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He deposited Helen onto the seat in the carriage and went back inside. He picked up a hot brick that he heated on the hearth and wrapped it in cloth. He got the blankets and everything else he needed for the trip and returned to the carriage.

Helen huddled in the corner of the seat, her hands wrapped around her arms, her head leaning against the wooden wall of the carriage, her gaze blank.

She looked hopeless and rather miserable.

My poor little Helen.

With her sparkling soul, she’d managed to thaw the spy’s ice-cold heart. He only hoped it wouldn’t be her own undoing.

He hopped into the carriage and slid onto the seat beside her. “May I?” He held up the brick and glanced at her feet.

At Helen’s nod, Ian raised her skirts and hid the hot brick under them to warm up her legs. Then he wrapped her up in blankets and raised his arms in a welcoming manner. “I am warmer and softer than the carriage wall, I wager,” he said playfully.

Helen regarded his lap with suspicion but probably decided that he was right because she gave a little shrug and laid her head onto his thighs.

She sighed contentedly and closed her eyes. Ian ran his fingers through her hair, and she seemed to like it, as she sighed again, rubbing her face against his lap like a cat.

“Sleep now, my sweet,” he whispered. “It’s going to be a long journey.”

* * *

Ian hadn’t lied when he’d said the journey would be long. Helen forced herself to sleep through most of it, or she wouldn’t be able to get through it. Her knees ached, her arms and her back hurt as well, her joints feeling swollen and angry.

At their first stop, Ian donned the attire of a priest and put a gray wig under his hat. Having wrapped Helen into hideous old shawls, covering her head and even part of her face, he helped her out of the carriage.

A priest! Helen would have laughed at the irony of it if she had strength. As it was, she allowed herself a smile as she watched his large, broad-shouldered countenance in the priestly garb.

Ian turned toward her and raised a brow. As if reading her mind, he asked, “You don’t believe I look like a priest?”

Helen shook her head. “Not especially.”

He shrugged. “Believe it or not, my father wanted me to go that route.”

Helen’s smile widened, her pain not forgotten, but relegated to the background for now. “But you decided to follow the devil instead?”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Since you’re making fun of me, is it safe to assume that you’re feeling better?”

She didn’t. Everything still ached, and her fatigue was drowning her. But she got used to masking her ailment. If just for a short amount of time. She hated to be a bother to anyone. She especially didn’t want to be a bother to him. “Enough to recognize that you don’t look like a priest.”

He tsked and weaved his arm with hers. She stumbled and paused. Walking after sitting in an uncomfortable carriage in an unnatural pose was a challenge.

Suddenly, Ian slumped by her side, his back hunched, his movements slow, looking even from her vantage point as an old and weary man. She wouldn’t have believed it was him if the transformation didn’t occur right before her eyes. “I don’t want you to speak at all,” he whispered as they walked.

Helen nodded, grateful for that tiny reprieve.

She looked at the small, unassuming inn and prayed for a nice, warm bed. Perhaps even food.

Ian led her inside, then left her a few feet away from the counter as he walked closer and addressed the innkeeper.

“Good evening, fair sir,” he said, feigning a deep, solemn voice. Helen was taken aback by the way he quickly transformed into a man a few years his senior. “I need a room for me and my ailing mother—”

Mother?

Ian continued weaving his tale about how it was his duty to convey her home across this long and tedious journey, adding a prayer here and there, but Helen didn’t listen to him anymore.

He’d introduced her as his mother!

Did she truly look so terrible that the disguise worked this well?