Snowed in for Christmas

by Isabella Hargreaves

  Snowed in for Christmas

  Isabella Hargreaves

  Copyright © Isabella Hargreaves 2016

  ISBN 978- 0 -9943671-8-1

  Except for use in any review, no part of this book may be used,

  reproduced, or transmitted in whole or in part, in any form, or by any

  means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise)

  without the prior written permission of the author.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade

  or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the

  author’s prior consent. If you would like to share this book with another person,

  please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the

  hard work of this author.

  This novella is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are

  either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Find out more about Isabella Hargreaves and her books at

  www.isabellahargreaves.com

  Foreword

  With thanks to: Brian Sinclair, Anthea Jones, Claire Austen and Olivia and Becky at Hot Tree Editing for their invaluable comments on the story.

  Table of Contents

  Foreword

  Table of Contents

  Christmas Eve, 1813

  Christmas Day

  Boxing Day

  Historical Note

  Other Publicat i ons

  About the Author

  http://www.instafreebie.com/free/LZUvF

  Christmas Eve, 1813

  A flurry of snow whipped across Robert, Viscount Landers’s face. “Tidings of comfort and joy,” he muttered.

  The heir to the Marquess of Linville looked up at the looming gray sky and tried to reassure himself that they would reach his family’s country estate before the threatening storm added more snow to that already carpeting the ground.

  The heavily laden traveling coach he was shadowing lumbered through the stark white landscape. The coachman plied his long whip above the straining horses in to keep them moving on the slippery road.

  Inside the coach were Robert’s fiancée, the Honorable Augusta Crawshaw, and her companion and cousin, Miss Eleanor Carlisle. He hoped that they, wrapped in furs with hot bricks at their feet, were still warm.

  This was Augusta’s first visit to his family estate, and his elderly father eagerly awaited their arrival, anxious to meet his future daughter-in-law. The succession plagued him day and night, he had confessed in his last letter to Robert, so this forthcoming marriage was a godsend.

  Another wind-driven pelting of snow signaled the start of the storm.

  Their journey had been delayed this morning by Augusta’s reluctant start to the day, accompanied by more than one change of outfit. The servants had already been sent ahead with most of the luggage when she’d insisted on one more, so Miss Carlisle had acted as Augusta’s lady’s maid for her last-minute wardrobe change.

  Robert, with growing frustration, had watched Miss Carlisle hurry to and from Augusta’s room, unpacking and repacking to assuage his fiancée’s clothing demands.

  As a result, the coachman now urged his team along this narrow road, which was quickly disappearing under a shroud of snow.

  Over the next ten miles to the gates of the estate, the ground grew whiter.

  Finally, they entered the estate and followed the long road through woodlands down into the valley it traversed. If they could get to the other side before more snow fell, they would reach Linville House safely.

  Suddenly, the coach lurched at the rough edge of the road, then slid in slow motion sideways into a ditch, accompanied by ribald swearing from the driver and screeching from within.

  The harness traces snapped and the horses, neighing shrilly, plunged away from the skating carriage. It came to rest tilted and almost on its side in the ditch.

  Robert leaped from his horse, clambered aboard the listing coach, and opened the upper door.

  Warm bricks and blankets lay strewn about the interior. Petite Augusta sat tipped across the seat against the side of the carriage, her blonde hair in disarray and her dress bunched at her knees. “Save me, Robert!” Hysteria threaded her wispy voice. Her cousin Eleanor sat mutely on the battered door.

  Face cradled in her hands, Augusta began to scream.

  “Hush, my dear,” he said. “I’m here to help you.” The cacophony rebounded around the small space.

  “Augusta, you’re safe. Don’t fret,” Eleanor said. Augusta continued to scream. Eleanor stretched forward to hug her cousin. That did not quieten her. Augusta’s screeching became more hysterical. After a few moments of the banshee noise in her ear, Eleanor pulled away and lightly slapped her cousin’s face.

