A blast of air whipped across the country road, swirling ice and rain in her face. The horse skidded and slid while Jack cursed. Sophia felt his entire body draw tight as she cried out in fear. The world seemed to tilt at a dangerous angle for one horrific moment before it righted once more. Sophia’s heart pounded as she fought to breathe. She was all too aware that they’d almost taken a dangerous fall, but at least their pace was slowing, albeit with a choppy rhythm. And then, blessedly, they drew to a halt.
Jack swiftly dismounted and pulled Sophia down while his horse limped slightly forward while shaking its head.
“I think he might have hurt himself,” Jack shouted over the howling wind. He ran a soothing hand over his horse’s flank before checking its legs and hooves. “The shoe has sprung on this side. Even a gentle pace will prove a chore for him now until I have a chance to remove it.”
“I can walk the rest of the way and get help,” Sophia suggested. “Or maybe we could return to the Scotts’ until the storm passes. I think they might be closer.”
Jack glanced in each direction while shielding his eyes against the elements. “There. Is that a house?”
Sophia peered through the falling sleet obstructing her vision and squinted when she spotted a square construction. “I’ve no idea.”
“Come on,” Jack said, and started forward. His horse limped along beside him.
“All right.” Sophia didn’t move. “You can seek shelter there with your horse while I go and fetch Mr. Fenmore and Edward.”
“Stop it, Sophia. We’re going to wait there together until this weather has passed.” He jutted his chin toward the structure in the distance. “Letting you head off alone would be the height of irresponsibility on my part.”
She huffed a breath, considered arguing, but decided against it when another blast of air knocked her sideways. The sleet nearly rendered her blind and while she had no wish to get stuck alone with Jack for any length of time, walking off alone in this weather would be both foolish and reckless. So she quickened her stride and hastened after his retreating form while sheets of white closed in around them. To her dismay, it looked like the storm was getting worse, not better.
“Do you know how to start a fire?” Jack asked when they stepped inside what appeared to be a shepherd’s hut. Consisting of one tiny room with a stove in one corner and windows on either side, it sat on large iron wheels so it could be moved from field to field.
“I think I can manage although there are only a couple of logs in the bucket.”
“Should be enough to see us through the next few hours.” Jack rummaged around and eventually grabbed a fur pelt and some rope. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Shaking with cold, Sophia placed one log in the stove, added a handful of kindling, and used an available tinderbox to spark a flame. By the time Jack returned, slamming the door shut behind him, a slow but steady heat was beginning to emanate from the stove. Sophia glanced at him and instantly sucked in a breath as she rushed to pull him closer to the warmth.
“What happened to your greatcoat?”
“I managed to get Star to lie down next to the hut so he keeps his weight off his foot. I’ve spread my greatcoat and the pelt over him in an effort to keep him warm.” He shrugged out of his jacket as he spoke, then went to work on his soggy cravat. His fingers were rigid, his movements jerky. “You ought to remove your wet clothes as well before the chill gets any worse.”
“You…you want me to undress?” she asked. Her teeth clanked together as they chattered. She pulled her cloak tighter but all that did was make her colder as her frozen clothes pressed into her skin. “With you here?”
He gave her a look as if to say she’d be foolish to think he might step back outside, and pulled his shirt free from his trousers. “It’s up to you, but I would rather attend your wedding in three weeks from now instead of your funeral. Remember, the Scott boys didn’t drown, Sophia. They perished because of the cold.”
He wasn’t wrong. Peter and Philip were still alive when they were pulled from the freezing water. It was the sickness that followed that killed them. With this in mind, Sophia took a step closer to the stove and stuck out her hands in an effort to warm them while doing her best to ignore the man beside her – a man who had now removed his shirt. Out of the corner of her eye she could tell he’d gone to work on his trousers. Surely he did not mean to undress completely. Did he?
The very idea that he might caused her stomach to tighten and her pulse to race. They were in a tiny space designed for one person, and Jack was in the process of getting naked. Lord help her, she had no idea what to do, where to look, much less what to say. So she kept her eyes fixed on the stove and her mouth tightly shut while telling herself to keep calm. He was just being practical. Nothing wrong with that. No sensible person could blame him for trying to stay alive, right? In fact, if she valued her own life she’d do the same.
Only she couldn’t. The very idea of removing her clothes with Jack right there was so outrageous she could not bring herself to do it.
“Sophia?”
She glanced toward him without even thinking. Big mistake.
Her breath caught in response to the hard planes of muscle that caught her eye. It was like gazing upon a perfectly sculpted work of art, only better – more impressive due to the flesh and muscle rippling with every small movement he made. Her gaze swept over his shoulders, down the length of his arms and across the firm contours defining his chest.
Before she’d looked her fill, he moved, snatching up something he promptly held toward her. “Here. Take this.”
She forced her gaze to his hand and the blanket he held. The moment she grabbed it, he swung another blanket around himself, concealing his body from view.
“I strongly suggest you follow my lead,” he said, his dark brown eyes meeting hers. “If it makes it any easier for you, I’ll look the other way while you take off your dress.”
He turned away from her. Sophia’s grip on the blanket tightened. She was freezing and yet…
Swallowing, she glanced at the stove. It was doing its job but it would take forever to get her warmed up as long as she wore wet clothes. And was propriety really worth risking her health over? She considered the pros and cons. If she got undressed, no one would know besides her and Jack, and since she knew he had no interest in her inthatway, then where was the harm? On the other hand, if she kept her clothes on, she might die.
She took a deep breath and made her decision. “I’ll need your help. The closure is in the back.”
