The Frost Fair Read Online Free

that she and her aunt wished to be taken to the nearest inn.
    â€œ Now , yer ladyship?” the fellow asked in surprise.
    â€œYes, right now.” She put down her bags, opened the reticule which had hung from the crook of her elbow, and took out a gold sovereign.
    The man backed away from the proffered coin and frowned. “Lord Isham didn’t order no carriage tonight,” he said suspiciously.
    â€œHis lordship doesn’t know anything about it,” Meg admitted frankly.
    The groom scratched at his chin. “Are ye sayin’ that ye don’t wish ’im to know? I don’t think it’d be right fer me to—”
    â€œDon’t be silly, man,” she cut in with asperity. “The trip can’t be a very long one. Where is the nearest inn?”
    â€œIn Masham. On’y half-an-hour down the road, but—”
    â€œThen why the to-do? I intend to hire a carriage there, and you’ll be able to return here with yours so promptly that his lordship will never know you’d gone.”
    The groom rubbed his bald head. “I don’t know, yer ladyship. I’d like t’oblige ye, surely, but there’d be a terrible do if Lord Isham found out. I ain’t even the coachman, y’ see. On’y a groom, I be. An’ Lord Isham’d surely take it as stealin’, even if you an’ me call it borrowin’.”
    â€œThe man’s right, Meg,” Isabel put in. “Isn’t it bad enough to ruin your own reputation—and mine? Must you make trouble even for the servants?”
    â€œI tell you there’ll be no trouble. He says he can be back in an hour.”
    â€œLess ’n that, if I wuz drivin’,” the groom admitted. “I kin ’andle these ’orses better’n anyone in Yorkshire.”
    â€œWell, then—?” Meg offered him the coin again.
    He shook his head. “I wouldn’t need that t’ do it, m’lady, if I tho’t it wuz right.”
    â€œCan it be so very wrong to borrow a carriage and a couple of horses for less than an hour?”
    â€œLess’n an hour if the weather ’olds,” the groom said, weakening. “It feels like snow, if y’ask me.”
    â€œWhat? You, too? I promise you, my man, that it will not snow. What is your name, by the way?”
    â€œRoodle, yer ladyship. ’Enry Roodle.”
    â€œWell, Roodle, are you going to take us, or do we have to walk the distance in this chill?”
    With the question put that way, Roodle had no choice but to acquiesce. Quickly, he saddled his most dependable horses—two matched chestnut mares—to the phaeton, the smallest closed carriage in the Viscount’s collection. Then he borrowed the coachman’s caped coat and high hat from the alcove where it was stored (“In fer a penny, in fer a pound,” he told himself with a shrug), and they set out.
    Once settled into the carriage and on their way, the two women lapsed into silence. Isabel, leaning back against the cushions, permitted herself to sink into gloom. Meg had changed her mind about marriage after all! It was her blasted independence. Isabel was at her wit’s end about what to do to marry the girl off!
    The trouble was that Meg didn’t realize that her life was far from full. She had a large circle of friends and admirers, a great deal of money and many entertaining activities with which to fill her days. And in addition, the girl had, for the past few years, managed her estates and made all the decisions necessary in keeping control of a large fortune. She was accustomed to running her own life. While Isabel could understand her reluctance to give up that independence, she was nevertheless convinced that Meg’s life would be more complete with a proper family. Not with Charles, necessarily, if Meg really didn’t care for him, but with someone. Even if the problem of the inheritance were not looming up on