The Pride of Lions by Marsha Canham

eyes.
    “Unfortunately, that will have to wait until morning.”
    “Well … as long as there are clean sheets on the bedand a hot bath waiting in my room,” she grumbled. “And food. I am famished.”
    He stared at her a moment. “I’ll see what I can do.”
    Catherine leaned back on the seat. She felt grimy and dusty, but somehow elated to have the worst behind her. Three or four days, a week at most, and Hamilton would be in Wakefield to rescue her. With her annulment in hand they would not delay in making new vows, proper vows this time between two people who loved each other and belonged together for all time.
    She heard the returning crunch of boots on the hard ground outside and gathered the folds of her skirt and petticoats in anticipation of disembarking. The door swung wide again, and Montgomery reached a black-gloved hand inside to offer assistance. Primly she accepted it, and daintily she ventured one petite foot out onto the coach step, but that was as far as she got before stopping dead and gaping in horror at the “inn.”
    The building was no more than a run-down country cottage. The walls were mud and mortar, the roof was thatch, rippled like the surface of a pond. Wooden shutters leaned drunkenly from the oilcloth windows, and there was more smoke escaping through cracks in the roof and walls than from the half-rotted chimney.
    “Is this some kind of joke?” Her voice cracked with fury.
    “On the contrary. The landlady takes her hospitality very seriously. It may not be much to look at from the outside, but I am assured of the tastiest meat pasties in two counties and the best black ale in all of England.”
    “A tavern. You have brought me to a tavern ?”
    “You shall have a clean room for the night. It will not be as fancy as you may be accustomed to, but—”
    “The walls could be painted with silver and the floor with gold,” she hissed. “The King himself could be lodged in the next room, for all I care. I will not spend so much as a single hour in this hovel, much less challenge providence by sleeping under that roof.”
    “My dear Mistress Ashbrooke—” He slipped his handunder the crook of her arm, but she jerked back angrily. “All right, then, my dear Mrs. Montgomery—” His arm curled around her waist and he lifted her clear off her feet, crushing her to a shocked silence against his chest. “You can either walk through that door and up to your room under your own power, or you can be carried up the stairs like a sack of grain.”
    She gasped. “You’re hurting me.”
    “Madam, you do not know the meaning of the word,” he said silkily, “but if you would care to learn …”
    His voice was as ominous as the dark gleam deep in his eyes, and Catherine pushed her fists against his chest to break his hold. “You are even more despicable than I had imagined. Morning cannot come too soon to please me.”
    “I share your sentiments completely, madam, but until then you will behave yourself. You will walk inside the inn and you will smile pleasantly at Mistress Grundy, for she is quite beside herself at the thought of providing for a lady of quality .”
    Catherine bristled at the sarcasm and wrenched out of his grasp. Deirdre, stepping out of the coach behind her, clutched the portmanteau she was carrying tighter in her arms and joined her mistress in staring at the posting house.
    “Faith, Mistress Catherine … is it here we’re expected to sleep?”
    “So I have been informed,” Catherine replied tartly, her gaze clashing with Montgomery’s. “But only for the one night. Tomorrow we shall endeavor to find respectable lodgings where we need not tolerate any manner of vermin.”
    She took Deirdre’s arm for support as they walked toward the lighted doorway. An effort had been made in some century past to plant a garden along the pathway, but the weeds had long since taken over. Inside the rickety door, the prospects were no less discouraging. The lower floor