‘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 Wimple’s limbs. Come along, everyone.’
Miss Pym was rather like a general, thought Belinda, amused despite her predicament, as Hannah beat her arms and stamped her feet and then knelt beside Miss Wimple and chafed her wrists.
After only a short time they heard the shouting of voices and rattling of wheels. Torches flickered through the trees, and then four men in outdoor livery appeared, followed by the marquess. Under his orders, two of them lifted Miss Wimple on to a stretcher and bore her off, one supported Belinda, and the other Mrs Judd.
‘I have carriages waiting,’ said the marquess to Hannah. ‘Come quickly or you will catch the ague.’
As he bustled about, seeing them all into carriages, the marquess felt a momentary qualm. He should really have them driven to the nearest inn rather than inflict the passengers of the common stage on his guests. But their presence would give him a necessary breathing space, a wall to retreat behind while he considered his feelings for Penelope.
Hannah helped Belinda into one of the waiting carriages. She admired this lord, or whoever he was, immensely. He must have his staff well drilled to turn out so efficiently and promptly on a freezing night. She gave a happy smile and drew a huge bearskin rug up to her chin.
‘Why, Miss Pym,’ exclaimed Belinda, ‘I declare you are actually enjoying a near escape from a freezing death.’
‘It’s an adventure,’ said Hannah. ‘Now, you see, my dear, it is better to look for romance in real life. Did you note how handsome our rescuer was?’
‘I was too flustered and frightened and my ankle still hurts dreadfully,’ said Belinda. ‘He seemed very autocratic and severe and quite old. Where are we, I wonder?’
‘I have a guidebook in my luggage,’ said Hannah. ‘Oh, dear, that wretched coachman has gone off with it.’
‘Not he,’ said Belinda. ‘It had all fallen off the roof before we even hit the river and was strewn about the opposite bank.’
‘Then our highly efficient host will collect it for us. We are travelling quite a way. Does he mean to deposit us all at some wayside inn?’
‘No doubt.’ Belinda shivered. ‘I must get a physician immediately to look to poor Miss Wimple. How came she to gash her forehead like that?’
‘I think she was thrown against the lamp bracket. How luxurious all this is, and what a great many servants there seem to be.’
Outriders with flaming torches were riding alongside the carriages.
‘We are slowing,’ exclaimed Hannah. To the shivering Belinda’s dismay, she let down the glass and leaned out. ‘Oh, Miss Earle!’ cried Hannah. ‘You have never seen the like.’
Curiosity overcoming cold, Belinda opened her window and, clutching the edge for support to ease her tortured ankle, she too leaned out.
The snow had stopped falling. In the lights of the many torches and carriage lamps a great Norman castle loomed up against the sky; battlements and barbican, towers and turrets. They rolled slowly over a wooden drawbridge and under two raised portcullises into a wide courtyard.
‘Why have I never heard of this place?’ said Hannah, sitting down again. ‘It is huge.’
‘Have you visited many places?’ asked Belinda.
Hannah shook her head. ‘I have led a quiet and sheltered life, like that of a nun. But I have read a great deal, don’t you see.’
The carriage rolled to a stop. A footman in green-and-gold livery let down the steps and Hannah and Belinda were assisted down.
The shivering stage-coach passengers were led into the castle and all stood blinking in the sudden blaze of light. They found themselves in a great hall with a brown-and-white marble floor. A long refectory table with high-backed Jacobean chairs around it dominated the centre of the hall. There were battle flags and suits of armour and a long gallery running around the top of the hall to form an upper storey.
A house steward with his tall staff of office stood waiting.
‘Convey our unexpected guests to the East Wing,’ said the marquess. ‘Send for the physician to attend us immediately. May I introduce myself? I am Frenton, the Marquess of Frenton, and you are now in my home, Baddell Castle, where I suggest you stay until I find out what has become of your coach. You are …?’
Hannah stepped forward. ‘I am Miss Hannah Pym of Kensington. May I present Miss Belinda Earle. Miss Wimple is the injured lady and Miss Earle’s companion. Also, may I present Mr and Mrs Judd.’
The marquess turned to his steward and rapped out a bewildering, to Belinda, series of orders about which apartments were to be allotted to them.
Again, there were servants everywhere. Belinda clung nervously to Hannah, overawed by the magnificence of it all. They went up a broad staircase and along a bewildering multitude of passages. A housekeeper opened a door at last and said to Hannah, ‘Your apartments are here, madam.’ Oh, the joy of ex-housekeeper Hannah to hear herself called ‘madam’ by one of her own kind. ‘You have a bedchamber as you go in and you will share a sitting-room with the young lady, who has a bedchamber on the other side. His lordship is sending up your trunks, which the men rescued from the side of the river. The footmen will carry up your baths in a trice.’
Hannah looked around the apartment in satisfaction. The walls were papered with a heavy red paper. The great four-poster bed had dull red silk hangings. The fireplace was Queen Anne and as unlovely a piece of architecture as anything attributed to that poor lady’s name. It had a heavy overmantel that almost dwarfed the grate beneath. But there was a bright fire burning.