The maid paused, let out a long sigh. “Then let us go.” She opened the door and peered into the hall. “A tweenie,” she whispered over her shoulder, and they waited. After a few minutes, Radcliff motioned for Clara to follow her. They tiptoed down the servants’ stairs to the kitchen and out the back gate, Clara trying to ignore that being wrapped in a cloak in the heat of summer made her feel very much like a roasted fowl. At the end of the alley, a hansom cab waited, the sight of it bringing Clara to a halt.
“How did you—”
“Shh! My lady. He has been paid. He knows the direction.” Radcliff opened the door. “My brother will meet you.”
Clara paused long enough to give the young maid a quick hug. “Thank you.”
Radcliff flushed to her hairline. “’Tis nothing. Only I’ll need a reference when your mother dismisses me.”
“She would not dare.”
At Radcliff’s look of pure disbelief, Clara snickered. “I will write you the best ever.” Then she pulled herself up into the cab, gathering the cloak around her as Radcliff shut the door. The horses jerked the hansom into motion, and Clara pressed back against the seat, trying hard to calm her jittery nerves as she extracted herself from the cloak.
This is madness! Pure, unadulterated madness!
Clara took a deep breath, the words seizing her. She reached up, ready to knock on the roof. The cab would halt, and she could grab her cloak and run, dashing back to the safety of Beckcott Hall before anyone saw her. The driver had been paid. He would not give chase.
One knock.
You would be worth it.
Michael’s words to her at the Blackwell Ball. Soft, tender words in that deep baritone, the timber of it searing into her soul. Of all the men she had met, all the courtiers to cross her path, only one had said those words.
You would be worth it.
He thought her worthy.
But so was he. And against all wisdom, she knew she loved him. She was not entirely sure why, but he had come to occupy her every waking thought—and occasionally her sleeping ones as well. He made her heart soar.
Clara leaned against the seat once more, closed her eyes, and thought abruptly of Maid Marian, soaring high about the fields of Beckcott Abbey. Michael made her feel exactly like that. Free.
“We are worth it.”
*
“Well, ain’t youa tall one.”
Michael stared down at the woman holding the lamp as she peered quizzically at his face. She—and not the farrier—had opened the door of the smithy when he had knocked. Strands of blond hair had escaped the scarf on her head, and several days—at least—had passed since her last bath. But she stood straight, her shoulders back, eyes bright as she examined him head to toe. He had at least fifteen inches of height over her, but she was not intimidated. “You sure ain’t one o’us.”
Michael, unsure of the propriety of such a circumstance, cleared his throat. “I received a note—”
She gave a dismissive wave and turned her back. “Oh, I know all about it. Come inside, my lord. My husband has a room set up for this.”
Michael tried to clear his head as he followed the farrier’s wife around the outside of the smithy’s main room, a dark, smoky and cavernous area filled with the drifting scents of smelted iron and burning coal, and pushed open a heavy wooden door.Was Robert right about this? In this place?
They passed through a small, rudimentary kitchen and down a short hallway lit only by the lantern the woman held in front of them. A few steps later, she turned and headed up.
Michael’s boots thudded on the thick tread of a narrow staircase, and he tried to shake the feeling this was not so much an appointment than a set up for an assault and robbery. But this was a respectable business—he had taken the time to inquire about the farrier—so surely they would not—
“Madam—”
“Almost there.”
At the top of the stairs, they turned left, and she stopped in front of a door almost halfway down a hallway so low and compact Michael had to stoop to keep from hitting his head on the ceiling. She opened the door and stepped aside. “In there.”
He gave her a nod of thanks, then stepped inside. He stopped, frozen into silence by the realization that his brother had been right after all.
It was a bedchamber, obviously, although the bed all but disappeared into the darkness of an alcove on the far side of the room. The narrow and dimly lit room centered on a table, which held a tattered ledger, quill, inkpot, and a flickering lamp. Two rough wooden stools flanked the table, and a small, dark fireplace anchored one wall, but the rest of the room vanished into the shadows barely held at bay by the lamp.
