“I am pleased to meet you, Mr. Halliday,” she said. “Rosamund Hunter.”
“We will keep a watch out for your brother’s approach from the carriage,” he said, reaching out a hand for hers. “I cannot leave you here, Miss Hunter, and risk becoming a murderer.” He smiled.
“Oh, perhaps I will, then,” she said, putting one gloved hand in his. “I had no idea it was possible to be quite this cold.” Her teeth clacked together as he released her hand, took her by the waist, and lifted her into his carriage before jumping in after her and closing the door.
“He said it would snow,” she said as the earl took a heavy blanket from the opposite seat and spread it over her knees. “He will be pleased that he won that argument at least.”
“Do you mean,” he said, “that you have been walking since before the snow began, Miss Hunter? But that must be more than an hour?”
“Is that all?” she said. “It seems more like three. He must be very angry with me. And I am not a miss. I am a widow.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Yes,” she said, “so am I. If Leonard were only still alive, I would not have found myself on this road today arguing with Dennis.”
“You’re very cold,” he said. “Pull the blanket up over your shoulders.”
“I think I will,” she said, clamping her teeth together to stop them from rattling. And she drew the blanket up to her chin. She regarded him candidly from her dark eyes and laughed. “How do I know that you are not a highwayman abducting me?”
“In a carriage?” he said. “With no pistols and no mask? Where would be the romance, ma’am?”
“I don’t know about romance,” she said, “but I do know that it would be dreadfully unpleasant to be on horseback with you at this moment if you really were a highwayman. Dennis is going to give me a thundering scold for allowing myself to be taken up like this. He likes to treat me as if I am a little child just because he is fifteen years older than I and was my guardian from the time our father died when I was ten until I married at the age of seventeen.”
“Better that he be annoyed with you than grief-stricken to find your frozen body against a hedgerow,” he said.
She laughed. “I daresay you are right,” she said. “He must have been very angry. I thought he would have gone three miles at the farthest before turning back for me.”
The carriage stopped again at that moment and the coachman opened the door after knocking on it.
“This is where we turn off, sir,” he said. “Another two, three miles down this road if I have the rights of it. What about the lady?”
The earl turned to look at her.
“Another hour or less,” the coachman said, “and the roads are going to be impassable.”
“You had better come with me,” the earl said to Rosamund.
“But Dennis will have an apoplexy,” she said.
Lord Wetherby thought that Dennis probably deserved an apoplexy, but he did not say so.
“If I knew of an inn farther along the road,” he said, “or if I knew this country at all, Mrs. Hunter, I would take you farther. But I might be taking you into greater danger. The house I am making for is close. I believe we have no choice but to go there. Your brother will surely realize that you have taken shelter somewhere.”
“Oh, dear,” she said, “I should not have been so foolish, should I? He told me I was being ridiculous.”
“Shall we continue along this road for a while, then?” the earl asked.
She looked at him with sudden decision. “No, Mr. Halliday,” she said, “I would not inconvenience you so. I will have to come with you and hope to find Dennis tomorrow. I hope Mrs. Halliday will not be too vexed to see me.”
The earl nodded to his coachman, who closed the door and climbed back to his perch. The carriage was soon in motion again, turning sharply to the right.
“There is no Mrs. Halliday,” Lord Wetherby said with a smile. “Indeed, there is no one else there except for two servants. I am borrowing a friend’s hunting box for a week. There will be just you and I, Mrs. Hunter.”
“Oh, dear,” she said. “It sounds quite shockingly improper.” She looked at him and laughed.
Despite the rosiness of her cheeks, nose, and chin, and the dampness of her dark hair beneath a bedraggled bonnet, she was really remarkably pretty, the Earl of Wetherby noticed for the first time.
Chapter 2
