The Louise Allen Collection: The Viscount's Betrothal / The Society Catch. Louise Allen

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СКАЧАТЬ of the postilions swung down from his horse and made heavy weather of stamping back through the snow to the door. ‘Can’t go no further, miss. The snow’s too deep, drifting right across the road. Look.’

      ‘Then we’ll have to go round.’ The snow was blowing down her neck now and she pulled the velvet collar of her pelisse tighter.

      ‘Round where, miss?’ the man asked bluntly. ‘This isn’t just some little local shower, it’s a regular blizzard—I’ll wager it’s this bad right across the Midlands. Only thing to be done is to go back to the Cock—the horses won’t manage to get further than that, not until this lets up. There’s nowhere else for five miles.’

      ‘The Cock?’ Decima stared at him, horrified, the vision of the Sun’s snug private parlour dissolving like a snowball in a muddy puddle, into an image of the squalid alehouse. ‘That is out of the question. They have no bedchambers, let alone a private parlour, and we could be stranded there for days, in goodness knows what company.’

      The man shrugged. ‘Not much option, miss. We’d better be getting back now, before the place fills up with other travellers in a like fix.’

      ‘Might I be of assistance?’ The man’s voice reached them clearly, despite the snow, and Decima strained to make out the speaker through the thickening whiteness. The voice sounded reassuringly deep and pleasant, but as the figure loomed up she gasped. It was a giant.

      Then he came nearer, wading through the drifts, and she realised that he was simply a particularly tall gentleman wearing a many-caped driving coat and low-crowned hat.

      ‘Ma’am.’ He doffed the hat, revealing dark hair that instantly became spangled with white, and came right up to the carriage. ‘I suspect, like me, you have come to the conclusion that the road ahead is impassable for carriages.’

      ‘Indeed, sir. My postilion is convinced that the only shelter is the alehouse back a mile or so, but—’

      ‘But that is quite unsuitable for a lady, I could not agree more.’ What Decima could see of him was reassuring. A formidable breadth of shoulder, a pair of level grey-green eyes, a determined chin and a mouth that, although serious now, seemed ready to smile. And he agreed with her, a definite point in his favour in a world of men who all seemed determined to point out to her that she was just a foolish woman.

      ‘Yet there seems no alternative, unless you know of some more reputable hostelry in the vicinity, sir.’

      Adam dug beneath his greatcoat and found his card case. What a lady with only a maid as companion would make of his proposal, goodness knows, but as her alternatives were to be snowed up in a flea-ridden drinking den or to freeze to death in her carriage, he suspected that all but the most straitlaced would agree.

      ‘My card, ma’am.’ She took it and studied it, giving him an opportunity to study her. Large, wide-set grey eyes, now masked by thick lashes as she read; brown hair peeping from beneath a stylish green velvet bonnet; a generously wide mouth, set in serious lines, and a wild sprinkling of freckles all across her nose and cheeks.

      Her maid began to sneeze violently and she glanced across, a slight frown between her brows. ‘Bless you, Pru.’ She turned back to Adam, eyes frankly searching his face as the snow blew between them, her mouth now set in a thoughtful pout that made him want to lean forward and nip its fullness in his teeth. Adam blinked away the snow and took a grip on his imagination.

      ‘Lord Weston. I am Miss Ross and this is my maid Staples. If you have some alternative suggestion to make, I would be extremely glad to hear it.’

      There was no point in beating about the bush. ‘I am travelling to my hunting box near Whissendine, about five miles distant. I do not believe I can drive any further beyond here with these drifts, but my groom is with me and two of my hunters. I propose that we unhitch my carriage horses and use them to carry our valuables and essential baggage. My groom will take up your maid on one of the hunters and I will take you on the other. It will not be an easy journey, but I can promise you a warm refuge at the end of it. Your postilions can take your carriage and our remaining baggage back to the alehouse where they can take shelter until the weather breaks and they are able to collect you and take you on to your destination.’

      Miss Ross looked down again at the card and then up at his face. He saw her lips move slightly, Adam Grantham, Viscount Weston. Behind her the maid went off into another paroxysm of sneezes. ‘Who else will be at your box, my lord?’ A pleasant voice, even now when it was constrained by both formality and caution.

      ‘Today, my housekeeper, a maid and a footman. Tomorrow I expect a small house party consisting of two married couples, one of whom is my cousin, Lady Wendover, and her husband.’

      ‘If they can get through.’ She sounded thoughtful rather than dubious. ‘Very well, my lord. Thank you for your most kind suggestion. Could you ask the postilions to pass my luggage down into the carriage so I can decide what to take?’

      He gave the order and trudged back through the drifts to the curricle where Bates stood huddled, holding the carriage horses’ lines in one hand and the reins of the two hunters in the other.

      ‘We’ll take the women up with us on Ajax and Fox and the baggage up on the greys. Let me sort out a valise—is your gear all together?’

      Bates grunted and gestured abruptly with his head towards a battered bag strapped on behind the curricle seat.

      ‘Good, then unhitch the greys and shorten the reins off.’

      Adam rummaged rapidly through his bags and reduced his essentials to one valise, thankful for a lifetime’s habit of travelling light. Goodness knows what a lady with that taste in bonnets would consider she could not do without, and how many bags that would involve. He hefted the rest down and carried them back to the carriage. The snow was deepening by the minute; this was going to be a nightmare of a journey.

      ‘We are ready, my lord.’ By some miracle the two women were swathed in heavy hooded winter cloaks with not a sign of a fashionable bonnet. On the seat were two valises and a dressing case.

      ‘I congratulate you on both your dispatch and your packing, Miss Ross. Now, if you will just stand on the step I will carry you across to the horses.’

      The wide grey eyes stared at him, then, disconcertingly, she coloured deeply. Now what had he said? Surely a lady willing to go with a stranger on trust was not going to baulk at being carried through a snowdrift?

      ‘Ma’am?’

      The previously assured figure before him seemed to shrink back into herself. ‘My lord, I should tell you…I am five foot ten and one-quarter inches tall.’

       Chapter Two

      It might, after all, be better to spend days shut up in the Cock rather than to face the shame of being lugged through the snow like a sack of coals. It would probably take both men to achieve it. No previous humiliation lived up to the prospect of this. Obviously the viscount had no idea when he suggested this scheme that he was dealing with a lady who was freakishly tall.

      Adam Grantham was looking serious, although it was difficult to read his expression through the swirling snow. ‘Indeed, ma’am? I am six foot three. And one-half,’ he added after a moment’s thought. ‘I would be charmed to stand here all day exchanging СКАЧАТЬ