Page 58 of Knight from the Ashes (Crown and Crest 1)

I walk briskly downthe street, heading toward the inn. I spent a good part of the morning trying to decide how long to let Clover sleep. When the church bells tolled eight, I decided I’d given her long enough.

I enter the inn and walk to the front desk, which is currently being tended by an elderly woman with a thin white bun.

“I’m here to escort Lady Clover,” I tell her. “May I inquire which room she’s occupying?”

“Lady Clover, Lady Clover,” the woman murmurs, flipping several pages through the worn leather ledger. Her hand trembles as she runs her finger along the names.

After several painfully long minutes, she says, “It seems she’s already checked out.”

“She checked out?” I demand, startled. “Are you certain? Lady Clover? A young woman—light brown hair, green eyes, very pretty?”

“You’re not too bad yourself, soldier,” Clover says from behind me, making me turn around sharply.

“She said you already checked out,” I explain, feeling like a dolt.

“Oh, silly me.” The woman chortles to herself. “That was Ladly Clonver, and it was an entry from last year.” She then blinks her pale blue eyes and very solemnly says, “We don’t seem to have a woman by the name of Clover staying with us.”

Clover bites back a smile and offers me a shrug.

“Grandmother,” a woman exclaims from the doorway, hurrying into the room. “What are you doing down here?”

“Tending the counter,” the woman says.

The innkeeper shoots us an apologetic smile and then says to the woman, “Thank you, Grandmother. But I’m back now…”

I turn my attention back to Clover, this time noticing her clothing. My eyes linger for several seconds too long before I rip them back to her face.

“Better?” She extends her arms to the side, giving me a better view of her outfit than I, or any other man, needs. “I woke up early this morning and went shopping so as not to delay the supply run further.”

Clover exchanged her riding gown for a scarlet bodice and opaque, fitted hose embellished with a gold filigree pattern. Over the hose, she wears a very short pair of gray breeches, and to complete the outfit, she dons a pair of matching, thigh-high suede boots.

Keeping with the modern style, the bodice is still fitted and reveals her shoulders. But it’s not her top half that’s causing concern.

She pats the side of her leg. “The shopkeeper assured me the style is very popular with female mercenaries, and the range of movement is incredible. What do you think?”

I think Bartholomew is going to swallow his tongue.

True, I’ve seen mercenaries wearing outfits that are similar and thought nothing of it, but Clover is a nobleman’s daughter with a reputation to protect. It’s one thing for a woman who sells her blade for a living to dress in a manner suited to her profession. It’s another for Clover.

“It’s a bit…”

Revealing. Scandalous. Ridiculously appealing.

“Modern?” I manage.

Clover lifts an eyebrow. “I bought a skirt to go with it.”

“Perhaps you should put it on.”

Laughing, she shakes her head. “You’re as bad as my brothers. They don’t understand current fashion either.”

Though I have no quarrel with her brothers, that’s not a category I want to be lumped into. But I let it go.

Clover hurries up the stairs to her room to change. When she comes back down, she wears a perfectly respectable skirt—one that looks far more suited to traveling than her ornate riding gown.

After checking out, verifying that she was, in fact, a patron of the inn, we walk back to the barracks.

“How long will it take to reach the guard post?” she asks.

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