Page 43 of The Hidden Heart

“We will send someone to help you,” Jessica said crisply to the man. “Why don’t you come inside while Baxter sends down to the stables and has the carriage and a wagon brought round, as well as some men? I am sure the duke would want to help, aren’t you, Baxter?”

“Oh, yes, of course, miss. You are quite right.” Baxter straightened and assumed a more proper butlerish face. “If you men would like to follow me, you can wait in the kitchen while they bring up the wagon, and Cook will see that you get some warm food and tea in you.”

The sturdy man broke into a grin, saying, “That sounds like just the thing, that does.”

The other man smiled uncertainly, straightened the lapels of his coat again and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Yes, miss, sir. Thank you very much.”

“That’s settled then. Baxter, I will inform Miss Brown of what’s afoot.”

“Thank you, miss.”

Baxter led the two men back through the hall to the kitchen, and Jessica followed, then veering off from them and heading for the housekeeper’s room. She heard Miss Brown’s voice before she got to her sitting room and followed it down the hall to the large linen closet, where Miss Brown was handing out bed linens and instructions to two maids.

As soon as she sent the maids on their way, she turned to Jessica, who smiled apologetically and said, “I am afraid that we may have more visitors on our hands, Miss Brown.”

She explained what had happened and the probability that, with the roads impassable, they would wind up having to house the victims of the accident. Miss Brown was at first surprised, then worried about the staff’s ability to prepare for such a large group, but by the time she finished mulling it over, Jessica could see from the grim determination on her face that she had accepted the onslaught of visitors as a personal challenge.

Jessica and Gabriela pitched in to help, opening up several of the bedrooms and dusting, even once or twice finishing up the beds by arranging the coverlets on top. But neither of them could put on the linens in as smooth a fashion as Miss Brown’s exacting standards required.

* * *

While his household buzzed with activity, the duke was cutting across his fields, taking a shortcut to the road north. It would pare a good fifteen minutes off his time, even though he had to dismount and go through a gate instead of taking the fence because of the difficulty of riding through snow. And he didn’t worry about not searching that stretch of road, because he felt certain that had they gotten stuck so close to the castle, Rachel’s coachman would have waded through the snow to get them by now.

It was slow going, and Richard was driven by fear. Why had he let Rachel leave this morning? He should have realized that it was far too dangerous. He had been distracted by what had happened the night before. Instead of thinking about the danger, he had been thinking about how he would explain to Miss Maitland that he had not bedded—or even wanted to bed—Leona, despite the incriminating circumstances in which Jessica had found them.

It would be his fault if something happened to Rachel. Once again it would be his fault.

He could not keep from remembering the night almost four years ago and the sickening sight of the carriage taking the corner too fast, rocking onto its right two wheels and then crashing over, rolling in a seemingly endless descent to the iced-over pond. He had lived years in that moment, watching his life tumble to an end.

Desperately, he pushed the memories away and continued at the fastest pace his horse could keep up along the road. A racking hour passed without any sign of Rachel’s carriage—or, indeed, any sign that a vehicle had even passed this way. The snow was clean and fresh, any ruts that might have been there earlier already filled in.

Then, as he rode over the crest of a small hill, he saw in the distance a black form. He stiffened, leaning forward and squinting through the still-falling snow to see what it was. It was moving, he thought, gradually becoming larger, and soon it resolved itself into several distinct blobs of movement. Finally he could make out that there were four horses plodding toward him, three of them ridden and the fourth carrying an inert bundle. Carriage horses, he saw with a smile, without bridles or saddles. Rachel’s rather portly coachman rode one, while Rachel sat ladylike in a sidesaddle position on another, and her poor maid bounced along on the third, clinging wildly to the horse’s mane or harness or neck, whatever presented itself. The fourth horse of the team had some of their bags strapped on its back.

Gleefully Richard waved both arms at them and started forward.

* * *

Jessica watched in some dismay as the duke’s carriage pulled into the yard, followed by the wagon, and a group of people emerged from the two vehicles and tromped into the house. Cleybourne had not yet returned, and she was growing more worried by the moment. Now it occurred to her that she probably needed to worry about what the duke would say when he did return and saw that she had invited a number of complete strangers into his home.

The wagon carried the luggage from the coach, as well as the servants who had gone to help the passengers. The two men who had come to the house to report the accident had ridden in the wagon with them.

Three more people climbed down from the carriage. The first one out was a slender man dressed in the simple black suit and white collar of an Anglican priest. He turned to help down the two women who were inside. The group hurried inside, the minister solicitously helping the elder of the two women up the steps.

“Thank you, madam,” the minister said when they were all inside and the door closed against the cold. He gave Jessica a small bow. “It is most kind of you to let us take refuge in your house. I fear the elements did not favor traveling today.”

“No, I think not,” Jessica agreed. “Welcome to Castle Cleybourne. I am afraid that the Duke of Cleybourne is not here at the moment, but I expect him shortly.”

“Oh, dear,” the priest said softly. “Out in this weather? It is most inclement.”

“Yes. It was an emergency.” Jessica introduced herself, then Gabriela, who was standing beside her, watching all their new guests with interest, and Miss Brown.

The minister responded by saying, “Pray allow me to introduce myself, Miss Maitland. Miss Carstairs. I am the Reverend Borden Radfield. I am on my way back to my parish.”

He was a nice-looking man, Jessica thought, rather young and handsome for a priest. Since he appeared to also be single, Jessica suspected that the young women of his church probably chased him assiduously.

He then went on to introduce the other passengers. The thin, rather twitchy man was a Mr. Goodrich, the other man who had come to the house to seek help was the coachman. The older woman was Miss Pargety. She was small, with a pinched-looking face and a thin, slightly hooked nose that gave her, Jessica thought, the look of a bird. A crow, Jessica decided, given the unrelieved black of her coat, hat and gloves. Her graying hair was done up in tight corkscrew curls that fell on either side of her face, a rather too girlish style for a woman her age. Whenever she talked, the curls jiggled and bounced.

“I don’t know what we are going to do,” Miss Pargety said querulously, looking at Jessica as if she were responsible for inconveniencing her. “I am traveling to my sister’s for Christmas. I really must get there.”