Praise for Sophia James

HIGH SEAS TO HIGH SOCIETY

‘James weaves her spell, captivating readers with wit and wisdom, and cleverly combining humour and poignancy with a master’s touch in this feel-good love story.’

—RT Book Reviews

MASQUERADING MISTRESS

‘Bold and tantalising, plotted like a mystery and slowly exposing each layer of the multi-dimensional plot and every character’s motivations, James’s novel is a page-turner.’

—RT Book Reviews

ASHBLANE’S LADY

‘An excellent tale of love, this book is more than a romance; it pulls at the heartstrings and makes you wish the story wouldn’t end.’

—RT Book Reviews

To lie with a man in a snow-filled night, safe after adversity.

A man with a man’s body, a man’s tastes, the smell of his skin woody and strong, his muscles even in the dimness defined and substantive. She was presented with a fine handsome man and a night that would hold no questions.

The ghost of a smile played around Bea’s lips before sense reined it in. Of course she could not take advantage of the situation. She was a lady and a widow. Besides, already she thought his body had relaxed into sleep, the even cadence of his breath confirming it. To him she was nothing more than a warm skin to survive against. When the tip of her finger reached out to the ridge of his shoulderblade and traced the muscle in air, she wished that she might have been braver and truly touched him.

So unwise, another voice cautioned, the knowledge of her plainness leading only to rejection that would be embarrassing to them both.

Sophia James lives in Chelsea Bay, on Auckland, New Zealand’s, North Shore, with her husband, who is an artist, and three children. She spends her morning teaching adults English at the local Migrant School, and writes in the afternoon. Sophia has a degree in English and History from Auckland University, and believes her love of writing was formed reading Georgette Heyer with her twin sister at her grandmother’s house.

Previous novels by the same author:

FALLEN ANGEL

ASHBLANE’S LADY

HIGH SEAS TO HIGH SOCIETY

MASQUERADING MISTRESS

KNIGHT OF GRACE

MISTLETOE MAGIC

(part of Christmas Betrothals)

ONE UNASHAMED NIGHT has characters you will have met in HIGH SEAS TO HIGH SOCIETY.

Look for Cristo’s story. Coming soon.

AUTHOR NOTE

ONE UNASHAMED NIGHT is the second book in a family trilogy about the three Wellingham brothers, Asher, Taris and Cristo. Asher, the Duke of Carisbrook, appeared in HIGH SEAS TO HIGH SOCIETY, and I received many letters from fans who were fascinated by his younger brother, Taris, and wanted to read his story.

Well, here he is! Lord Taris Wellingham is an intensely private man, and one who keeps the world at bay in order to preserve his greatest secret. Cristo’s book is yet to come. He has had only a vague mention so far, but as a spy for England in France he has his own demons and distance.

I’d like to dedicate this book to three wonderful women in my life. Pat Rendall, for her insight into the world of darkness, my mother Jewell Kivell, for enthusiastically reading the first draft, and Linda Fildew, my fantastic editor, for her patience with and belief in all of my books.

One Unashamed Night
Sophia James

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Table of Contents

Cover Page

Praise

Excerpt

About the Author

Other Books By

AUTHOR NOTE

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Copyright

Chapter One

Maldon, England—January 1826

The darkness was pulling him down even as he fought to escape it, his eyes widening to catch a tiny tendril of light, the flare of it making him shout out, wanting it, the last colour before complete blackness enveloped him…

‘Sir, sir. Wake up. It’s a dream you are having.’

The voice came from somewhere close and Lord Taris Wellingham slipped from sleep and returned to the warmth of the carriage travelling south to London with a jolt. A face blurred before him, but in the dusk he could not tell whether the woman was young or old. Her voice was soft, almost musical, the lisp on the letter V denoting perhaps a genteel upbringing in the north?

With care he turned away, fingers stiff against the silver ball on top of his ebony cane and all his defences raised.

‘I would ask for your forgiveness for my lapse in manners, madam.’

The small laugh surprised him. ‘Oh. You do indeed have it, sir.’

