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She certainly had much to learn about taking control of her life. Why, it had just taken three months, since her twenty-seventh birthday, for her to realise that the fortune, which she had always known she possessed, was the key to more than financial independence. Charlton had been very cunning, giving her a generous allowance that more than covered her needs and her occasional fancies—nothing to rebel against there, no reason to grasp the prospect of access to her entire capital with desperation.
After today, Decima decided, she would leave immediately on each and every occasion in the future when her relatives tried to matchmake. If she was not there to hear them, what did it matter how much they lamented her shortcomings?
She was reviewing this resolution, and deciding that it was an admirable one for New Year, when Pru exclaimed, ‘Look at this weather, Miss Dessy! This is taking an age—we only passed that dreadful ale-house, the Red Cock, twenty minutes ago.’
Startled out of her reverie, Decima focused on the view. It was indeed alarming. Although it was only about two in the afternoon, the light was heavy and gloomy as it fought its way through the swirling snowflakes. Great mounds of snow hid the line of roadside hedges, the verges were an expanse of unbroken white and the trees, which at this point formed a little coppice, were already bending under their burden.
‘Oh, bother.’ She scrubbed at the glass, which had clouded with her warm breath. ‘I thought we would make Oakham for a late luncheon quite easily, now we will be lucky to arrive there for supper. I suppose we will have to stay at the Sun in Splendour overnight.’
‘It’s a good inn,’ the maid remarked. ‘It will be no pain to stay there, and in this weather I don’t expect there’ll be that many folks out on the roads. You should get a nice private parlour with no trouble.’ She sneezed violently and disappeared into a vast handkerchief.
The prospect of a roaring fire, an excellent supper and the Sun’s renowned feather beds was appealing. And there would be no one to nag her. She could kick off her shoes, drink hot chocolate curled up in a chair with a really frivolous novel and go to bed when she felt like it. Decima contemplated this plan with some smugness until the carriage came to a sudden halt.
‘Now what?’ She lowered the window and leaned out, receiving a face full of snowflakes. ‘Why have we stopped?’ Through the snow she could just make out that they had halted at a crossroads and that another vehicle, a curricle and pair by the look of it, had stopped on the road that intersected with theirs.
One 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 shoe, glove and hat sizes, but I really feel we should be making a start.’
‘But you misunderstand me, my lord…’
His expression changed to one of chagrin. ‘You mean you think me incapable of carrying you, Miss Ross? I have to say I resent that slur upon my manhood.’
Completely thrown into disarray, Decima hastened to reassure him. ‘Lord Weston, I did not for a moment mean to imply any lack of strength on your part—’ There was a muffled choke of laughter from Pru behind her and Decima realised she was being teased. Teased about her height! Why, no one did that, no one considered it grounds for anything but the deepest shame and gloom.
Furious with herself, and with him, she threw the door open and stooped to step out. The wind hit her like a cold douche of water and the snow caught her breath in her throat, effectively stopping the stinging remark she was about to make.
She had hardly straightened when he swept her up, one arm behind her knees, the other across her back. ‘Can you free your left arm and put it about my neck?’ Apparently he did not even have to breathe deeply to cope with her weight.
Decima disentangled her arm and did as she was bid. It involved a fair amount of wriggling around and she was perversely gratified to observe a slight flush under the skin of the cheek her nose was so close to. Possibly you are not as strong as you think you are, my lord, she thought smugly to herself. Just so long as he did not fall into a ditch with her.
The snow was deepening by the minute, Decima realised, as the viscount turned and began to wade back through the drifts towards the horses. He was taking it slowly, placing his booted feet with care, which gave her the opportunity to experience this very strange experience to the full. It was the first time she had ever found herself in a man’s arms, and it was doubtless the last, so, in tune with her New Year’s resolution to live life positively, she might as well start here and absorb this new sensation.
The movement of his torso against her body was…disturbing. He was certainly strong and well-muscled. What did a gentleman do to get muscles like that? Charlton, at thirty-two, was already becoming soft around the midriff and she could have sworn he could not carry a toddler without puffing, let alone his beanpole of a sister. How old was Lord Weston? The same age as Charlton?
From within the shelter of her hood she studied what she could see of him. That chin was even more determined in profile, and his nose matched it. The first traces of dark stubble were showing under the skin on his cheeks—it seemed his beard would be as dark a brown as the hair she could see under his hat. A very male face indeed, Decima decided, and then saw that his eyelashes were quite ridiculously long and thick. Longer and thicker than hers, she thought resentfully. How very unfair. They had snowflakes caught on their tips.
From the side it was difficult to see his eyes. As she was considering this, he turned his head to glance at her and she saw that they were more grey than she had recalled from that first glimpse. Perhaps it was some strange reflection from the snow, but they seemed almost to have silver lights dancing in them. She blinked away the snowflakes from her own lashes and found he was smiling at her. Without considering, she smiled back.
