The door of the coach opened and Reeve was there. Maggie was very glad to see him, in spite of the fact that he’d brought Eleanor Kilgore along as housekeeper after she had expressly asked him not to. He was wearing a canvas raincoat, Maggie was relieved to note, though his hat was sodden and dripping.

“There’s an inn just up the road!” he shouted over the thunderous rain. “Duncan’s men will take you there on horseback, and we’ll catch up once we’ve got the coach out of the mud!”

Maggie’s mouth dropped open. He meant to send the women into the bush with strange men, in this weather? “I’ll stay here, thank you very much!” she shouted back. “And so will Elisabeth!”

Reeve answered with a scowl and reached for the child, who went to him before Maggie had a chance to restrain her. “I’ll deal with you later, Mrs. McKenna, when I don’t ’ave water runnin’ down me back!”

So the brogue was back, was it? Not quite daring to challenge Reeve when he was annoyed enough to slip back into the Irish, Maggie allowed herself to be lifted out of the coach and hauled onto the heaving, rain-slickened back of a horse. She felt the rider’s canvas coat open to enfold her and ducked her head as close to the man’s chest as she could, the rain having lashed the very breath from her lungs.

She could feel Duncan’s heart beating against her cheek. Because he was warm and relatively dry, Maggie wrapped both arms around him and held on as the horse began picking its way through the deep mud.

It seemed a hundred miles to the inn, but finally they arrived. Maggie was set on her feet, and she dashed toward the shelter of the roof overhanging the porch, close behind Elisabeth, who had been carried by another rider. Eleanor and Cora followed.

Pausing in the doorway, Maggie looked at Duncan, sending a grudging thank-you with her eyes. He grinned and touched the battered-down brim of his hat, and then turned and rode away, his men following.

The innkeeper’s wife was bustling about, building up the fire and shouting to her husband to brew fresh tea. Cora, wet to the skin herself, was kneeling on the hearth, hastily peeling away Elisabeth’s drenched clothes and wrapping her in a blanket brought by a little girl wearing a mobcap and an apron.

Maggie wasn’t about to undress in the middle of a public tavern, but Cora and Eleanor showed no such qualms. Soon they were shivering before the fire, stripped to their underthings and wrapped in blankets, just like Elisabeth. They were sipping tea while Maggie huddled close to the fire, hugging herself, her skirts dripping water on the polished wooden floor.