeling rather sluggish and having had too much of whatever drink they were serving in the taproom. But it had all worked out well. It seemed that many of the men at the inn tonight also had wives that drove them to distraction. He was in fine company as soon as he had come down from the room. Even the innkeeper was pleasant, or as close to pleasant as he ever achieved. Apparently, Moira had brought to mind his own wife, and he had not enjoyed the reminder.
    Once Nathan had sat at the table with the men, more stories began to come out about impossible wives and unhappy marriages, and he heard far more than he ever wanted to. He tried to play his character as not particularly minding the eccentricities of the woman he was married to, merely accepting it as what he must endure. That also resounded with them, and helped him in his purposes to retrieve information. At least three of the men thought the name Charles Allenford sounded familiar, and of those three, two were able to place the description with the name. None of them had a location, but the fact that they had confirmation of identity was encouraging.
    It seemed that Moira’s attempt at a story had not been such a disaster after all.
    He listened at the door to their room, hoping she was a deep sleeper. He could not hear anything from within, so opened the door as quietly as he could manage and tiptoed into the darkness. He reached the window to find that not only had she put the sheets there, but she had already tied them to the bed post and formed a makeshift rope out of them. He tugged on it, and found that it was indeed sturdy.
    “How in the world…?” he murmured to himself.
    “I used to sneak out of my aunt’s house sometimes,” came a soft voice from the bed. “I became quite adept at tying sheets together.”
    He looked up and saw her on her side staring at him as she lay on the bed, her hands under her face.
    “Why does that not surprise me?” he whispered, offering a smile.
    She tried to return it, but it faltered. A break in the clouds let a sliver of moonlight in, and Nathan could see tear tracks on her cheeks.
    “Are you all right?” he asked, unable to