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“I know a place where he can be perfectly concealed.”

She stared into the fire. “You take an eager interest in Adam, but we hardly know you. What brought you to us? Why do you stay?”

He studied her profile, both unmistakably female and strong. “Call it kindness from a stranger.”

“Kindness?” She turned back to him. “What sort of kindness is it to send Adam away from his home?”

Her frame shook almost imperceptibly. Harry moved to take the coal shovel from her hand, and the cat leapt into Adam’s lap, turned in tight circles, and settled between Adam’s big hands.

The old man spoke. “You like cats, Captain. You like your ale dark like coffee.”

Harry kept his gaze on Lucy. “When you leave the inn, you won’t want to leave him behind.”

She drew a sharp breath. “When I... Captain, you overstep your authority. Why should I leave my inn?”

“Because you don’t wish to wound your neighbors’ pride when you refuse to marry any of them.”

She let out a short dry laugh, not at all like the merry sound he’d interrupted earlier, but her eyes still danced. “First you presume to know who’s going to propose to me, and now you presume to know my answers.”

“Leave it to me, and I will have Adam safely away from here tomorrow, while you go to your friends in town.”

“I haven’t said I will go anywhere.” There was an obstinate tilt to her chin.

“But you’ve been toying with the idea all day.”

“What makes you think that?”

“That letter in your pocket. How many times have you read it?”

She pushed down the paper peeking out of her pocket, and he watched as some kind of debate played out behind her eyes. “If I did go to my friends, who would look out for Adam, and how would I know he was safe?”

“I’ll send word.”

Her gaze was on Adam, her hand on the letter. Harry thought she needed just a little push to persuade her to give in.

A crash of crockery hitting slate broke the moment. The cat jumped down and scurried around the bench. Raised voices erupted from the kitchen.

Lucy’s shoulders slumped briefly, but her eyes still laughed. “London, Captain? For me? I think not. Unless you want to do without supper.”

A minute later Harry heard her low, calm voice cutting through the girls’ squabbling, restoring order.

“The girls need Lucy in the kitchen,” Adam said. And Harry knew he had one more thing to do before he could pry the innkeeper from her inn.

* * * *

Lucy did not miss the cat until it was time to ready Adam for bed. The captain’s offer to take Adam to a safe place had consumed her thinking through the evening rush and the last-minute calls of the night’s guests for tea and warming pans for their beds.

The captain’s unexpected offer of help only added to the temptation of Margaret’s letter. Lucy could spend a fortnight in society with no harm done. She could have her moment of picnicking on the grass like the lady in the portrait, then she would return to her duties at the Tooth and Nail.

She checked Queenie’s dish and found the untouched scraps from the earlier disaster of the dropped fricassee of chicken. When the cat did not come to her summons, she slipped a worn blue pelisse over her shoulders and stepped out into the night with the dish.

The hush of the kitchen garden surrounded her. She breathed in sharp, fresh air, and with one hand, pulled her pelisse tighter. Whatever the calendar said, winter refused to let go of London. Weeks earlier Hyde Park had been the scene of a crazy wager that four horses pulling a huge van could cross the frozen Serpentine.

Now tiny pricks of icy light dotted an indigo sky. As her cheeks and ears cooled, the smell of damp earth rose to meet her. A horse and cart rumbled by beyond the wall, and small creatures skittered under the leafless shrubbery as if passing along a secret roadway in a world apart from the noise and bustle of the inn.

She savored the stillness. In the quiet of the garden, she could acknowledge that though she tried to think of Papa as she worked, somehow the work itself took over. There was little room for thoughts of Papa or anyone else while running to the bells’ summons, climbing stairs, lifting trays and buckets, plunging a hand or a mop into cold or hot water, and stirring pots and fires, from first light to last, until every part of one’s body ached and reeked of the job. She understood now why Papa had talked so little most evenings. He had been content to let her prattle on about her friends and her school.

She shivered and called Queenie again, lifting her gaze at the sound of the garden gate clicking shut. Out of the dark a man strode up the path. She had a confused impression of his entering. Oddly, he had closed the gate, but not opened it. As he stepped into the beam of light from the kitchen door, she saw black boots, long lean legs, and a scarlet jacket that made a rosy patch in the darkness. Captain Clare.