  Augusta blinked like a startled kitten and opened her Cupid’s bow mouth to suck in a deep, shuddering breath as though about to start her caterwauling again.

  “Do not scream again, Augusta. There’s nothing to be achieved by doing so.” Eleanor patted her cousin’s arm as she gave her firm command.

  Shocked, but grateful for this intervention, Robert offered his hand to Augusta. “Come, my dear, let me assist you out of there.”

  Instead of complying, she shrank away from him. “No! I can’t.”

  “I will help you climb out if you give me your hand. You can’t stay in here.” Please don’t be so foolish. Not again. “There is a danger that the vehicle will shift further into the ditch.”

  She looked around, eyes wide with fear. “Can’t I stay here?”

  He shook his head. “The snow will cover the carriage entirely by morning. Our only hope is to pull it out. And you can’t stay in here while we’re doing that.”

  He glanced toward the coachman, who was releasing the horses from their broken traces. Clearly it wouldn’t be possible to pull the coach out now. Robert repeated his request to Augusta, but she continued to ignore him. She was beautiful, but by god she could be childish.

  Eleanor threw him a sympathetic, I-know-what-you’re-going-through glance. “Come, Augusta, you must climb out. I will assist you from behind while his lordship raises you up from above.” She grasped her cousin’s hand, drawing her up.

  Once Augusta was standing, Robert reached down to take her small hand in his.

  “Put one foot on the seat, Augusta, and I will boost you,” Eleanor prompted.

  With much pushing and cajoling by her companion, Augusta exited through the open door to sit upon the side of the carriage.

  Robert jumped down onto the snowy road and stretched his arms upward to lift her off.

  Again she resisted.

  Eleanor, taller and stronger than her cousin, clambered out of the carriage alone, past her Augusta’s stiff form. “Come along, Augusta, put your legs over the edge of the vehicle and let his lordship help you down.”

  Instead, Augusta leaned away from Robert.

  “Watch me assist Miss Carlisle, Augusta.” He turned to offer Eleanor aid. She gripped his shoulders and slipped effortlessly into his arms.

  Her warm, lush curves under his hands brought a flush to his cheeks. Her body slid down his as he lowered her to the ground, sparking an immediate response in his groin. Spirals of her wayward copper hair caressed his chin. Her rosewater fragrance tantalized his nose.

  What the blazes?

  Why had he never noticed that Miss Eleanor Carlisle was a delicious handful?

  A deep red slashed her cheeks. She looked up at him with large, guileless eyes the color of violets. The world stood still as he gazed down at his fiancée’s poor relation. Ye Gods! Had he died and risen to
heaven?

  She was a stunner!

  He could drown in those eyes. Turner himself would give up landscape painting to immortalize them on canvas.

  “Robert! Are you going to keep me waiting here all afternoon?” Augusta’s imperious question cut into his thoughts. He drew a ragged breath and ordered his eyes to his fiancée.

  He dropped his arms from Miss Carlisle’s slim waist and stepped away from her. Within seconds he had lifted Augusta’s light, now compliant, body down onto the roadway.

  She looked around the white landscape. “What are we going to do now?” Her shoulders slumped. “We’re miles from anywhere, and it’s snowing heavily.”

  Just a few weeks ago he had thought her pout captivating. Today it irked him.

  The white-draped landscape blurred quickly as a steady sheet of snow fell from the oppressive sky.

  Robert strode to John Coachman. “Things look grim to me,” he said in a low pitch, not wanting to distress the ladies with his assessment.

  “That they do, m’lord. Two of the horses are lame, and the other two couldn’t pull the carriage alone.” The gray-haired coachman’s weathered face showed concern.

  In these conditions, it would be impossible. “You and your offsider ride the two sound horses and lead the others to Linville House for help. Have my father send a carriage back immediately.”

