Understanding registered in her weathered face. “Ah! You must be the young miss’s brother. She says I’m to tell you that she’ll be back roundabout ten o’clock. Gone for a walk, she has.”

Behind him, the bell on the door jingled as it was opened and shut again. A brief gust of icy wind filled the entryway.

“And there she is,” the tavern keeper’s wife said. “Right on schedule.” She raised her voice. “Your brother’s just arrived, Miss Hartwright.”

Neville slowly turned around, his heart in his throat.

Clara stood in the doorway, having just removed her bonnet. Her face was white as marble, her brown eyes glistening. She looked more beautiful than he remembered. Beautiful, and brittle as glass. As if at any moment she might shatter into a million pieces.

Something had happened. He could sense it. Her small form was practically vibrating with tension.

He took an instinctive step toward her.

She didn’t wait for him to approach. Didn’t address him or ask what it was he was doing in Cambridge. Indeed, she didn’t say anything. She merely looked at him, in stunned silence.

And then, all at once, her face crumpled, and with a choked sob, she threw herself straight into his arms.

Neville enfolded her in a protective embrace. She was trembling violently, her body racked with tears. He held her close as she wept, wrapping her in his arms, and inside the warmth of his greatcoat. “It’s all right,” he murmured against her hair. “I’m here. You’re safe now.” He raised his head to address the tavern keeper’s wife. “Where is her room?”

“Upstairs. Last door to the right.” She gave Clara a look of motherly concern. “The poor mite. Is she unwell?”

“Just…overwrought.” Neville picked Clara up easily, one arm at her back, and the other sliding beneath her knees. She clung to his neck, her face pressed into his cravat. “Will you send up a…a p-pot of tea?”

“Right away, sir. And I’ll have the boy bring up your case.”

He nodded once before striding across the hall and bounding up the creaking stairs to Clara’s room. In other circumstances, accompanying her there would have been enough to ruin her. For all he knew, it still might. But the tavern keeper’s wife seemed to think he was her brother. A fiction he prayed would hold long enough for Clara to compose herself, and for the both of them to leave.

He found her room key inside of the cloth reticule that dangled from her wrist. Shoving it into the lock, he unbolted the door and pushed it open with his shoulder. Once inside her room, he kicked the door shut behind them.