Snowy Night With a Stranger Read online

  As the richest heiress in north England, Ellie was the most eligible female on the marriage mart—and the least desired.

  How naive she’d been before her coming-out, dreaming of marrying a wildly poetic fellow like Lord Byron—but without his vexing character flaws. Instead, there’d been a steady parade of men who not only lacked poetry in their souls, but possessed the one flaw she couldn’t abide—greed. They eyed her as if she were a cow brought to market. They made her feel like a cow, too.

  She’d had enough. Once at home with Papa, playing his hostess, she meant to stay there. Forever. Her aunt and her cousins would be returning to London alone.

  “You’re too young for Ellie,” Percy told his younger brother with an air of superiority. “Ellie could marry me, except that I don’t mean to marry. Charlie and I mean to be soldiers, and she would just get in the way.”

  Aunt Alys would never let him go off to war. Despite her sweet temper and her young age of thirty-two, their mother had a spine of steel, and her children were her life. So was Ellie, as the beloved daughter of Aunt Alys’s only sister. It had been Aunt Alys who’d urged Papa to enroll Ellie in Mrs. Harris’s school after Mama died, Aunt Alys who’d sponsored Ellie during her coming-out. She was sure Ellie would find the perfect husband in time. She wouldn’t approve of Ellie’s plan to give up on marriage.

  But Ellie had been preparing for that. She’d been practicing with Lucy, learning to speak her mind and stick to her resolve. She’d never had trouble being firm with the children—she just had to learn to do it with…much bigger children.

  The thought of children made her sigh. That was a disadvantage to her plan—she’d never have a darling Meg or a clever Percy of her own.

  She clutched Meg close. Never mind that. She had her cousins and, eventually, their children. Better that than being locked in matrimony to a man who took a mistress because his wife’s only attraction was her money.

  “Have you looked outside, Ellie?” Percy was watching out the window, deep concern on his plump face. “It’s sleeting.”

  “What?” She pulled aside the curtain nearest her, dismayed to find the trees dripping with icicles. They had no hope of reaching Sheffield by nightfall now.

  She heard Papa’s coachman, Jarvis, shout something to the postboy driving the hired post chaise ahead of them. She strained to see what was going on, but they were rounding a curve near some woods, and she wasn’t at the right angle.

  Suddenly a scream sounded from somewhere on the road ahead, and their own carriage skidded. Meg was thrown from Ellie’s lap, and the boys were tossed about like matchsticks.

  “Damnation!” Jarvis brought the coach to a shuddering halt, then jumped down. After securing the horses, he trudged off across the ice-scarred grass, using his cane for balance.

  “Stay here,” Ellie ordered the children, then left the carriage to follow him.

  Outside, she spotted the bridge where he was headed. The sleet swiftly coated her spectacles, forcing her to tuck them into her redingote pocket. Now she could barely see, although Jarvis seemed to have disappeared over the embankment beside the bridge.

  A sudden foreboding seized her as she hurried after him to peer over. Jarvis picked his way down the slope, and very near the river’s rushing waters lay the post chaise, crammed up against a thick oak.

  “Aunt Alys!” Ellie cried.

  “Stay back, miss,” Jarvis ordered. “I can’t be having you land in the river.”

  What about Jarvis? His bad leg would make it difficult for him to manage, especially now that snow mingled with the ice to form a treacherous crust over the ground. The postboy had his hands full with the struggling horses.

  Jarvis hailed her aunt, but there was no answer, and panic swept Ellie.

  “What’s going on?” Percy called out behind her.

  She turned to find the three boys climbing from the carriage as Meg peeped out the window. “Stay right there, boys.”

  “Where’s Mama?” Tim asked plaintively.

  Her heart twisted to see them ranged there, all blue-eyed and blond except for the darker Charlie Dickens. They looked so small and helpless—the slender Tim pulling at his wrinkled breeches, the heavier Percy shoving his curls back with impatience, and their sickly friend Charlie, blinking at the sleet.