  He half turned from the man and pointed in the direction from which they had traveled. “If I remember correctly, there’s a clearing with a gamekeeper’s hut that is used from time to time. I’ll get the ladies there. It’s too far for them to be riding to Linville House this afternoon. I’ve no sidesaddle for either of them, and Miss Crawshaw is not a confident rider at the best of times.”

  The coachman acknowledged Robert’s order with a tug of his forelock. “Right you are, m’lord.”

  Robert strode back to the women.

  “What are we going to do?” Augusta wailed.

  “John Coachman and Jimmy will take the horses to Linville House and send a carriage to collect us from the gamekeeper’s hut, which is over there,” he answered, nodding toward the clearing in the wood. “Hopefully, they’ll return before dark, and we can be on our way.”

  Augusta gasped. “You mean I’ll have to stay in a wretched hovel until we can be rescued? What if they can’t reach us today? How will I sleep in such a place? It’s probably infested with rats.” She glared at him as though he should materialize a new coach and sweep her off to safety. “This isn’t right!”

  He swallowed his annoyance and spoke with a calmness he didn’t feel. “Dear Augusta. In the unfortunate event that a carriage can’t reach us today, there’s a bed in the hut, and you have Miss Carlisle to assist you, and me to protect you.” He turned back to the coachman and gave further emphatic instructions about the urgency of his mission.

  “I’ll go as fast as the horses can manage, m’lord, never you mind.” The coachman forewent his usual forelock tug and clambered onto the horse he held by its reins.

  Eleanor had collected two portmanteaux from the luggage attached to the rear of the carriage and stood beside her cousin on the snow-covered roadway. Her coppery hair and sage-green cloak shone brightly against the falling snow.

  Augusta sat on a large tree trunk clutching her fur-lined cloak around her. Her blonde hair and pale debutant clothes blended into the snowscape, blurring her outline.

  Robert retrieved his horse and led it to the women. “Now, Augusta, you may ride while Miss Carlisle and I walk.”

  Augusta shrank back. “But, I can’t!”

  Miss Carlisle’s patient, soothing tone sounded much like Robert used to calm a flighty horse. “Come, my dear, you must. Lord Landers will lift you onto the saddle. You will be quite safe.”

  “No! It’s the wrong sort of saddle. The horse will be sure to bolt with me—the great brute.” Augusta sniffed.

  Robert swallowed a tart retort and said, “Trojan will not do anything of the sort. He’s as mild mannered as a vicar.”

  “I shall not ride that horse, Landers!”

  Robert sighed, sending Eleanor the look of a condemned man waiting for his appointment with the gallows’ rope.

  “Would you sit on the horse if Lord Landers mounted and took you up before him?” Eleanor suggested.

  Augusta looked from Eleanor to Robert and the horse he held. “Y-yes.”

  “All right then.” Eleanor faced Robert and lifted a sleek, arched eyebrow, clearly handing the next move over to him.

  “Come, stand on this stump.” Robert led his tall horse beside it, helped Augusta onto the stump, then effortlessly mounted Trojan. He held his hand out to his fiancée. Eleanor stood ready to aid her.

  Within a minute, Augusta was settled in front of Robert, holding a portmanteau that Eleanor insisted she carry. His arms encircled Augusta’s slender form as he held the reins.

  “Now you, Miss Carlisle. Can you mount behind me?”

  “Surely that would be too much of a load for even your noble steed, Lord Landers? I shall walk.” Her smile reached her eyes, like sparkling sunlight on a dismal day.

  Robert gave a gruff laugh in acknowledgment of her imagination. “He’s a knight’s charger indeed, and well able to take your light weight, as well as ours.” He reached down and clasped her forearm. “Put your foot into this stirrup, and I’ll assist you up.”

  “Really, Landers, Eleanor will be too much weight,” Augusta exclaimed in a trembling voice.

  Try to think of others, Augusta. “Nonsense, my dear. Hold Miss Carlisle’s bag while she mounts.”

  Augusta made a moue of petulant annoyance and took the extra portmanteau.

