“Kendra?” Lucas’s tap on the door was light because he didn’t want to wake her if she was sleeping.

But she called, “Just a moment.”

Taking that as permission, he swung the door open, balancing his silver brandy flask plus two empty tumblers.

“Oh!” Kendra blinked in surprise. Like him, she’d changed into nightwear, which in her case meant a floor-length burgundy velvet robe to ward off the chilly spring night. Her hair was down, falling halfway to her waist in rich mahogany waves that echoed the richly colored robe. “I didn’t realize that door opened to another bedroom.”

Trying not to stare at that glorious hair, Lucas said, “I told the landlord we were married, so he offered us this pair of rooms. The connecting door can be locked so the rooms are separate, but unlocked, the arrangement is good for families or couples who sleep apart because the husband snores. I told him that I was that husband and we’d like these two rooms.”

She smiled a little. “Do you snore?”

“I don’t know. If I do, I’m asleep when it happens.” He set the tumblers on the table, which still held the plates and silverware from the supper Kendra had taken in her room, along with a pitcher of water. He splashed water into the tumblers. “I gather that you’re also having trouble falling asleep. Care for some gently watered brandy? It might help us both to relax.”

“That sounds like an excellent idea.” She wrapped her arms around herself with a shiver despite the warmth of her velvet robe, then sat on the edge of the bed opposite the fireplace, where coals were quietly burning. In the soft firelight, she looked like a lovely, exhausted Madonna.

When she accepted the glass of watered brandy he offered her, she said, “I’m haunted by this room. It’s where I gave birth to my children and almost died.”

He sat on the bed beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders for warmth and comfort. “You recognize this room even though you were in such a bad state?”

She gestured upward with her brandy glass before taking a sip. “The cracks on the ceiling are unmistakable. They were about all I could see in my brief periods of clarity.”

He tilted his head back to examine the faint cracks. “That looks rather like a map of Britain.”

“I thought of it as a lunging wolf, which says something about my state of mind at the time.” She looked upward again. “But it could be Britain. I like that better.” She took a deeper swallow of brandy. “So much happened at this inn. My children were born, I almost died, and my marriage ended.”

He tightened his arm around her shoulders. She tucked under it so nicely. “Ended?”