My Lord Winter Read Free

she had paid more attention to the scenery, though it would have been difficult with the windows steamed up. Perhaps she could step out for a moment—but no, the guard sounded the tantara on his yard of tin and they were off again.
    Mr. Ramsbottom at once engaged her in a discussion of different types of cotton goods, their qualities and especially their prices. He was surprisingly interesting, and the information would have been useful, she thought, had she really been plain Miss Brooke who travelled by the Mail. Miss Gracechurch and Mr. Selwyn were talking about the education of women. Jane would have liked to listen, but that would have meant snubbing poor, vulgar Mr. Ramsbottom.
    Her attention divided, she was vaguely aware that the coach had slowed, moving nearer a walking pace that its usual headlong dash. She rubbed at the window but the condensation seemed to be on the outside now.
    “What’s up?” enquired Mr. Ramsbottom, wiping the window beside him with a large, red, white-spotted handkerchief. “We ain’t going post-haste now.”
    At that moment the coach lurched. Ella screamed. Several male voices swore. Wood creaked, cracked, and snapped. The coach gently tilted to one side and came to rest with the window pressed against a leafless, spiky hawthorn hedge.
    “Not again!” Jane groaned.
     

CHAPTER TWO
     
    “We passed the gates o’ Wintringham Abbey a hundred yards back,” the coachman informed the little group huddled in the dense fog beside the wreck of the Manchester Mail. “Leastways, it’s my belief we did, for all I couldn’t see ’em. I knows this road like the back o’ my hand. We can’t go there.”
    “Why not?” demanded Mr. Ramsbottom belligerently.
    “’Tis the Earl o’ Wintringham’s place, him they calls My Lord Winter. Winter by name and winter by nature, by all accounts. There ain’t a stiffer, starchier, top-loftier nob in the kingdom. Throw us out on our ears, he would.”
    “Surely not!” Jane was incredulous. “You said the nearest village is at least two miles, and it will soon grow dark. We are stranded. He cannot in good conscience refuse us assistance.”
    “That’s what you thinks, missy. Earls can do what they bloody well likes and to the devil wi’ the rest of us.”
    “I say, mind your language, my good man,” Mr. Reid protested. “Ladies present, don’t you know.” He blushed as Jane flashed him a smile of thanks. “All the same, Miss Brooke, I’ve heard of Lord Wintringham and I wager he’d be on his high ropes if we invaded.”
    “Curst cold-hearted cove,” Mr. Hancock confirmed in a voice of doom.
    “Whatever the rest of you choose to do,” Jane said resolutely, “I intend to seek shelter at Wintringham Abbey. If I can find the place,” she added on a less certain note, peering into the fog. The hedge on the other side of the ditch where the coach had come to rest was almost invisible. The breeze had dropped and the air was decidedly chilly.
    “I am willing to lead the way,” Mr. Selwyn offered. “I suggest we link hands so that no one who wishes to go is left behind. Miss Gracechurch, will you be so good as to take my hand?”
    Miss Gracechurch complied. Jane took her other hand, and reached for Ella’s. The others stepped forward, murmuring agreement.
    ‘‘ Wait!’’ cried the coachman. “You young coves give us a hand tying the baggage on them hosses, and I’ll come along too. Ain’t got nothink to lose, arter all.”
    When they set off a few minutes later, in single file, Jane could scarcely see the coachman at the rear end of the line, leading his three horses—the guard had bravely ridden off on the fourth beast with his precious mail sacks. The sound of plodding hooves and jingling harness was muffled by the fog, and for some reason they found themselves speaking in hushed voices. Mr. Selwyn kept to the side of the road. Very soon he came to a bridge of great slabs of stone laid across the ditch. He led his band over,