  Robert grasped Eleanor’s forearm and assisted her onto Trojan’s rump. As his horse sidled, her arm came around his waist. His body heated with the touch.

  “Sorry, my lord.” She started to withdraw her hand, but he checked its movement, holding it in place.

  “You must be safe, Miss Carlisle. Hold on tightly.”

  “I do wish we could have remained in the carriage,” Augusta said. “We had hot bricks and blankets.”

  “Look at it now, my dear. We would have been frozen by the morning.” He handed Eleanor her luggage and took one last look at the listing carriage, already half submerged by the swiftly falling snow.

  “We’ll proceed regally to the gamekeeper’s palace on this noble beast, Augusta,” Eleanor added, trying to lighten her cousin’s mood.

  It was one of the huts the man used as he rotated around the estate’s grounds each night, on the lookout for poachers.

  Robert hoped it was still kept stocked.

  He steered them into the wood, where the snow fell more lightly but the trees’ bare branches sagged under their frozen load.

  The thatched hut stood alone in a clearing. Snow covered its roof and surrounded its base, but its doorway, with a rudimentary awning, was clear. Despite its timbers being bleached with age, it looked sound. A fenced yard stood beside the building, with a small lean-to attached at one corner. At least his horse would have shelter.

  Robert halted at the door, and Miss Carlisle slid from the horse and reached up for her cousin. He dismounted last and tied his horse to the fence.

  The door opened easily at his touch, and Robert stepped into the cold gloom of the low-ceilinged room. A bare fireplace stood at one end. A deal table stood before it and two high-backed bench chairs, designed to keep their occupiers safe from drafts, flanked it. At the opposite end of the space stood an open doorway, probably leading to a small bedroom.

  With luggage suspended from each hand, Miss Carlisle followed him into the kitchen. She set the portmanteaux on the floor and hurried forward to open the doors of the only cupboard, which stood in one corner.

  She sighed. “Thank goodness, there’s food aplenty for us. Your man keeps it stocked. I hope he doesn’t mind us using his supplies.”

  “I’ll have it renewed from the main house after we leave.”

  She looke
d up swiftly at him, as if only just realizing that this was his family’s property. “Of course.” She hesitated. “Once I’ve settle Augusta into her room, I’ll prepare a dinner of sorts for us.”

  Eleanor hurried to where her cousin stood rigid just inside the hut’s door, her perfect mouth set in a straight line and her china blue eyes wide with shock. Eleanor took Augusta’s arm and gently propelled her to the bedroom doorway.

  Robert followed them.

  Augusta took one glance inside and gave a muffled scream.

  “What’s the matter?” Robert asked, leaning through the doorway to see what had upset her. He saw nothing but a sparsely furnished room with a narrow bed covered by a tidy but worn coverlet and blankets folded at its foot.

  “It’s so drab and horrid,” she said.

  “But it looks clean,” Eleanor said as she hurried into the room and opened the chest that stood below the window. “And see, there is laundered linen for the bed. You’ll be very comfortable here.”

  “If you say so,” her cousin answered, her voice as sullen as any erring child forced to apologize to a despised sibling.

  Robert left the women to unpack their meager belongings and set up the bedroom. He would sleep in front of the fire in the kitchen. In the meantime, he must return to the carriage and get the blankets and hot bricks. Then his horse needed attention.

  ***

  Robert returned after unsaddling his mount and putting him in the yard beside the cottage. The blanketed horse pawed at the snow and nibbled the grass beneath it.

  Snow now fell in a thick mass. Leaden clouds loomed above the arrested landscape with ominous intent. A blizzard was blowing up quickly.

  Robert quickly dumped the bundled blankets and bricks inside the hut then filled his arms with already chopped wood from the woodpile beside the door.

  Back inside the hut, he found a fire blazing in the open fireplace. A kettle sat warming on the hob and a pot hung over the flames.

  Robert deposited the kindling, which Eleanor apparently didn’t need, and hung his saddle pack over the back of one of the bench chairs.