Using both hands, Bilt hefted the portmanteau and hurried to the stairs. “You’ll remember the tap from before, I’ll warrant.”

Ro did. He turned to the archway that gave on to the tap, a decent-sized room with a bar along one wall.

The room lay in chilly darkness. It wasn’t the room in which the firelight had flickered.

Ro swung his gaze to the door opposite the archway. If memory served, it gave on to a parlor. Crossing to the door, he opened it. Warmth and golden light rolled over him.

“My lord! Ah…”

Already over the threshold, Ro leaned back through the door to look up at Bilt, on the landing wrestling with the unwieldy portmanteau.

Bilt looked down at him, expression aghast.

Ro raised a brow. “What is it?”

Bilt swallowed. “If you don’t mind, my lord, someone’s hired the parlor.”

Ro glanced into the room, then looked back at Bilt. “Whoever they are, they’re not here, most probably because it’s the dead of night. There is, however, a fire still burning. I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your notice that I’m drenched, Bilt. To the skin. I’m sure you wouldn’t want me to catch a chill while waiting for my room to be made ready-especially as this fire is burning so well and otherwise going to waste.”

He smiled at Bilt, but this time the smile held an edge, one mirrored in his silver-gray eyes. “I’ll wait here by the fire.”

Very few people forgot Rogue Gerrard.

Entering the parlor, Ro closed the door and walked across to the hearth. With every step he could feel the welcome warmth reaching for him, engulfing him…but only on his face and hands, his exposed skin. The rest of him remained literally chilled to the bone, and that rest was rather a lot.

Halting before the fire, he shrugged out of his greatcoat and draped it over the back of a wooden chair beside the hearth, then mentally shrugging-there was no one around to see-he fought his way out of his coat, not an easy task given the lengths to which Shultz had gone to tailor the garment to his shoulders and back.