Page 41 of The Hidden Heart

“It will be worse later,” Cleybourne assured him. “That is why you are leaving immediately. I won’t have you snowed in here for days.”

“I cannot believe you are being such a monster,” Leona pouted prettily.

“I don’t see why not. It isn’t as though I have ever been particularly nice to you.” He turned aside, saying to one of the footmen, “Duncan, Lord and Lady Vesey need their coats.”

The footman had anticipated him, for he stepped forward almost immediately to put a cloak around Leona’s shoulders. Her eyes flashed with anger as she looked at Cleybourne. She was not accustomed to men turning down her favors, much less to one rushing her out the door like an embarrassing relative.

“You are a fool, Cleybourne,” she seethed as she stalked past him, pulling on her gloves with fierce jerks of her fingers. “You will live to regret this day.”

“I already regret it,” he assured her, following the Veseys to the front door.

Jessica took the opportunity to slip away up the stairs, taking Gabriela’s arm and pulling the girl with her. Gabriela cast her an annoyed look, protesting, “I wanted to see them leave!”

“We can watch from upstairs in your room. It looks right out on the yard.”

They hurried to Gabriela’s room and stood at the window, gazing down through the increasing flakes of snow at the yard below. Lord and Lady Vesey climbed into the carriage, with Leona casting a last burning glance back at Cleybourne, who stood just outside the front door, and the carriage rolled slowly away up the driveway.

Jessica whisked Gabriela to the nursery for her lessons after that. She knew she would have to talk to the duke at some point; he was, after all, her employer. However, she was hoping that if she put it off long enough, she would reach the point where she would not feel as if she were on the verge of bursting into tears when she looked at him. She did not want to have to struggle for control while he pointed out to her that he paid her salary and that she was merely there to look after Gabriela, that she had no right to question his behavior or condemn what he chose to do or with what woman he chose to do it. God knew, she had told herself those things often enough last night.

The morning dragged as they worked their way through geography, history and French. Gabriela was bored and restless, eager to go outside. It was fortunate, Jessica was sure, that the windows in the nursery were all small and high, or she would have been jumping up every few minutes to go over and look out at the snow. Finally, when Gabriela was beginning to complain of an empty stomach, Jessica closed her book and pushed it aside.

“All right. Why don’t we have a little tromp through the snow before lunch?”

It took some time to put on their outerwear for the snow, but then they hurried down the stairs and out the rear door. What they saw there made them gasp. Snow blanketed the whole back garden and was falling in a much more furious fashion than before. Rails and hedges carried ridges of snow several inches thick, and it piled in drifts around the bottoms of the shrubs. Everything glistened whitely, and the falling snow limited their vision to only a few yards.

“Isn’t it beautiful!” Gabriela exclaimed, turning her face up and sticking out her tongue to taste the snowflakes.

“Yes, it is. The gardener was right. The snow is growing deep.”

They made their way around the side of the house, following the garden path. It was difficult walking; they had to lift their feet out of each deep depression they made. When they reached the front and looked out across the property, the usual vista of rolling hills blurred into a sea of white: sky and ground and everything in between blending.

They heard the carriage before they saw it, but in a moment the dark shape of a coach became clearer and clearer through the snowfall as it made its way up the driveway.

“Oh, no,” Jessica groaned.

“What? What is it?” Gabriela asked, looking at Jessica, then back at the carriage. “Is that—”

“Yes,” Jessica answered disgustedly. “That is the Veseys’ carriage.”

The coachman atop the carriage was almost covered with snow, as were the bags and trunks on the carriage roof. He pulled the horses to a stop and started to climb down, but before he could, Lord Vesey erupted from the carriage, cursing. He strode straight toward the house, not even turning around to help his wife down.

Just as he reached the steps, the door opened and a footman came out, looking astonished. Vesey growled something at him and pushed him out of the way as he charged into the house.

Jessica trudged through the snow to extend a hand up to Lady Vesey to help her, and though she grimaced at Jessica, she took her hand and stepped down out of the carriage. Without a word of thanks, she dropped Jessica’s hand and hurried into the house after her husband. Jessica, Gabriela and the footman all followed curiously.

By the time they got inside and closed the door, Cleybourne was striding across the marble floor in their direction. Vesey, taking off his hat, threw it onto the ground in a paroxysm of fury.

“You nearly got us killed!” he shrieked at Cleybourne. “The road is closed. We saw a carriage that had slid off into the ditch. The bridge below Trysdale is closed. We had to turn around, a pretty iffy thing on a snowy road, I must say. I thought we would never make it back here.”

“I want to go to bed,” Leona wailed. “I’m cold clear through, and it will be a wonder if I don’t catch my death of pneumonia.”

“And if you think it isn’t bad enough driving three hours through the snow on treacherous roads, then try doing it with her in the carriage with you, complaining the whole time!” Vesey shot his wife a venomous look. “For God’s sake, go ahead and go to bed, Leona, and stop moaning about.”

“Yes, Duncan, see her to her room,” Cleybourne said grimly. “Bloody hell.”

For the first time he noticed Gabriela and Jessica standing behind Lord Vesey. “What the devil are you two doing?”

“We were walking in the snow,” Gabriela explained.