by Fran Baker
“They be rope aplenty on the wharf.”
“But it be froze to the planks.”
Grumbling to himself, the innkeeper fished under the bar, pulled out an iron rod and a heavy knife and pitched them at his colleague, who had the foresight to jump out of the way and allow the tools to land on the floor.
The three men who’d locked up Jonathan gathered up the gear and departed.
The innkeeper threw a lumpy arm around Lovey’s shoulders and let out a hearty roar. “Drink up, me lads! A toast to the earl o’ Vaile!”
While they were all occupied, Sophie dashed back into the room, put on her mittens, grabbed her reticule and blew out the candle. Closing the door behind her, she stepped out onto the landing and looked furtively around. The landing opened onto a short corridor that ran back toward the rear of the building and disappeared into gloom. Without hesitation she scampered along this corridor on her toes. At the rear of the inn she discovered that another staircase—this one narrow and winding—descended to the lower regions of the building. A strong odor of simmering onions and beef rose up the shaft.
Taking the steps carefully, she descended to a narrow hallway below. A short way to one side a door opened into the kitchen—she could hear a clatter of pots and pans. On the other side, a door was wedged slightly ajar, beyond which the howling wind was driving chunks of snow into the hallway and mounding them into a low pile against the base of one wall.
Sophie dashed to the door, forced it open a crack more, and slipped through, allowing the wind to push it back into place. A brutal blast of cold swept over her, pressing her against the outside of the building. She had to struggle for breath before she could move again. Then she began to pick her way around the side of the structure, pressing a hand against the rime-encrusted wall to keep from being toppled into the icy snow.
The temperature had plummeted since she had entered the inn. It was now so cold that she wondered if she were not doomed to freeze, whatever she did. But she remembered that Jonathan would certainly die if she did not make an effort to save him. She pushed herself on until she had rounded the corner and come into the lee of the building. There she was able to move more easily, and she quickly arrived at a low, grimy window with a large, gaping hole in one side of the frame where the wood had rotted away.
Hoping and praying that this was the window to the closet, she set her reticule on a frozen pile of snow so as to free up her hands, caught hold of the rotted frame and pulled. To her surprise the entire window gave way, breaking apart down the center strip, with three of the panes coming out. She tossed the debris aside onto the snow, then took hold of the remaining glass pane, which was protruding from one side. This pane came away easily, too. Tossing it down with the others, she rose up on tiptoe leaned in through the opening.
The closet was not deep. She found Jonathan crumpled in a heap on the floor below. She saw that his hands were still not tied, but he was frighteningly still.
“Jonathan!” she hissed. “You must wake up, Jonathan!”
He did not move. Frantically she turned and looked around her. Most of the snow had frozen solid, and there was no water or anything she could douse over his face. Then she noticed a place near the end of the building where the wind was whipping around a corner, bringing flurries of soft snow and dropping them in a pile where they rapidly froze. She scurried along the slippery surface and scooped up a handful. She teetered back to the window, then leaned inside and dumped it onto Jonathan’s face.
He shuddered, but did not rouse. She repeated the exercise. This time, when she threw it onto his face, he struggled up to a sitting position.
“My God!” he muttered, cradling his head between both his gloved hands.
“Jonathan!” she hissed. “Look up here. It’s Sophie!”
“I’ve broken my head,” he groaned without raising it.
“Please, Jonathan,” she insisted. “You must climb out of there. They’re going to kill you.”
“Good,” he said. “I’d be happy to die.”
“No,” she scolded. “You must climb out at once! Albert is going to have you killed for a price. Then he’s going to force me to marry him, and I’m going to kill myself.”
He finally looked up. “Run away, Sophie,” he whispered. “You can escape if you try.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head firmly. “If you’ll climb out and come with me, I’ll make every effort. But if you stay here and let them kill you, I’ll die also.”
He struggled to his feet and leaned against the wall. His face and shoulders were above the sill. But instead of trying to climb out, he closed his eyes.