This time there was decided humour in her tone, and something more hidden. He wished he was able to see the hue of her eyes or the shade of her hair, but any form of colour had long since gone, leached now even in full sunlight and replaced by the grey sludge of silhouette.

A netherworld. His world. And the ability to hide his disability was all the dignity left to him.

Taking a breath he held it, seeking in silence a path to follow. He pretended to read the watch on the chain at his waist, hating such deceit, but in company it was what he had been reduced to—a man on the edge of his world and in danger of falling off.

‘Another hour and a half to reach our destination, I should imagine.’ The woman’s guess was like a gift for it gave him a timeframe, something to hang any suggestion of their whereabouts upon.

‘Unless the weather worsens.’ Outside he could hear a keening wind and the temperature had dropped sharply, even in the space of the moments he had been asleep. Tilting his head, he listened to the sound of the wheels beneath them and determined the snow to have deepened too.

Unexpectedly tension filled his body. Something was wrong. The whirr of the wheel on the right side was off, unbalanced, scraping against steel.

He shook away the concern and cursed his oversensitive hearing, deeming it far better to concentrate on other things. There were four other people in the carriage, he had counted them as they got in, this woman the only one on his side. One of the gentlemen was asleep, his snores soft through the night, and the other was speaking to an older woman about household tasks and the hiring of servants. His mother, perhaps, for there was a tone in his voice suggesting affection.

The wheel was worsening, the sound underlined by a tremor in the chassis. He felt it easily in the vibration where his palm lay open against the window. No longer able to ignore danger, Taris lifted his cane and banged hard on the roof.

But it was too late! The vehicle lurched to the right as the axle snapped, the scream of the driver eerie in the darkness, the splintering of wood, the quick crunch of the door on his side against earth, the rolling shock of impact as people tumbled over and over. When his head was thrown against metal, a sharp pain followed.

And then silence.

Bodies were everywhere, the groans of the older woman taking precedence, the sobs of her son muted and fearful. The other two occupants made no noise at all and Taris’s hands reached over.

The woman beside him still breathed—he could feel the warmth of air against his fingers—whilst the previously snoring gentleman had neither pulse nor breath, his neck arched at a strange angle.

Inky blackness now covered everything, the lamps gone and the moon tonight a slice of nothing.

His world! Easier than daylight. Throwing down his cane, he stood.

Beatrice-Maude Bassingstoke could barely believe what had happened. Her head ached and her top lip was cut inside.

An accident. A terrible accident. The realisation made her shake and she clamped her mouth shut to try to hide the noise as her teeth chattered together.

In the slight beam of light the dark-haired stranger gently lifted the lifeless body of a man whom she could see was well and truly dead and laid him on the floor. The older woman opposite broke into peals of panicked terror as she too registered this fact and her younger companion tried fruitlessly to console her.

‘Enough, madam.’ The tall man’s voice brooked no argument and the woman fell silent, a greater problem now taking her attention.

‘It…it is f…freezing.’

‘At least we are still alive, Mama, and I am certain that this gentleman can repair things.’ Her grown son looked up, supplication written on his face. He made no effort at all to rise himself, but stayed with his arm around his mother’s shoulders in a vain attempt to keep her warm, for the whole side of the carriage lay buckled and twisted, the door that had been there before completely missing.

‘If you will give me a moment, I will try to cover the opening.’ The tall man’s cape was caught by the wind as he stepped out, the crumpled chassis of the coach making his exit more difficult than it would otherwise have been. Framed by snow, she saw his hair escape the confines of his queue and fall nightblack against the darkness of his clothes and she could barely wrench her eyes from his profile.

He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen! The thought hit her with all the force of surprise and she squashed down such ridiculousness.

Frankwell Bassingstoke had been a handsome man too, and look where that had got her. Swallowing, she turned back towards the woman and, rummaging in her reticule, pulled out a handkerchief and handed it over.

