Matilda knew what it was to be that tired and chided herself for pushing Tommie too hard. He wasn’t yet six years old, and if she was exhausted, he had to be at the very limit of his resources. She got him undressed and into the trundle bed, where he subsided into sleep, Copenhagen clutched in his arms.

Matilda washed, changed into nightclothes, and took down her hair, though the brush had somehow acquired the weight of a cannonball. She managed a braid and nearly fell asleep on the vanity stool.

“To bed with you,” she muttered, though now that no food was on hand, she was almost as hungry as she was tired. She climbed under the covers, closed her eyes, and said one prayer for Tremont’s wellbeing and another for an uneventful journey to Paris.

She surrendered to welcome oblivion only to be awakened what felt like moments later by an insistent pounding on her door.

Matilda, looking rumpled and grumpy, peered at Tremont as he stood in the doorway to her room.

“Am I dreaming this, my lord, or are you truly here?” Her eyes were underscored by dark half circles, her braid was half undone, and on her feet was a pair of heavy wool socks. She was covered from neck to ankles in a brown quilted dressing gown going frayed at the collar and cuffs, and the color accentuated her uncharacteristic pallor.

Matilda had never looked more dear to him or more thoroughly vexed, and while Tremont longed to take her in his arms, he had come to her in all his considerable dirt. More significantly, the proprietress—Madame Howard—hovered at his elbow, doubtless ready to pitch him down the stairs if Matilda took umbrage at his arrival.

“I am truly here,” he said, quietly because Tommie slumbered in a trundle bed not eight feet away. “And you, thank the guardian angels of my fondest dreams, are here. You are not, however, legally married to Harry Merridew.”

Matilda put a hand on the bedpost. “Is this a nightmare?”

She sounded genuinely bewildered and looked as if she was about to collapse. Tremont advanced into the room and led her to the sole chair before the banked hearth.

“Perhaps we could light a candle or two?” he said, rather than presume to order Madame Howard about.

“Non,” she replied. “You and Mrs. Merridew may use my parlor at the end of the corridor. I will stay with the boy. I believe the lady could benefit from some brandy, my lord.”

She reproached him by using his title, which he’d forgotten to mention when he’d been babbling about perilous journeys and utmost concern and whatever else had come out of his exhausted, desperate mouth.

“Thank you,” Matilda said, rising with Tremont’s assistance. “Some explanations are in order, and the privacy is appreciated.”