“I’m sick,” he moaned as the cold shot icicles of pain through his head. “Run away.”
“Not unless you come with me.”
He stood for a moment, his chest rising and falling in great heaving rails. “Where is Albert?”
Jonathan looked at Sophie in amazement when she told him what she’d done to Albert. Finally he put his hands on the sill and with a heave raised himself above the opening. There he balanced for a moment and then pitched forward onto his stomach. By wriggling and rolling, he managed to push himself out onto the snow.
“Come quickly,” she urged, catching hold of his hand and pulling.
For a moment he resisted, sitting where he was on the ice. Then he rose to his feet and, leaning rather heavily on her right shoulder, allowed himself to be led away. She plunged rapidly into the storm with no idea of where she was going. All she wanted to do was get away.
The wind blew the snow thickly around them.
“It’s so dark,” she mourned. “Nicky and Fairmont have most certainly taken the others home.”
“I should think so,” he said. “I sent them on and stayed back to look for you.”
“But how did you know where to look?”
“I ran into Agnes’s daughter near the river and she offered to lead me to you.”
“For a sum, of course,” Sophie said wryly.
“Of course.” Jonathan staggered then and almost took them both down. “Can you find a place for me to sit a moment? The whole world is spinning crazily around me.”
“It’s spinning around me, too,” she told him. “It’s the blizzard that produces this effect. Come along, we must put more distance between us and the inn. Then we’ll find someone to take us home.”
But there were no carriages for hire in such weather, so they floundered onward, groping their way through the gloom, passing the opening to an alley and then tottering down a narrow street.
“How does your head feel?” she asked him when they trudged past a row of dark, forbidding buildings.
“Better,” he said, straightening and putting his fingers gingerly to his temple. “I think the cold has driven the dizziness away.”
Now that Jonathan wasn’t leaning on her anymore, Sophie and he moved a little faster.
“If we can find the river and cross to the other side, we’ll follow the thoroughfare back to the Frost Fair,” she told him.
“But first, we must find some shelter,” he said. “In this cold, we’ll freeze before we know what’s happening to us.”
They peered through the murk, but saw nothing even remotely resembling the frozen river. It dawned on them at the same time that they were well and truly lost. Still, they plodded on until, finally, Jonathan stopped and turned his head from side to side, sniffing the air.
“There’s a stable nearby,” he said.
“Are you sure?” Sophie asked through lips that barely moved.
“Positive.” He took her arm and steered her down an alley leading toward the origin of the stable smell. “They probably keep draft horses there to pull carts full of merchandise down to the river barges.”
The snow in this alley was deeper and softer and no longer slippery. They made their way without much difficulty to a pair of tall wooden doors. Jonathan lifted the latch and Sophie could smell the horses the instant they stepped inside.
The stable offered them blessed shelter from the storm. They could hear several horses whickering in the darkness and swishing their tails. Above them they could smell a fragrant hay-filled loft.
“We’d better hide up there in case Albert is found and sends his minions after us,” Jonathan said.
After groping in the darkness for several minutes, he found the ladder and they made their way up, rung by careful rung. Soon they were crawling happily into the straw.
“I can’t believe how warm it is in here!” Sophie exclaimed.
“It’ll be warmer yet when I’m done,” he promised her.
He began to push the straw aside and rearrange it to form a snug bed. Before he had finished, their temperatures rose enough that they were able to remove their coats and boots. After he arranged their discarded outerwear to form a sort of blanket, he pulled straw over the top. Lying down then, he slid his arms around her and drew her tightly against him.
Before Sophie realized what Jonathan was doing, he was kissing her. For a moment the rest of the world swirled and disappeared and the only thing that existed was the feel of his lips on hers. She should have pushed him away. But the shock of his kiss, the wonderful, bedazzling shock of it, left her breathless. She felt her head buzz and her toes curl, and everything in between quiver with delight.
