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covered by a huge brick-and-stone fireplace adorned with a variety of alcoves and metal shelves and hooks. Heavy wooden tables were scattered throughout, and pots, pans and strings of dried food hung from thick ceiling beams. The plastered walls were stained and greasy. A waxy paper hung in the few open windows, dimming the sunlight, and open shutters hung on the wall beside them.
Mariah looked at the wood plank floor, trying not to show how heartsick she felt. Though she'd moved around a lot, she had taught herself to be a good cookwith food processor, gas range, double oven and microwave. She hadn't the slightest idea how to put together a meal here.
Maybe she could get René to relegate her to upstairs maid.
As though he read her mind, he said, "Come. I will show you the rest first." He led her from the kitchen.
The remainder of the inn's first floor consisted of a huge common room that smelled of old beer and burnt wood. Mariah had to squint in the darkness to make out its contents. Though the glass-free windows were not covered with coated paper, the waning light of day hardly lit the place. The walls were the bare insides of the mud-daubed logs. One contained a smaller fireplace than the kitchen's. Primitive tables and chairs were scattered throughout, made of scraps of logs nailed together haphazardly, with patches of bark still remaining. Her footsteps and René's pounded on the floor's rough planking. On the floor were a couple of brass spittoons.
The most amazing thing to Mariah was that, in the middle of all this rusticity, a surprisingly civilized-looking bar ran along one wall. Its surface was smooth and polished, of a dark, shining wood that looked like mahogany. No stools squatted before it; apparently Thorn's bar patrons were expected to stand. Behind it were rows of antique, thick blown-glass bottles.
No, Mariah amendedhere they would be new bottles.
"Follow, please," René continued. Mariah complied, and he led her up the wooden stairs along one wall. The second floor consisted of two large rooms, both strewn with beds no

 
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