  Should she tell them the truth? No—they mustn’t go near the river, and they surely would if they guessed that their mother was in trouble.

  She marched to meet them, pasting a reassuring smile on her face. “Jarvis is relieving himself, that’s all. Get back in the carriage.”

  “I’m tired of the carriage,” Percy whined. “I want to go with Jarvis.”

  “You can’t!”

  He eyed her suspiciously.

  Desperate to distract him and the others, she said, “Weren’t we going to sing carols? Come on, let’s do ‘The Holly and the Ivy’ and ‘The Jolly Wassail Bowl.’ Meg would like that.” Trying to shoo them toward the carriage, she began to sing, “‘The holly and the ivy/When they are both full grown…’” until the others joined in.

  Within moments the children entered into the spirit of things, but she kept glancing back, wondering if Jarvis was all right, or if she should slip away to help.

  Then a voice boomed out from the road. “For God’s sake, what’s all the caterwauling about?”

  Their singing died in their throats. Relieved that help had arrived, Ellie whirled around, ready to commission their rescuer’s aid.

  The murky image before her struck her dumb with fear. A creature over six feet tall sat atop a massive horse, only the red of his eyes breaking the unrelieved black of his lean figure. For a second, she was reminded of Papa’s tales about strange beasts roaming the forests near Sheffield.

  Then she squinted and realized that the creature was a man. An inky greatcoat enveloped him, and his ice-encased beaver hat sat perched atop incongruous raven curls. His face was black, except for where the sleet had created smears in what looked like soot. And he smelled of cinders.

  A miner? It had to be. Who else would travel the roads looking like that?

  She stepped forward to speak to him, but Percy grabbed her arm. “Careful, Ellie. Any chap who doesn’t like Christmas carols is bound to be a scoundrel.”

  The man trotted his horse closer. “Any chap who inflicts them on passing strangers is clearly a royal pain in the a—”

  “Sir!” she cried, covering her cousin’s ears against whatever profanities the man might spew in his Yorkshire accent. “There are children here!”

  “Aye, and a worse place to let them run I never saw. Best be on your way, madam, before the ice makes travel impossible.” With a click of his tongue, he prodded his horse on.

  “Wait, sir, please!” she cried.

  When he drew up with a foul oath, she briefly considered the wisdom of involving this ill-mannered fellow, who might be a thief or worse. But Jarvis would never get Aunt Alys free without help, and the miner seemed to have brawn enough to manage that. She dared not look a gift rescuer in the mouth.

  “There’s been an accident,” she said in a rush. “My aunt’s carriage went off the road—”

  “Where?” he barked before she could finish getting the words out.

  She pointed at the embankment, struck silent by his surly manner. He dismounted and hurried for the river. “Just keep those brats out of my way.”

  Though the harsh words took her aback, she sprang into action. “Come, children,” she said, ushering them toward the coach.

  But Percy blocked her path, his face pale. “Mama is hurt?”

  “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “Jarvis is still trying to reach the carriage.”

  “Then I have to go help!” Percy exclaimed, starting past her.

  She grabbed his arm. “Let Jarvis and the stranger handle it.”

  “But we don’t even know if we can trust that fellow!”

  “It’ll be fine, don’t worry.” If he’d meant them harm, surely he
would have already tried to take advantage of them. His gruffness perversely reassured her, especially after months in society, where the men she could least trust were always the most charming.

  When Percy still hesitated, she added, “We have to prepare a place for your mother in the coach. She’ll need blankets and cushions, in case she is hurt.”

  That sent the boys scurrying to arrange a comfy bed on one of the seats, while Meg shrank into a corner, sucking her thumb and crying softly.

  “It’s all right, Meg,” Percy told her as he plumped up a cushion. “As soon as Mama is here, we’ll go to an inn and get chocolate, won’t we, Ellie?”

  “Certainly.” Giving the boys something to do had been the right approach.

  “That man called us brats,” Tim complained as he spread a blanket. “He doesn’t even know us!”