‘Are you all right? Not much further now.’
‘Yes, yes. I am perfectly all right. Thank you. My lord.’ Just prattling like an idiot, she told herself. For Heaven’s sake, Decima, pull yourself together. Why being carried like this should make her feel so hot and breathless she could not imagine. It surely wasn’t embarrassment, not now it seemed certain he was not going to collapse under her weight.
She drew a deep breath and realised that to the list of new sensual impressions she could add scent. He smelt of some subtle citrus cologne, of leather and, faintly, of what she could only imagine was warm man.
Something was making her feel quite strange inside: melting and flustered. And then she realised that if she could catch the scent of him, so he could of her. That was a thoroughly unsettling thought for some reason. Not that there was anything more exotic for him to inhale than good Castile soap and a suitably refined jasmine toilet water. And there was no reason to think that he would find that remotely interesting or disturbing.
‘Here we are.’ He trampled a circle of snow, then set her on her feet, a few paces away from the groom who handed him the reins of two hunters with a grunt.
‘Tied the carriage horses to that bush.’ The man jerked his head in the direction of a pair of dark greys who seemed half lost already in the swirling whiteness as they turned their hindquarters to the prevailing wind.
His master did not appear to take either the curtness, or the scowl that accompanied it, amiss. ‘Are our valises tied on, Bates?’
‘Aye, sir.’
‘Then go and fetch Miss Ross’s maid. Here, you!’ he shouted at the postilions, who were sitting hunched and miserable against the snow. ‘Bring the valises from inside the coach.’ Reluctantly, one of the men dismounted and trudged back passing the groom who, being considerably shorter in the leg than the viscount, was sensibly using his footsteps to make his way to the carriage.
‘King Wenceslas,’ Decima observed with a gurgle of laughter, and was answered with a deep chuckle.
‘I cannot see Bates as anyone’s attentive page, and I fear we are not going to be lit by the brightly shining moon tonight. No! I would not touch Fox—’
But Decima was already stroking the soft muzzle that was thrusting hopefully into her gloved palm. ‘What a handsome fellow you are to be sure, and so good, standing here patiently in this horrid snow. What is the matter, my lord?’ The viscount let out his breath in a hiss.
‘Fox is reputed to eat stable boys.’
‘I am not a stable boy.’
‘No, and that horse is an arrant flirt. I’d never have thought it of him.’ Lashes even longer than his master’s were being batted at Decima as she continued to rub just the right spot on the chestnut’s nose.
‘Yes, you are beautiful,’ she cooed, looking at the strongly arched neck and broad chest. ‘Is he a stallion?’ Without thinking, she bobbed down to look. He was, very obviously. ‘So he is. He is very well made.’
Oh, no! As soon as the words were out of her mouth she realised what she had said, and to whom she had said it. That was not the sort of observation a lady was supposed to make, however much she knew about horses. Now, what did one say to a complete stranger after one had commented on his horse’s…er…masculine attributes? The viscount had assumed an expression one could only describe as stuffed.
She was saved from floundering any further by an outraged shriek from the direction of the carriage. ‘Put me down, you cork-brained jackanapes!’ Pru’s tirade was cut short on a gasp and Bates appeared through the swirling snow, the maid thrown over his shoulder. The effect as she wriggled was not unlike a man carrying a sack full of outraged piglets.
Their progress was slow. Decima watched with bated breath, not daring to look at Lord Weston. Bates was a slight man, if wiry. Pru, who stood a mere five foot two inches in her stockinged feet, more than made up for lack of vertical inches with a quite magnificent bosom and a rounded figure to match. At any minute the groom was going to sink into a snowdrift, of that she was sure.
The postilion with the valises overtook them with ease, depositing his burden at the viscount’s feet. ‘We’ll be heading back to the Cock, sir. Where would you be wishful for us to call for the lady when the snow clears?’
‘Um?’ Lord Weston tore his gaze from the floundering figure of his groom and dug a card out of his pocket. ‘Here. Anyone in Whissendine will give you directions. Mind you keep that baggage safe.’ As this instruction was accompanied by the clink of coin, the man tugged his forelock respectfully and waded back, making some comment as he passed the labouring groom that provoked an even more violent wriggle from Pru.
‘Stubble it, do, woman.’ Bates arrived in front of them and set Pru on her feet with more haste than care. Red-faced and furious, she opened her mouth to berate him and succumbed to a paroxysm of coughing.
‘Pru, are you all right?’ Decima crunched through the snow to her side.
‘Just a cold, that’s all,’ the maid assured her hoarsely, shooting a venomous glare in Bates’s direction. ‘Not helped by being hauled around like a sack of potatoes by that weasel-gutted looby.’
‘If you are ready, I think we had better be getting on.’ The viscount was dealing with this minor spat by the simple expedient of ignoring it. Decima envied him such a lofty disregard of his environment, or perhaps he was simply better at disciplining his subordinates than she was and did not look forward to an evening of being grumbled at.
