Lie by Moonlight by Amanda Quick Page A

getting drunk on the innkeeper’s sherry. But even as the notion occurred to her, she set it aside. She had seen enough of him tonight to be quite certain that he was not so lacking in self-restraint. In any event, he had not had so much as a single glass of the stuff earlier when he had served it to her.
    She waited for the opening and closing of his bedroom door, but there was only silence. What was he doing? Why didn’t he go into his room?
    What if she was mistaken? Perhaps it was someone else hovering out there in the hall. Another guest? Edwina or Theodora?
    Perhaps one of the men from the castle had managed to follow them, after all.
    Fear knifed through her with the force of an electrical shock. She stared very hard at the razor-thin crack of grayish light beneath the door.
    For a second or two she was frozen, unable to move or breathe.
    With an effort of will she managed to slide out from under the quilts. Neither of the two sleeping girls stirred.
    The room had grown very cold, but she could feel the icy trickle of perspiration under her arms. She found her eyeglasses and put them on. Then she made her way to her cloak and fumbled briefly in one of the pockets. Her fingers finally closed around the handle of Rimpton’s revolver. She withdrew it quietly.
    When she reached the door, she paused again. Whoever he was, he was still there. She could literally feel his presence.
    It had to be Ambrose, she thought. But she would not be able to relax until she made certain of it.
    Easing the bolt aside, she opened the door a bare inch.
    Moonlight spilled from the window at the end of the corridor. Through the narrow opening she could just barely make out the top of the staircase. There was no sign of anyone about. She realized that from her vantage point she could not see around the edge of the door to examine the hallway to the right.
    “I take it the sherry was not effective.” Ambrose spoke very quietly from the darkness.
    She jumped a little and then drew a shuddering breath of relief. Lowering the gun, she opened the door a little wider and put her head around the corner.
    At first she could not see him at all. Then she realized why. He was not standing at eye level in the hall; he was sitting cross-legged on the floor, hands lightly curled on his knees. There was a great stillness about him.
    “Mr. Wells,” she said softly, “I thought I heard you out here. What on earth are you doing sitting there on the floor? You should be in bed. You need your sleep as much as the rest of us.”
    “Do not concern yourself, Miss Glade. Go back to bed.”
    She could hardly demand answers at this hour. The last thing she wanted to do was awaken the girls, to say nothing of the innkeeper and his wife.
    “Very well, if you insist.” She did not bother to conceal her doubts.
    “Believe it or not, I do know what I am doing, Miss Glade.”
    Reluctantly she closed the door and slid the bolt back into place. Shemade her way to the bed, removed her eyeglasses, put the gun down on the table and got under the covers.
    She watched the crack of light beneath the door for a time, thinking about Ambrose’s odd behavior. She did not require an answer to her question. She knew why he was out there in the chilly hall, why he had not touched the sherry earlier. He was keeping watch.
    She chilled beneath the heavy quilts.
    The fact that he felt it necessary to guard them through the night told her just how dangerous he believed Alexander Larkin really was.

6
    A mbrose listened to the almost inaudible snick of the bolt of the door sliding into place.
    He waited a moment longer, cataloging the sounds of the slumbering inn. That part of him that had been trained to listen for the smallest dissonant note concealed within the natural harmony of the night detected nothing that gave cause for alarm.
    He allowed himself to sink back into the quiet place in his mind. There would be no sleep for him between now and dawn, but in this inner realm he