  “I’m sure if he did, he wouldn’t call you that,” Ellie said soothingly as she climbed out to hunt for Jarvis’s flask of whisky. Aunt Alys might need it.

  Hearing a noise, she squinted at the embankment and spotted the stranger headed toward her, carrying Aunt Alys. The postboy and Jarvis were at his heels, leading the horses from the post chaise.

  “Is my aunt all right?” Ellie asked, her heart in her throat.

  “She’s alive,” the man responded, “but unconscious. I think her leg is broken, and she’s taken quite a knock to the head. She needs a doctor right away.”

  Ellie hurried to open the carriage door. “Is there one in the next town?”

  The man leaned inside to set Aunt Alys upon the seat with an odd gentleness for a man so gruff. Then he faced her with a scowl. “As I told your coachman, you won’t make it to Hensley. It’s eight miles off, even if you could maneuver up that icy hill beyond the bridge. My house is nearby—you can sit out the weather there. I’ll send someone to fetch a doctor.”

  “Goodness gracious, I don’t know,” Ellie murmured. How could this fellow fit seven extra people into his cottage, much less provide food and bedding for the children? They might be trapped for days. “Perhaps you should consult your wife first.”

  “I’ve got no wife. And you’ve got little choice.”

  If they went on to the next town they could buy what they needed, but he seemed certain of the impossibility of that.

  “He’s right, miss,” Jarvis said. “What lies beyond that bridge ain’t navigable at present. And the road back to the last town is sure to be as bad.”

  They looked to her for a decision. It felt strange to be in charge—usually Aunt Alys arranged everything. But Ellie trusted Jarvis, even if she didn’t entirely trust the sooty stranger. “I suppose we have no choice.”

  As the men discussed how best to turn the coach around, she realized that she and the children needed items from the abandoned post chaise. She would just run back to the river for some clothes and other items. She might even drag a—

  “Where the devil are you going?” the stranger called as she headed off.

  “To fetch some necessities from our trunks.”

  “Leave them be.” He came after her. “We have no time for such nonsense.”

  “But there are things we need,” she protested.

  Grabbing her by the arm, he began tugging her back to the carriage. “Nothing worth the risk of drowning in the river, Miss Bancroft.”

  “Don’t be silly.” Futilely she struggled against his iron hold. “I’m not about to—Wait, how did you know my name?”

  “Your coachman told me you’re Joseph Bancroft’s daughter.” Without ceremony, he threw open the carriage door and hoisted her inside. “Now stay put, blast you. I’ve got enough to worry about without risking the wrath of your rich father after you break your damned-fool neck rescuing your fancy gowns.”

  “But that is not what I wished to—”

  He slammed the door and walked off.

  Taken entirely aback, she sat blinking where he’d dumped her on the coach floor. Well! Wasn’t he a churlish lout? If he hadn’t rescued Aunt Alys, she would give him a piece of her mind!

  And how was it that even strangers knew she had money?

  With an apologetic smile, Jarvis came up to say through the window, “I’m sure his lordship will be glad to send someone for the trunks later, miss.”

  “His lordship?” Could that dirty, ill-bred fellow possibly be a gentleman?

  Jarvis bent nearer the glass. “The Baron Thorncliff, miss. But don’t you worry none about the Black Baron—that nonsense folks say about ‘im is just talk.”

  The Black Baron? Ah, because of his peculiar habit of walking around caked in soot. She shuddered to think what his house might look like. And she was vastly curious to know what people were saying about him.

  Before she could ask, Jarvis hastened off and Aunt Alys moaned, shifting Ellie’s attention to her. Ellie checked her pulse. It seemed strong, and she was breathing steadily.

  “Ellie?” her aunt whispered.

  Relief flooded her. “Yes, I’m right here.”

  Aunt Alys tried to sit up, then sank back with a groan. “My…head hurts.”

  “I know, Aunt.” She stroked her aunt’s light brown hair back from her pale forehead. “You’ve been in an accident.”

