To Wed His Christmas Lady (The Heart of a Duke #7)(10)

The servant jabbed his finger ahead, not breaking stride. And for one horrifying moment, she believed this had all been a deliberate ploy by her enemy Lady Nora, and the girl had somehow convinced the loyal, smiling-for-his-mistress groom to abandon Cara and her maid here in the middle of the wild, in the midst of a storm.

Pride was a dangerous thing. Trudging through the snow, with her cloak little protection from the harsh elements beating down on her face and cutting through her clothes, Cara readily conceded there were reasons for all those lessons, proverbs and statements about the blasted vice. Her teeth chattered, the sound of it swallowed by the howling winter wind and then, through the thick curtain of snow rapidly falling, a small establishment pulled into focus. “Thank God,” she breathed, stirring puffs of air with her breath.

They trudged the remainder of the way to the stables outside the inn. The earl’s groom rapped loudly on the wood doors which were thrown open by an old, graying man. He eyed them a moment. Whatever words were exchanged between the two were lost to the howling wind. Moments later, they marched up to the front of the old inn. The groom pushed the door open. Shivering inside her hopelessly damp cloak, she looked about the dark establishment. A thick haze of smoke filled the taproom from a recently lit pipe. The pungent scent burned her lungs. Cara wrinkled her nose. She’d always detested the nauseating smell. It was a scent that drew forth memories of her father closeted away in his billiards room while he entertained other pompous noblemen who were all vastly more important than his own daughter.

A weak Alison hovered at her shoulder, eying the empty taproom.

Cara tugged off her wet gloves and continued to pass her gaze over the dimly lit space, searching for the owner of that foul cheroot. A fire raged in the hearth, casting eerie shadows about the cracked and chipped walls. “Hello?” she called out in an icy tone. From the back of the establishment, footsteps shuffled.

A portly, white-haired man with a pipe stuck between his teeth, rushed forward to greet them. “Ah, in need of rooms are you?”

Did he think she preferred to spend her night out of doors in this violent storm? Cara bit back the tart response. “I require a room,” she said tightly, dusting her gloves together. She cast a glance at Alison. “That is, two rooms.” After all, it wouldn’t do to be quite so alone in the miserable inn.

The innkeeper removed his pipe and grinned, displaying a row of cracked and missing teeth. She rocked back on her heels, nearly bowled over by the scent of stale garlic on his breath.

“And meals,” she said.

At her side, Alison sneezed into her elbow.

“And a warm bath.”

The older innkeeper took another puff of his pipe. “Is there anything else, my lady?”

She gave a brusque shake of her head, and shrugged out of her dampened cloak, and turned it over to the older man’s care. “That is all.”

An equally wizened woman with shocking white hair and a twinkle in her rheumy eyes rushed forward. “Allow me to show you to your rooms, my lady.”

Cara held up a staying hand and cast a look back at the earl’s driver. “I would have my trunk brought abovestairs immediately.”

The man opened his mouth, but a large gust of wind slammed into the door, rattling it on its frame and beating against the lead windowpanes. He doffed his hat and beat the wet piece against his leg. “But my lady, the storm…”

Her heart started and she turned her attention to the window. Why in blazes had she not carried her heart pendant on her person? Because you were so hurt and angry at your father’s inactions this day, that you spitefully lashed out at the piece given you by the one person who ever loved you. Her throat worked painfully. And what had she done? Had her maid bury it into the bottom of her cold trunk. This bloody day. Nay. It was her blasted impulsivity. Jane Munroe slid into her thoughts once more and Cara forcefully thrust the kind, former instructor’s visage from her mind.

Cara squinted out into the dark as a blanket of white snow swirled past the frosted pane. She swung back to face the driver and set her jaw to hide the faint quake there. “I require my belongings this instant.” The gowns and other fripperies she’d been granted as the daughter of a duke could go hang. Her heart pounded with panic. “I need—” My mother’s necklace. The assembled collection of servants fixed peculiar looks on her. Cara’s skin went hot. “Dry clothing,” she finished lamely. “I require dry clothing.”

The old woman beamed. “Well, that is easy enough, my lady. I’ve several lovely gowns. Nowhere near the fancy garments you are accustomed to.” She turned to go.

“No,” Cara cried out and her utterance echoed around the inn, earning shocked silence. She turned back to the earl’s driver and forced her tone into a semblance of icy calm “Go.”

The earl’s servant shifted on his feet with the gusting storm raging its fury at the door. “But, my lady,” he whispered. “It is snowing.”

She took a step toward him. “It is a bit of snow and I command you to go.” Please go.

He dropped his unrepentant stare to her wet boots.

“You’d send a person out into this Godforsaken weather for your own fripperies, brat?”

A harsh, angry voice sounded beyond her shoulder and she spun about. Her heart stilled and fear settled like a stone in her belly at the big, broad, bear of a man glowering down at her. She fisted the fabric of her gown and swallowed hard. A man who glowered at her. With the gruff stubble on his face and towering height, the imposing stranger wore the rank of his lesser class like a stamp upon his skin. As though he’d followed the direction her thoughts had traveled, he narrowed his blue, nearly black eyes in a menacing fashion. She swallowed hard and backed away from him.