she had drawn to shut out the vista of bleak snow. The snow was still falling thickly, but the horses were moving at a great rate.
She let down the window and, leaning out as far as she could, screwed up her eyes and tried to make out what was happening on the box. The coachman was hunched up, and with a sudden jolt of alarm Hannah noticed the reins had slipped from his hands.
‘The coachman has fallen asleep,’ she said. ‘Someone has got to rouse him, or the guard.’
Mrs Judd screamed with alarm. Mr Judd opened his window and began to shout to the guard. The guard shouted something back and Mr Judd roared that the coachman had fallen asleep. They heard a thump on the roof as the guard moved from his seat at the back to join the coachman on the box.
Hannah hung out of the window again. The snow thinned slightly and she saw a curve of the road ahead.
Right across it, blocking the road, stood a hay wagon. She put up the window. ‘We are for it!’ she shouted. ‘Down in the straw!’ And Hannah crouched down on the floor of the carriage just as the coach swung off the road. They were thrown right and left. There were cries and sobs and swears and then the coach seemed to take flight. There was a short moment of silence and then, with an almighty crash, the whole coach landed in a river.
The Marquess of Frenton was riding along the marches of his estate. Despite the weather and the time of year, he considered it his duty to see that his property was not being neglected and that the high stone walls that bound the park had not been breached by either animals or humans.
He would not admit to himself that the real reason for the expedition was because of his house guests. With a view to choosing a bride, he had invited Miss Penelope Jordan and her parents, Sir Henry and Lady Jordan, to stay. He had danced with pretty Penelope several times during the Little Season in London. She was a stately brunette with cool, calm, chiselled features and moved with great elegance. She was very, very rich, or rather, her parents were, which meant she would come with a good dowry. Some element of caution had prompted him to invite other house guests so as to make his motives not seem too obvious until he had fully made up his mind. But the other guests had not arrived, being stopped from travelling by the hard weather. It was not that he really had found Penelope any less suitable. The marquess was a fastidious man. He found her as elegant and well bred as ever. It was her parents’ assumption that the knot was as good as tied that grated on him.
The marquess’s late father had been a noisy, spend-thrift gambler and drunk. His mother’s last words as she had followed her husband to the grave some four weeks later had been, ‘Do not blame your father, my son. Men were ever thus.’
So the marquess at the age of twenty had found himself saddled with monstrous debts and a near ruin of a castle. He had worked hard and long, experimenting with new farming methods, taking what little capital he had and using it carefully on the stock exchange. The hostilities with the French had brought about a rise in the price of wheat, and slowly his fortunes began to turn. Now, at the age of thirty-four, he was a very wealthy man. His estates and farms were the envy of all less hard-working landowners. He had restored his ancestral home, Baddell Castle, to its long-forgotten glory. He loved fine statuary and fine paintings and the most delicate of china. His idea of a wife was someone who would grace his home like a work of art.
Hard physical labour in his younger years, combined with a fastidious mind, had kept the more rampant lusts at bay. He had begun briefly to take pleasure when it was offered by, say, some fashionable widow at the London Season who knew very well what she was doing and did not have a heart to break. Succumbing to broken hearts, the marquess’s observations had led him to believe, was something females were prone to do.
He was a tall man with a trim waist, square shoulders, and a lithe, athletic figure. He wore his hair powdered and confined at the nape of his neck with a ribbon. His face was high-nosed and rather stern and he had silvery-grey eyes that usually did not reflect what he was thinking.
He came to a wooded close overlooking the river Thrane that bordered his land. To his amazement, he saw a stage-coach coming down the opposite bank. A little guard was on the back of one of the horses and was hacking the traces free. The team of horses swerved right, clear of the careening coach. The coach wheels struck an outjutting ledge of rock. For one horrifying moment it sailed clear off the ledge and seemed to hang in the snowy air. And then it plunged straight down into the icy stretch of the river.
He dismounted and hurried down the bank, slithering and sliding until he reached the river. He sat down, pulled off his top-boots, and shrugged off his long black cloak, then waded into the icy torrent.
The carriage door swung open and a middle-aged lady with a rather crooked nose looked at him first in surprise and then relief.
‘I see I shall not have to swim for it,’ she said. ‘The torrent seems shallow enough.’
The marquess made his way with difficulty to the coach and hung on to the open door. ‘Climb on my back,’ he ordered, ‘and I will carry you to safety.’
‘There is a lady here who is hurt,’ said Hannah, for it was she. ‘Take her first.’
‘Very well,’ said the marquess in a voice as cold and uncaring as the winter landscape. ‘But be quick about it.’
‘Help me,’ said Hannah to Belinda as she stooped over Miss Wimple. That lady’s face was an ugly colour and she had a great gash on her forehead.
They heaved and pushed at the inert Miss Wimple. ‘Of what use are you?’ cried Hannah furiously over her shoulder to Mr Judd, who was sitting on the floor of the coach.
‘My wife has fainted,’ he said sulkily.
‘Pah!’ retorted Hannah. ‘Does such a little thing paralyse you? Had the coach not landed upright, we might all have been drowned.’
The marquess leaned into the carriage and managed to lift Miss Wimple in his arms. Hannah watched in admiration as he carried her easily to the bank and laid her down. Soon he was back again. By this time, Hannah had found her smelling salts. She held the bottle under Mrs Judd’s nose and then slapped her face. ‘Leave her alone,’ cried Mr Judd, struggling to his feet.
‘Then get you out of the carriage and carry your own wife to safety instead of letting that fine gentleman do all the work.’
Mr Judd looked weakly out of the door at the raging river. There was a moan behind him as his wife recovered from her faint.
‘Now get down in the river,’ commanded Hannah. ‘No, sir,’ she said to the marquess, ‘stand aside. There is no reason why this gentleman cannot carry his own wife.’
Mr Judd dropped down into the river, lost his footing and fell into the water. The marquess swore and jerked him upright.
He backed up to the coach and his wife climbed on his back. She showed every sign of fainting again but was fully recovered to consciousness when her husband stumbled and tipped her into the river. The marquess fished her out and placed her on the bank next to Miss Wimple.
He turned around and saw with surprise that the middle-aged lady was crossing the river with a young girl on her back. He ran to help her.
‘Shame on you,’ he said to Belinda, ‘to use this lady as a pack-horse.’
‘I cannot stand on my ankle, sir,’ said Belinda wrathfully. ‘Do put me down, Miss Pym.’
The marquess drew on his boots and swung his cloak around his shoulders. He looked across the river. The guard and the coachman, who had been thrown clear, were leading the horses back up on to the road. The guard cupped his hands. ‘Going to get help!’ he shouted.
‘Which means,’ said Hannah, ‘they are going to get drunk as soon as possible and forget all about us. That coachman was much too young for the job.’
The marquess stooped and lifted Miss Wimple in his arms. ‘If the rest of you can make your way up the bank into the shelter of the trees, you may wait there until I bring carriages to bear you to safety. There is a road quite near.’
Hannah hitched Belinda’s arm about her neck, Mr Judd helped his wife, and they all stumbled up the bank.
Once more Miss Wimple was laid down. The marquess mounted a great black horse and rode off.
‘My clothes are freezing to me,’ whispered Mrs Judd. ‘I’m going to die and I know it.’
‘Whoever that grand gentleman is, he is very competent,’ said Hannah. ‘We must all try to keep warm. We must walk up and down and stamp our feet and swing our arms and take turns at rubbing some warmth into Miss