  Aunt Alys’s blue eyes shot open, though they looked unfocused. “The children—”

  “They’re here and unharmed. We’re taking you to a doctor.” She didn’t want to tax her aunt too sorely with explanations just now. “You should rest.”

  With a nod, her aunt closed her eyes.

  “Is Mama going to be all right?” Meg asked from her perch on Percy’s lap.

  “Certainly,” Ellie said with as much conviction as she could muster.

  Wishing she could do more, Ellie settled her aunt more comfortably on the seat, careful not to jar her broken leg where it lay on the cushion that Lord Thorncliff had used to prop it up. After tucking the blanket around her, Ellie didn’t know what else to do except pray that Lord Thorncliff really could fetch a doctor to his home quickly. And that they could trust him.

  While Jarvis and their rescuer struggled to turn the coach, she fished out her spectacles so she could peer at him out the window. The stranger’s mount did appear to be rather fine, and he did carry himself with a semblance of breeding. If not for his sooty exterior, she might believe he was a lord.

  A teacher had once told them that men were either beasts, gentlemen, or beasts masquerading as gentlemen. Might there be a fourth category—gentlemen masquerading as beasts? After all, Lord Thorncliff had rescued them, albeit grudgingly. Surely that meant he was a gentleman somewhere deep inside.

  Very deep inside, judging from his surly temper. Still, perhaps he behaved like that because people around him put up with it, too cowed to do otherwise.

  Well, she couldn’t help that her family had inconvenienced him, but neither could she let him keep ordering them about without paying any mind to her opinions. She had to think of the children and Aunt Alys. Someone had to stand up to him, and that someone would have to be her.

  She just had to keep calm, and make it clear he couldn’t keep bullying her. And pray that Shakespeare was right about there being “no beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.” Because if there was no true gentleman lurking inside that rough exterior, they might be headed for trouble.

  Chapter Two

  Dear Cousin,

  I don’t mind being alone. Our caretaker lives in a cottage on the grounds, and my neighbor is nearby. When the girls are away, he calls on me to make sure I am well. So you need not fret for my safety.

  Your friend and relation,

  Charlotte

  Martin Thorncliff grumbled to himself as he hunched his shoulders against the snow. Leaving Bancroft’s coachman to keep up as best as he could, Martin let his horse pick its own way to Thorncliff Hall. He was already having a bad day. The new fuses he’d invented had burned too quickly when he’d tested them at the coal mine. Then, on his way home, the sleet had begun. Now this.
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  December was difficult enough for him without intruders fetching up near his land. Rich intruders. With children singing Christmas carols, of all the infernal things.

  What had Joseph Bancroft been thinking, to let his family travel so scantily protected? The man owned Yorkshire Silver, the largest silver mining company in England. He ought to have more sense than to rely on an aging coachman and some useless postboy. If those women and children had belonged to Martin, he would have protected them better.

  A snort escaped him. Right. The way he’d protected Rupert. After what had happened to his older brother, no female with sense would put herself permanently under the protection of the dangerous “Black Baron.”

  The nasty nickname society had for him made him wince. He didn’t need a wife anyway, mucking with his experiments and giving him one more person’s safety to worry about. Though occasionally, he did wish…

  Ridiculous. His life was as good as he deserved. It was his brother who’d been the jovial lord of the manor, who’d conversed equally well with tenant and duke, who’d run the estate with efficiency while attracting every pretty girl this side of London.

  Martin could only blow things up.

  And now he had guests, God help him. Thorncliff Hall was no place for a wounded woman and her caroling litter of cubs. Terror seized him at the thought of those boys exploring the old stone barn in back where he did his experiments.

  At least he wouldn’t have to worry about their cousin doing so. It wasn’t the sort of place to entice a fashionably dressed heiress. Everything about her screamed “spoiled rich lass,” from her expensive kid boots and matching gloves to the way she looked right through him. Then there was her impractical gown, though it did display her lush figure better than a wool cloak would have done. Probably why she wore it—young ladies like that craved attention. They were raised to enjoy it from early on.