How many times in their youth had she and Nicholas speculated about the famous hedge tavern in Market Barrow? Too many times to count.

And now, they were almost there.

The carriage rattled and jolted along the road, seeming to connect with every stone and pothole. It was a poorly sprung vehicle—a poorly sealed one as well. The cold of the evening seeped through the edges of the doors and windows.

Shivering, Maggie wrapped her cloak more firmly about her.

St. Clare sighed. In the next instant, he was up from his seat and sinking down next to her. His arm came around her shoulders, gathering her close inside the warmth of his greatcoat. “Better?”

She snuggled against him, shaping herself to the side of his body. It was akin to cuddling with a furnace. “Much better, thank you.”

They seemed to be the only coach on the road, but occasionally, Maggie thought she heard the clip clop of hooves echoing behind them. As if a horse and rider were traveling by the same route. She fervently hoped it wasn’t a highwayman.

“How long is it to Market Barrow?” she asked.

“Some seven or eight miles.” St. Clare’s lips brushed over her hair. “When we arrive, you’re to stay close to me. Do you understand?”

“You mustn’t worry about me.” Before leaving the house, she’d tucked the Queen Anne flintlock into her reticule. It had been a long while since she’d fired a pistol, but one didn’t forget, surely.

“Of course I’m worried,” he said. “If anything should happen to you—”

“It won’t, I promise. I’ll stay right with you the entire time.” She set a hand on his midsection. The buttons of his cloth waistcoat brushed over her palm. Her stomach fluttered. There was something extraordinarily intimate about being with him this way, inside a darkened carriage, enfolded in his greatcoat and sheltered by his arm “Did Lord Allendale have anything to say about your going out?”

“He retired early.”

“He doesn’t know?”

“About this Father Tuck fellow?” St. Clare frowned. “No. I didn’t tell him. There seemed little point.”

“I hope that after tonight there will be something worth the telling.”

Some forty minutes later, their rickety carriage finally rolled into the yard of the legendary hedge tavern in Market Barrow.

Maggie drew back the edge of a moth-eaten curtain to peer out the dirty carriage window. She admitted to a certain disappointment. The tavern was nothing like she’d envisioned it would be. This was no shadowy den of thieves from a gothic novel, but a small, obscure stone building located alongside the highway amidst a tangle of trees and brush.

“The Crossed Daggers,” she read aloud from the swinging wooden sign as the carriage came to a halt. “How ominous.”

“It’s certainly not the Hart and Hound,” St. Clare said grimly. He moved to open the door, but she forestalled him.