The Offer (Baron 2)

Sabrina licked away a tear that had fallen down her cheek onto her upper lip. She tried to talk some purpose into herself, to force herself to bury for the moment at least the terrible memories of the previous afternoon. She’d spent the night in a large cupboard in the old nursery, waking at dawn, dressing, and sneaking to the stables. Had it just been the day before that Trevor had attacked her? It seemed like a week had passed, a week alone in the dizzying cold, watching the sky darken and fill with snow. She pressed her hand against her chest and felt hope at the thought of the three pounds tucked safely inside her chemise. It would be enough to buy a stage ticket to London, to her aunt Barresford. It would be dark soon. She didn’t have much time. She couldn’t press against this tree forever.

She pushed back a heavy lock of hair that had come loose over her forehead, and looked about her. Surely she had walked in the right direction. It could not be too much farther to Borhamwood and the warmth and safety of the Raven Inn.

She felt the searing pain in her chest again, and doubled over, hugging herself tightly. She could hear her own raspy breathing and admitted to herself for the first time that she was ill. “I don’t want to die,” she said, the words freezing on her lips. “I won’t die.”

She scrambled through the brambles, each tree becoming a goal to reach and pass. She felt a surge of hope, for she was certain that the trees were thinning ahead of her. Yes, that was an opening. She was nearly there, nearly free of the forest, nearly to Borhamwood.

Suddenly she went flying, stumbling on a large root that stuck up through the moss on the forest floor. She sprawled facedown on the frozen ground, stunned by the force of her fall. She felt curiously warmed by the thick moss.

She would remain here just a minute or two longer. She sighed. She would rest just a little while longer, then she would feel strong again. She would be so strong she would run to Borhamwood.

4

“Bloody hell.”

Phillip Edmund Mercerault, Viscount Derencourt, drew up his bay mare, Tasha, gazed about him at the forbidding wilderness, and continued his cursing. Damn Charles anyway. He liked Charles, truly he did, had known him for more years than either of them could remember, but this was too much. The directions he’d provided to reach his house, Moreland, had landed Phillip in the middle of a forest in the middle of a snowstorm that could very probably become a blizzard. Phillip would shoot him when he next saw Charles.

If he next saw him.

No, that was ridiculous. Tasha was strong and sound. He knew he was going east. He just had to get out of this damned forest soon. But he hadn’t seen a sign for a village called Borhamwood, there hadn’t even been a farmhouse at which he could stop and beg a cup of coffee to warm himself. Of course since this was a forest and not farmland, he supposed it made sense that no farmers were around. He cursed again. There hadn’t even been a ditch where he could get Tasha out of the snow, if for just a minute or two.

He’d been a bloody fool to wave off his valet, Dambler, with his carriage and luggage. Dambler, despite all his lapses into martyrdom, had a nose for direction. It was uncanny, this ability, but unfortunately, at this point in the afternoon, Dambler was probably roasting his toes in front of a nice kitchen fire at Moreland. And here his master was—cold and hungry with only two changes of clothes in the soft leather valise strapped to Tasha’s saddle.

What had ever possessed him? Hunting and Christmas festivities at Moreland. He wondered if he’d find his way there by Boxing Day.

He patted Tasha’s glossy neck and gently dug his heels into her sides. He swallowed snow even as he said, “Come on, Tasha, if we stay here much longer, that damned Charles will find us here thawing out in the spring.”

Surely he was riding east. He tried concentrating on his nose, the way Dambler told him he drew the various latitudes and longitudes into his being—through his nose—but all he got out of it was a sneeze.

It was getting late. It would be dark soon. If he didn’t find his way to somewhere, he would be in big trouble. Tasha suddenly snorted, jerking her head left. To his left was a cottage nestled in a small hollow, carved out, it seemed to him, from the midst of the forest itself. He wheeled Tasha about, the thought of hot coffee scalding his lips making him forget that he wanted to bash Charles the next time he had him in the ring at Gentleman Jackson’s Boxing Salon.

No, it wasn’t a simple cottage. It was a two-story red brick hunting box, its facade covered with ivy dusted white by the snow. He swung off Tasha’s back in front of the columned entrance, stamped his cold feet, and thwacked the knocker loudly.

No answer and no wonder. It was indeed a hunting box. The owner, whoever he was, wouldn’t return until spring. As he swung back into the saddle, he said, “Tasha, I promise you an extra bucket of oats if you get me to Moreland so that I may thrash Charles before dark.”

Phillip groped with one gloved hand through the rich layer of his greatcoat to the watch in his waistcoat pocket. It was nearly four o’clock in the afternoon. He gazed apprehensively up at the snow, coming down more thickly now, and turned Tasha about again toward the narrow, rutted path. If he didn’t find his way out of here, he would return to the hunting box. He’d give himself another half hour, no more.

Despite his fur-lined greatcoat, the swirling wind chilled him to his very bones. He shivered and lowered his head close to his mare’s neck.

Snowflakes dusted the bridge of his nose when he chanced to look heavenward. He pulled his greatcoat more closely about his throat, pulled his scarf up nearly to his eyes, ducked his head closer to Tasha’s neck, and urged her on. At a fork in the pa

th, Phillip looked up again at the snow-filled sky. He had absolutely no notion of which direction to take. He drew a guinea from his waistcoat pocket, flipped it, and with a shrug turned Tasha to the path at his left. He wasn’t about to forget the direction of the hunting box. If the impossible happened, then he would return there.

He grinned suddenly, imagining what his friends would be saying to him if they knew he was lost in the middle of a snowstorm in a forest in Yorkshire. He doubted he’d live it down for many a good year. He could just hear his long-time friend, Rohan Carrington, say in that amused drawl of his, “Well, Phillip, what is one to say? You can find your way all through Scotland, but when it comes to the backyard in Yorkshire, you lose yourself in a bloody blizzard.”

And then there was Martine, his mistress. He could just see her lying there on her bed, wearing something frothy, something he could see through yet not really see through, something that would fill him with such lust that he wouldn’t, frankly, care if she laughed her head off.

The snowfall became thicker, if that was possible. He couldn’t see the path beyond three or four feet ahead. Tasha quickened her pace.

He kept his head pressed against Tasha’s neck. She would stay on the path. There was nothing more he could do.

Except go back to that hunting box if they didn’t clear the forest soon, very soon. Say in the next ten minutes, maybe even nine minutes. He had a marvelous sense of timing, even Martine told him that. Yes, he knew the exact moment when she wanted him to do this and then do that. He was smiling as he pulled out his watch. Yes, he’d give it ten more minutes, then it was back to the hunting box.

Martine, his languid, glorious mistress, swam again into his mind’s eye. At least she was a warm thought. When he’d told her that he was traveling to the north for a round of Christmas parties and would be gone from London for some time, she’d roused herself, propping herself up on her elbows to gain his attention, and given a lazy laugh. “Ah, my beautiful man, you prefer the dead of winter to a live me. It’s absurd.” He grinned, knowing that he would most willingly part with the bulk of his worldly goods if he could at this moment be warm and naked in her large bed, his face buried in her glorious bosom, showing her yet again his wonderful timing.

The snow was driving down in earnest now, and he drew up Tasha once again in an effort to get his bearings. It was the absence of thick snow that caused him to look again upon a large splash of crimson. He hooded his eyes with his gloved hand.

What the devil was that mound of red? In another few minutes it would be completely covered with snow.