Then she realized what she was doing, and with whom she was doing it.
“No, stop,” she mumbled as she turned her head away.
“You’re so very beautiful, Sophie,” he murmured in her ear.
She sniffled. “I’ll never love anyone but you, Jonathan.”
“Don’t cry, my darling,” he said softly.
But she couldn’t help herself. “Even before I realized that you were Vaile . . . even then I’d gladly have shared a life of poverty with you,” she sobbed. “If only you were not my brother.”
“What!” he cried, bounding to his feet and scattering clothing and hay in every direction. “What’s that you say?”
She wiped her eyes on her sleeve, raised herself on an elbow and repeated her statement. “If only you were not my brother.”
“Where in God’s name did you get such a cork brained notion?”
“From Aunt Ruth.”
He jammed his fists on his hips. “How could I possibly be your brother?”
“Aunt Ruth thinks you may be one of Lord Reginald’s . . .” She frowned. “What did she call it? Blow-by? That’s what her messenger is investigating. I believe she’s hoping to prove herself wrong.”
Jonathan sat down beside her. “Is that what all this nonsense has been about?
Why didn’t she confide in me? Or just ask me? I could have told her—”
Sophie’s gasp cut him off. Everything came together in her mind—all the secrecy and the evasions and the silly name games. She strained to hear as erratic childhood memories of whispered conversations that had ceased when she entered the room came back to her, and she suddenly understood the mystery that surrounded her birth.
“Lord Reginald is my father!” she cried.
A deep voice from the other side of the loft demanded, “Can’t a man get a decent night’s sleep around ’ere?”
Chapter 15
“Who are you?” Jonathan growled.
Rustling ensued as a dim form rose out of the hay and came toward them. “I be th’ stable ’and, Daniel Griffin. Who be you?”
“My name is Jonathan Gray, and this is my cousin, Sophie.” He stood to meet the man halfway. “I wonder if you could possibly help us. We’re stranded on this side of the river and need to find a way back to Berkeley Square.”
To his credit, the stable hand didn’t ask how they’d come to be stranded. He simply stuffed hands in the pockets of his woolen trousers and said, “Berkeley Square be a fur piece in this snow.”
“I’ll give you ten pounds if you can provide a cart and drive us there,” Jonathan told him.
“Ten pounds!” Daniel whistled. “Why, that be a small fortune.”
“I’ll give you five pounds now as down payment.” Jonathan fished in his pocket. After a moment he began to fumble with his belt. “Those damned villains!” he spat. “They’ve stolen my purse and my watch and my seals.”
He turned to Sophie. “I hope you have some money left in your reticule.”
She put a hand to her mouth. “I have no reticule. I left it in the snow back at the inn. What shall we do?”
Daniel waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t worry, sir, I trust ye. Now, c’mon along,” he urged as he pulled on a heavy sweater over his shirt. “There’s a cart in the stable we can use. We should be outta ’ere afore the mornin’ light.”
In no time, Jonathan and Sophie were back in their warm outerwear. Daniel led them down the ladder and told Sophie to take a seat on a bale of hay while Jonathan loaded the cart with loose hay and he harnessed a sturdy brown workhorse to pull it. At one point he opened the stable door a little and looked out into the night. The sky to the east had lightened, but the snow was still falling steadily.
“It’s good,” he said, closing the door. “No one be up yet and th’ snow’ll cover our tracks.”
Daniel excused himself and disappeared into the back of the stable. When he came out a few minutes later he was wearing a knitted cap and gloves. In each of his hands he carried a chunk of bread with slices of beef sandwiched in the center.
“It’s what’s left of th’ supper me missus sent with me,” he told them. “I thought ye’d be ’ungry and divvied it atween ye.”
“Thank you, sir,” Sophie said.
Jonathan nodded. “Indeed.”
Daniel pointed to a bucket standing off to the side. “There be clean water and a dipper in there.”
