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Just as they stepped into the empty shop, a woman—Sloane’s maid by the sound of her—called out from down the lane.
“Lady Sloane, oh my—blazes be the bull. You’re a dreadful mess. What happened?”
“Milly.” Sloane stepped away from Reiner and back into the road. “I took a turn in the peat bog outside of the village.”
“All saints—not the death moors?”
Sloane nodded.
Milly looked Sloane up and down. “And it took yer dress?”
“And my boots.”
Milly’s skewering gaze swung to Reiner. “And who be this? A fine gentleman that saved ye?”
Sloane glanced up at Reiner, a mischievous grin on her face. “Yes. And he is also the Duke of Wolfbridge.”
“What?” Milly made the sign of the cross, backing away from Reiner. “Devil take it, my lady, why are ye letting him touch ye?”
“Because I plan to marry him.”
“No.” Milly gasped, stepping backward, her hand flat on her chest. “Yer not in yer right mind, miss. He’s bewitched ye. Bewitched ye like the devil he is.”
“One could say that.” Sloane’s head tilted to the side. “Or one could also say that he has been unjustly vilified. Either way I plan to marry him in this very moment and if you could see your way back to the inn to request a bath”—she looked to the muddy mess Reiner also stood in—“or two, be brought up to my room, I would appreciate it.”
“Tell them I’ll pay triple for it if it’s done by the time we arrive back there,” Reiner said. “For you as well.”
“I don’t take the devil’s coin.” Milly’s head flew back and forth and she crossed her fingers at Reiner, lifting them high in the air.
“Then do it for me, please, Milly.” Sloane reached out and grabbed Milly’s fingers, pushing them downward. “I will explain everything to you. Just trust that I ken what I’m doing.”
“Don’t rightly know if I can trust yer judgment, my lady, not with him at yer side.” Milly shifted her look to Sloane. “But I will have the bath brought up for ye, miss. For ye’ll need it before we travel onward.”
“Thank you.”
Milly turned away and walked toward the coaching inn.
Sloane looked to Reiner. “I apologize for her behavior.”
“You shouldn’t apologize for other people, Sloane. You were not the one ready to spit upon me.”
“No, but I was the one to put the thought in her head that you were the devil, so it only seems fitting that it has come back about to bite me.”
She turned fully to him, her right hand going to his chest and resting along the cut of his waistcoat. “In recompense, if she only manages one tub, you can go first. I’m far muddier as it is.”
“And I was thinking that’s exactly why you should go first.”
She blinked at him, silent for a moment and then she gave a slight nod. Her right cheek lifted in a half smile. “I wasn’t ready to go in before, but I am now.”
And so, as she stood next to him in a damp chemise, wrapped in his tailcoat, barefoot, her hair a muddy mess, he made Sloane his wife.
And she’d never looked more beautiful.
Never as when she’d smiled at him and the words “I will” slipped from her lips, breathless as though she couldn’t quite believe what she was doing. But she was doing it anyway. Charging forth, not letting doubts or sanity get in her way.
Exactly as he wanted her.
Ten minutes later, Reiner opened the door to her room and ushered her in.
