“Now,” he snapped when she hesitated.
Addy turned back to the dreadful stranger. “Fine. But only because I have no wish to die in a Yorkshire snowbank.”
He grumbled something unpleasant beneath his breath, and she had no doubt it was a vile insult against herself. Ignoring the hand he offered her, she gathered what remained of her shredded pride and heaved herself up into the saddle. It was no easy feat, given the weight of her travel gown and her frozen legs.
He swung up in front of her. “Hold on to me.”
She scarcely had her arms wrapped awkwardly around his lean torso before he kicked the horse into a gallop. They were off down the road, snow pelting them, leaving the carriage and her worldly possessions behind.
By the timeLion reached Marchingham Hall, he was frozen, surly, and more vexed with Miss Adelia Fox than he could recall being with anyone he’d ever known.
The woman was a bloody menace in silk skirts.
A spoiled, outrageous hoyden who had mistaken him for a common footpad.
And most of all, she was an uninvited guest who had unexpectedly arrived at his manor house in the midst of a vicious snowstorm with half of New York City and a mad dog in tow. She was damned fortunate the elderly manservant, maiden aunt,and mongrel she had brought with her for accompaniment had made it to his door. Otherwise, the lot of them would have been icicles by morning.
“Where have you taken me?” she demanded, her American accent strangely pleasant.
It aggrieved him mightily that he found her voice mellifluous. He was meant to find all qualities concerning Miss Fox deeply, unutterably repellent.
“Welcome to Marchingham Hall,” he told the infuriating woman as he drew Athena to a halt before the front portico.
If his voice was laced with sarcasm, then so be it. He had never intended to play host to her.
“Thisis Marchingham Hall?”
Surely he didn’t denote a trace of disbelief in her voice? Lion was more than aware that the extensive manor house, most of which had been built in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was in varying states of disrepair. But how dare she look down her nose upon his ancestral dwelling?
“Are you hard of hearing, madam?” he snapped.
The maddening Miss Fox, whose arms were yet wrapped about his midsection and whose breasts had occasionally and quite scandalously grazed his person during their snowy journey, made an indelicate snort.
“Of course not. I was merely expecting something less…old, I suppose.”
Less old.
He ought to have left the mannerless American chit to her fate in that frigid carriage.
“You may release me now so that I can dismount,” he informed her icily. “Unless you wish to remain in the snow whilst you heap insults upon one of the finest examples of Palladian architecture in England.”
She withdrew her arms. “Forgive me. Mama always says my tongue is faster than my mind. I speak without thought.”
“I’m sure that’s the least concerning observation your mother might have made about you,” he muttered as he dismounted, his booted feet landing in powdery snow.
His head groom emerged from the equally dilapidated stables, approaching through the snow to return Athena to the haven of her stall. Whilst some of the edifice needed a new roof, Athena’s area remained dry. Come spring, Lion would have to see to as many repairs as the estate could afford. He’d been delaying far too long as it was in the hope he could change the fortunes of Marchingham Hall. Thus far, it had proven a losing battle.
Lion held up a gloved hand for Miss Fox. She was quite pale, snow lining what had been a dashing hat with flowers and feathers, matching her travel pelisse. Her lower lip quivered, her teeth chattering.
He banished a swift rush of sympathy, for she had brought this on herself with her madcap scheming. She was fortunate she hadn’t frozen to death in that blasted stuck carriage. She accepted his aid, dismounting stiffly and stumbling into him.
When she collided with his chest, he grasped her waist, steadying her.
“Oh,” she exclaimed.
The scent of violets permeated the air. Violets with a hint of orris root. He’d caught absurd little traces of her perfume on the ride to Marchingham Hall.
Her eyes were a truly mesmerizing shade of green, brilliant as spring grass. A snowflake caught on her golden lashes, and her hands were on his shoulders, as if holding him to her in a loving embrace.