Sophie and Jonathan each took a drink.
“Now, come along,” Daniel said. “Ye can eat in th’ cart. We’ve a ways to go afore Berkeley Square.”
Jonathan and Sophie climbed into the cart while Daniel opened the stable door. After digging out a place for Sophie in the loose hay, Jonathan burrowed in beside her. Daniel pulled the reins in through a slit in the wagon frame and clucked to his horse, who leaned into the traces and began to move the conveyance forward. Once they were outside, Daniel clambered out and shut the doors. Finally, they were off.
After Sophie finished her sandwich, she began to feel drowsy. She leaned against Jonathan and drifted off to sleep. She woke for a minute when they were crossing the river. Hearing the two men talking softly together, she fell back asleep. She roused as they started along the thoroughfare and was surprised to see that the sky was fully light.
“Stay down,” Jonathan said when she struggled to sit up. “And keep your bonnet pulled down as far as possible and your coat collar up around your chin. It’s imperative that no one recognizes you, or your good name will be utterly ruined.”
She did as he bade, tugging one down and the other up. While she had been asleep, a thick coating of snow had covered them. She began to lift the hay in quick, jerking motions, flipping the snow onto the ground. Before she lay back down, she turned around briefly to look at the horse and saw that steam was rising steadily from its back.
Other wagons were making their way along the street. A lofty pile of timbers was moving ahead of them, swaying precariously from side to side. Crates of clucking chickens and quacking ducks on their way to market rode behind them.
“Do you think Albert is looking for us?” Sophie asked.
Jonathan shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’ll be looking for him shortly.”
“Do you intend to capture him and bring him to justice?”
“Certainly. He needs to be locked away where he can’t pay to have someone harmed or try to force his will on others.”
She thought a minute. “What about the innkeeper?”
“Him, too,” he said in no uncertain terms.
“And Miss Baxter?”
“I believe her current circumstances are punishment enough.”
It
wasn’t too much longer before they had passed through the humbler sections of the city and found themselves entering Berkeley Square.
“Fortunately we’re arriving unobserved,” Jonathan said as they drew into the courtyard of Vaile House. “This wretched weather has kept everyone close to his fireside.”
“Coo!” Daniel breathed as he stopped the cart at the foot of the front steps. “Do this be yer ’ouse, m’lord? Ye mus’ be a duke.”
“No,” Jonathan said, smiling. “Now I want you to take your horse around to the mews and then come inside so that we can arrange some things for you. Ask for Edmund McCoy.”
He scrambled out and, shaking the hay from his clothes, turned to help Sophie to the ground. Her legs ached from her long, arduous walk in the snow, and the next thing she knew, she pitched forward into the courtyard and her bonnet fell back, letting her hair cascade to her shoulders. Fortunately, Jonathan caught her in his arms and scooped her up.
The front door opened. Lady Biskup stood on the top step, weeping with relief as they came up the stairs. Jonathan set Sophie on the ground and they all rushed together, throwing their arms around each other, hugging and professing their love.
Suddenly Lady Biskup shivered. “Come inside and tell me everything that’s happened.”
They mounted the stairs and hurried into the vestibule, where Tom assisted his master and a weeping Anna helped her mistress out of her coat and boots.
“We was sure you was dead, Miss Sophie,” she sniffled. “Johnnie Aysgarth and me was heartbroke.”
“Yes,” Lady Biskup agreed. “Where on earth have you been? Nicky and Fairmont took a veritable army of men down to the river last night. They were rummaging about until dawn, trying to find you, with no success.”
“It’s a long story,” Jonathan told her. “And if Leeds will provide us with some nice hot tea, we’ll retire to the yellow salon where we can sit down and talk a bit.”
He ushered Lady Biskup and Sophie into the salon and closed the door. “Now you must tell me everything, Aunt. What is this nonsense about Sophie and me being brother and sister? It’s impossible, you know.”
