Page 29 of How the Earl Entices

“We’ll need dinner and a private room,” Ross said as he set a coin onto the counter. “And my wife will want hot water.”

Her chest tightened at his thoughtfulness. How heavenly a warm dinner, hot water, and a soft bed sounded! When she’d been on the run from Vincent, she’d only been able to afford a shared bed, sometimes sleeping with four other people, and there hadneverbeen hot water for washing. There had barely been day-old bread and whatever burnt stew was left at the bottom of the pot.

“Not t’night.” The man reached for the small lockbox beneath the counter. “We’re full up. Best I can do is a room we normally keep fer the postilions an’ drivers. Nothin’ fancy, but it has a bed an’ door that locks.” He held up the last of the room keys. “Ye want it?”

It was either that or the chickens, so Ross gave a solemn nod and reached for the quill to sign the guest registry. Grace sneaked a glance, and her chest warmed inexplicably…Mr. Christopher Thomas and Wife.

The innkeeper slid the key and a candle stub across the counter toward Ross, then nodded at a buxomly woman carrying six tankards of ale in both hands as she weaved her way through the crowded room. “Ye can see ol’ Bess o’er there ‘bout gettin’ dinner an’ hot water.”

From the dozens of calls and shouts that went up across the room for the woman’s attention, Grace knew it could be hours before they had their turn getting dinner, if anything was left by then. And no chance at all of hot water.

“It’s all right.” She rested her hand on Ross’s arm. “I’m exhausted. Let’s just turn in.”

The innkeeper jerked a thumb toward the stairs. “Second floor, all the way t’ the end.”

“Thank you.” Ross handed the candle stub to Grace, picked up the bag, and took her arm.

As they moved toward the stairs, drunken revelers broke into an Irish drinking song, followed by hoots and jeers. Hot water and dinner might be in short supply, but ale and whiskey were apparently still well stocked. The din of noise followed them as Grace lit the candle stub on a lantern hanging at the base of the rickety steps and led the way upstairs.

She threw a backward glance downstairs as they rounded the first floor landing and continued upward. “They’re not going to be fit to travel in the morning.”

“Better for us, then. We’ll have a good night’s rest and be on the road early, taking their places on the coach.” He gave her a faint smile of reassurance. “We should be in London in two days.”

Two days. She inhaled a steadying breath. This confrontation with Vincent had been ten years in the making, yet now that it was approaching, the enormity of it made her tremble.

He glanced down at her with concern. “Are you having second thoughts?”

“It’s either share a room or sleep with the chickens,” she reminded him, purposefully misunderstanding his question.

He stopped her with a gentle tug at her elbow. They were alone on the stairs, with the noise from below keeping their conversation from being overhead. “I meant about helping me.”

“No, not at all.” Notquiteall anyway. But the way he gazed at her in the flickering candlelight made her admit, “It’s just that…I don’t want to put my son into danger.”

His face softened at the first true revelation she’d given him since they’d left Sea Haven, despite hours of attempting to wrangle information from her. “Don’t worry.” He reached to tuck a stray curl behind her ear. “I won’t let you do that.”

She wanted to take comfort in his quiet offer of protection, yet he had no idea of the storm she was heading into.

Trembling as that old feeling of helplessness returned, she reached a hand to his arm, to let him be her anchor as thoughts of what lay ahead stirred up fresh dread. “I need you, Ross,” she whispered, “and I haven’t needed anyone’s help in a very long time.”A lifetime ago…

This time when he lifted his hand, it wasn’t to touch her hair but to stroke his knuckles across her cheek, in a gesture filled with such tenderness that she sucked in a pained mouthful of air.

His gaze dropped to her mouth, and she stilled, waiting for him to lower his lips to hers—

A mud-covered postilion bounded up the steps and squeezed past them on the landing, breaking their cocoon of privacy. The noise and business of the inn descended once more over them, and she shifted away, feeling like a fool for sharing even this much with him when he’d told her practically nothing about his own situation.

They might have needed each other, but they also needed to keep their own secrets.

Sensing the change in each other, they moved on up the stairs and down the hall to their room. Ross unlocked the door and shoved it open. Grace walked inside, holding the candle stub high.

“I’ve changed my mind,” she announced. “I’d rather be with the chickens.”

He looked over her shoulder, and from the way he tensed she knew the moment he saw the bed. Just as narrow and small as the room around it, which couldn’t have been originally planned for anything more than a closet sandwiched beneath the back stairs. So sandwiched, in fact, that the backstairs angled upward across the ceiling from the floor and turned the whole room into a tiny triangle. So tiny that Ross had to duck his head to keep from hitting it on the sloping ceiling when he stepped past her.

“The innkeeper didn’t lie,” he drawled, placing the key onto the narrow washstand beside the bed, which was the only other piece of furniture in the room and the only other thing that could fit. “It has a lock and a bed.”

Her eyes didn’t move from the narrow mattress where a single driver or postilion could catch a few hours of sleep. But where two wouldnotfit. “Of a sort.”

“I’ll sleep downstairs on one of the benches. You’ll be fine here for the night.”