It was dark, save for the moonlight slanting through the window glass in patterned squares upon the floor, but Mr. Bell whispered her name so she’d know it was only him and she should not be afraid. “I need you to come light me down to the stables.”

Half-wakened, she struggled to sit, trying not to wake Marion. “I will get dressed.”

“There is no need.” He held her plaid and hood in one hand. “With these, you’ll be warm enough. There will be none to see you in the stables, and we’ll not be long.”

She’d kept her stockings on in bed beneath her shift, for it was cold, and she was glad of that as she fastened on her shoes and wrapped the plaid warmly around her and tied on her blue hood and followed him.

Outside their chamber in the passage on a hook there hung a candle lantern like the one the robber boy had carried that night in the kitchen, a dark lantern with its metal door full open to let out the light, and a curved handle set into its side so that it could be carried. Mr. Bell removed it from the hook and handed it to Lily, and she walked beside him, lighting his way through the inn and out into the courtyard, where he spoke more freely, though his tone stayed hushed.

“I do believe I dropped my shop keys,” he said, “in the stables, and I will not sleep unless I find them.”

Lily helped him look. The horses lifted lazy heads above their stalls and watched while Mr. Bell, with Lily holding up the lantern for him, made a study of the stable floor until he reached a wooden bench and told her, “Set your lantern down a moment. Let us rest. It’s cold.”

He sat, and she sat next to him, and with one arm he drew her close as though to keep her warm, but his hand did not seek her shoulder. It went lower, underneath her plaid, and firmly cupped the small curve of her breast beneath her shift.

She froze in shock, and fear.

Without a word he turned to her and pressed his mouth to hers, lips moist against her own, tongue seeking entry.

Lily could not move.

He raised his head and smiled. “My bonny Lily, with your bonny hood that makes your eyes so blue. I will be gentle. I—”

But he was interrupted by the clatter of a horse’s hooves against the cobbles of the courtyard, and before Lily could fathom what was happening, he’d set her on her feet again and he was standing at her side, respectably.

The man who rode into the stables greeted him as if they were good friends of long acquaintance. “I did not expect to find you here,” the stranger said, “but we must wake the landlord, if he is not yet awake, and have him bring us wine and bread, for I have been too long over the water and have many tales to tell.”