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He jostled the barmaid, who was far too experienced to let the tray tilt. Not a drop was spilled, but she yelled a curse that could have withered the fur off a donkey’s backside. The innkeeper frowned, then glanced at Clara. “Here now, come in and get dry, lass.”

“Thank you,” she smiled, approaching him. She tried not to feel anxious about so many people watching her. She wasn’t used to it.

“Are you alone, then? Caught in the storm?”

“No, my…husband is seeing to the horses. But yes, the storm caught us out a bit.” She pushed her heavy, wet hair off her neck where it was slipping free of its pins as the word husband reverberated on her tongue. A necessary lie, but one she was still glad Bram had not heard her make. He’d think her silly, smitten. And she was. “I wasn’t expecting it.”

“Don’t get a lot of fine ladies in here, don’t mind saying.” The innkeeper’s smile was friendly, and his bald head gleamed in the light of the tallow candles. He was short and very wide. His warm eyes flickered over her shoulder, turned to iron. “Off with ye, Albert.”

“But she’s pretty.”

“I’ll thump you, see if I won’t.”

“Never mind that,” his daughter broke in. She had coal-black curls caught in a bandeau. “I’ll tell your wife, you great big lout.”

Albert slunk away, grumbling.

“I’m Bess,” she said to Clara. “Why don’t you come wait in the back parlor? They’re good lads, mostly, but they’ll pester you, I think. You look like a wee angel.”

Clara would have married Bess right then and there if she’d asked.

“Da, give us a whiskey for the girl,” Bess said. “She’s turning blue.”

“Aye, and your sister’s making her famous mutton stew. I’ll send over a bowl.”

“Thank you, I—” Clara did not have time to finish her sentence. Bess was already bustling her to the back door, through a curtain and into a small, private parlor with a roaring fire and ceramic ducks on the mantel. Clara sat down, grateful for the warmth. Bram’s coat was heavy with rain, but she was still reluctant to part with it. It smelled like him: water and wood smoke and lime candies. She draped it near the fire for him.

Bess returned, delivering a whiskey, a tea tray, and a plate of hard cheese and fresh, dark bread. It was not in the shape of a man’s buttocks, regrettably. Montragroux had definitively cornered that particular market.

Within minutes, Bram made his own delivery: a sopping wet, yelping gentleman, squirming like a trout in the talons of an eagle.

Clara leaned back in her wobbly chair and smiled. “What took you so long?”

Chapter Twenty

Bram looked liked something out of one of her own stories. The hero charging in out of the rain, grim-faced, fiery-eyed. If she’d been writing it, there would have been no would-be assassin intruding. Nor that wet linen shirt, however nicely it molded to his chest muscles. There would be no shirt at all.

She wondered if Bram would recognize himself if she snuck him into a chapbook. Not that he read them. Not that she was guaranteed another book, if her blackmailer continued to be a pest.

One catastrophe at a time.

“He bolted, just like you said he would,” Bram said, knocking her out of her thoughts. “Luckily, he’s as shite at running as he is at stabbing.”

“You came out of nowhere!” the man protested, then yelped when Bram shook him, still gripping the back of his collar.

“You tried to kill me.”

“I thought you were sent by the marquis!”

Bram slammed him up against the wall, rattling the ceramic ducks and knocking a drawing of a wide-eyed lamb sideways. “And you put that lady in danger,” he ground out. There was murder written all over his face. “You’re going to tell us everything you know or I’m going to break several of your bones. Starting with your kneecap.”

“Red dove!” the man gasped, clearly believing Bram’s willingness to follow through on his threats. He was sweating under the rainwater.

Bram frowned. “I haven’t even hit you yet—you can’t be addled already.”

“Stop,” Clara said.

“He tried to stab someone in front of you. Twice.”