‘Bates, if those bags are secure, mount up and I’ll lift your passenger up to you.’
Decima derived some amusement at the groom’s face on being expected to ride with the fulminating Miss Staples and the coy expression that the prospect of being lifted up by his lordship produced on Pru’s flushed countenance. It was certainly a welcome distraction from her own faux pas concerning Fox.
With Bates and Pru settled, the viscount turned and offered his cupped hands for Decima’s foot. ‘If I boost you up and then mount behind you, will you be all right?’
‘Certainly.’ Decima gathered the reins confidently and lifted her foot. As soon as she was in the saddle she began to have doubts. Riding sideways on a man’s saddle would be manageable, for the pommel gave her enough purchase for her right knee, and the stirrup could be adjusted for her foot. But where would his lordship sit?
He swung up behind her, keeping his weight in the stirrups so he was virtually standing. Decima found herself lifted as he slid into the saddle beneath her and set her down again. Only this time she was sitting in his lap, her weight on his thighs.
‘My lord!’
‘Yes, Miss Ross?’ He leaned over, took the reins of one of the greys from Bates, then turned Fox’s head towards the right-hand arm of the crossroads. Under her she could feel the movement of muscles in his thighs, his arms were tight on either side of her and all she could do to avoid the painful pressure of the pommel on her own thigh was to lean into his body. It felt like leaning into a tree trunk.
‘This is most…most…’
‘Uncomfortable? I’m afraid it is, at least for you, but in those skirts I really do not think you could sit astride, and perching on Fox’s rump is not going to be secure, not over this uneven surface.’ As though to prove his point the big horse plunged into a depression, surging out of it again with a scramble. ‘That must be the ditch.’ He twisted in the saddle, giving Decima more unusual sensations to come to terms with as she balanced on moving muscle. ‘Bates, keep to the right, I got too close to the edge just now.’
There was silence for a few moments, then the viscount commented, ‘I imagine you ride very well, Miss Ross.’
‘It is my chief enjoyment,’ she confessed, pleased by the compliment. ‘My father knew a great deal about horses and encouraged me to take an interest, too.’
‘Did he breed his own?’ Decima risked a glance at Lord Weston’s face, but he was looking ahead, his eyes fixed on the road.
‘Yes, and I helped him choose the bloodlines for the mare I have now.’
‘Ah, I thought you knew your stuff.’ There was the barest hint of amusement and Decima felt herself colouring. No, he hadn’t forgotten her unmaidenly remark about the stallion.
‘What makes you think I ride well?’ Anything to move the conversation on to safer ground.
‘You are riding me now, just as you would a horse, shifting your weight to respond to my movements.’ He said it in a perfectly matter-of-fact tone, but to Decima’s ears it sounded suggestively improper. It felt improper. She had never had more than a hand touched by a man who was not a close relative.
‘I am sorry. Only I don’t have anything to hold on to and I cannot keep my balance unless I shift my weight.’ His thighs must be numb by now, she thought, new embarrassment seizing her.
‘I see the problem.’ His breathing seemed to be coming rather short—she could see the puffs of warm breath on the cold air. ‘Look, if you undo my greatcoat and put your arms around me inside it, then my arms holding the reins will trap it around you. Just hang on and try and sit—still.’ The final word came out as a gasp as Decima twisted to get at the big mother-of-pearl buttons. After a tussle she managed to open the coat and wriggle enough to wrap her arms around the viscount’s body. The flaps of the coat closed with the pressure of his arms and she found herself in warm, man-scented semidarkness.
It was very odd. Sounds from outside were muffled, but her ear, pressed against his chest, could hear the sound of his heartbeat, out of rhythm with hers. Her palms curled against his sides with her fingers curving into his back—goodness, but he was large.
Certainly she didn’t need to shift to keep her balance any longer, but things felt somehow different than before when she’d sat further forward. Decima settled more comfortably, then her mind caught up with what her body was feeling. Oh, my heavens! She suddenly became very still. No wonder he hadn’t wanted her moving about. It seemed the cold had done nothing whatsoever to diminish his lordship’s male reflexes.
Adam relaxed a little. Thank God she’d stopped wriggling. Now all he had to do was to breathe this blessedly freezing air deeply and think of completely unerotic things such as dying of exposure in a snowdrift or Fox breaking a leg in a concealed pothole and possibly, in about a week, his painful state of arousal might subside.
Why a befreckled beanpole of a young lady—not so very young, now he came to think about it—should have this effect upon him he had no idea. Possibly it was a reflex reaction to his sister’s matchmaking; he felt immediately attracted to the first woman he saw who wasn’t thrust into his path by a relative. And she was hardly a conventional lady at that. He recalled her knowledgeable assessment of Fox’s attributes with a grin—Sal would faint dead away if she heard such a comment. Well, if one were to be marooned in a blizzard with a lady, then better an eccentric one than an hysterical young miss.