‘Where did the man go to? Why is he not back?’ The older woman’s voice held panic as she took the cloth and blew her nose soundly, the hysteria of fright heightened by a realisation that their lives depended on the one who had just left them to find the missing portal. Already the temperature had dropped further; the air was harder to breath. Lord, Bea thought, what must it be like outside in the snow and the wind and the icy tracks of road with only a slither of light?

Perhaps he had perished or was in need of a voice to call him back to the coach, lost as he was in the whiteness? Perhaps they sat here as he took his last breath in a noble but futile effort to save them?

Angry both at her imagination and immobility, she wrapped her cloak around her head so that only her eyes were visible and edged herself out into the weather, meaning to help.

He stood ten yards away, easing the driver from the base of a hedge, carefully holding his neck so that it was neither jarred nor bent. He wore no gloves and the cloak he had left the carriage with was now wrapped about the injured man, a small blanket of warmth against the bitter cold. Without thick wool upon him his own shirt was transparent, a useless barrier against such icy rain.

‘Can I help you?’ she shouted, her voice taken by the wind and his eyes caught hers as he turned, squinting against the hail.

‘Go back. You will freeze out here.’ She saw the strength in him as he hoisted the driver in his arms and came towards her. Scrambling for shelter, she turned to assist him once she was back in the relative warmth of the coach.

‘There is no room in here,’ the old lady grumbled as she refused to shift over even a little and Beatrice swept the reticule from her own seat and crouched, her breath forming white clouds in the darkness as she replied.

‘Put him here, sir. He can lie here.’

The tall man placed the other gently on the seat, though he made no effort to come in himself.

‘Look after him,’ he shouted and again was gone, the two other occupants silent in his wake.

One man dead, one man injured, one older woman hysterical and one younger man useless. Bea’s catalogue of their situation failed to include either her injuries or that of the tall stranger, but when he had stood by the door she had noticed blood near his eye, trickling across his face and the front of his white, white shirt in a steady stream of red.

He used his hands a lot, she thought, something that was unusual in a man. He had used them to slide down the cheek of the dead gentleman opposite and across the arms and legs of the driver who lay beside her, checking the angle of bones and the absence of breath and the warmth or coldness of skin.

When she had felt his fingers on the pulse at her neck as she had awakened after the accident, warmth had instantly bloomed. She wished he might have ventured lower, the tight want in her so foreign it had made her dizzy…

Shock consumed such daydreams. She was a twenty-eight-year-old widow who had no possible need or want for any man again. Ever. Twelve years of hell had cured her of that.

The movements of the older lady and her son brought her back to the present as they tried to unwrap the driver from the cocoon of the borrowed cape and take it for their own use. Laying her hands across the material, Bea pressed down.

‘I do not think that the gentleman who gave him this cloak would appreciate your taking it.’

‘He is only the driver…’ the man began, as if social status should dictate the order of death, but he did not continue as the one from outside appeared yet again.

‘M…m…ove b…b…ack.’

His voice shook with the coldness of a good quarter of an hour out in the elements with very little on and in his hands he held the door.

Hoisting himself in, he wedged the door between the broken edges, some air still seeping through the gaping jagged holes, but infinitely better than what had been there a second earlier.

Beads of water ran down his face and his shirt was soaked to the skin, sticking against his body so that the outline of muscle and sinew was plainly evident. A body used to work and sport. Taking a cloth from her bag, Bea caught his arm and handed it to him, the gloom of the carriage picking up the white in his teeth as he smiled, their fingers touching with a shock of old knowledge.

Her world of books came closer: Chariclea and Theagenes, Daphnis and Chloe—just a few of the lovers from centuries past who had delighted her with their tales of passion.

But never for her.

The plainness of her visage would not attract a man like this one, a man who even now turned to the driver, finding his hand and measuring the beat of his heart against the count of numbers.

‘You have done this before?’ She was pleased her voice sounded so level-headed. So sensible.

‘Many times,’ he returned, swiping at hair that fell in dripping waves around his face. Long, much longer than most men kept theirs. There was arrogance in his smile, the look of a man who knew how attractive he was to women. All women. And certainly to one well past her prime.

Looking away, she hated the hammer beat of her heart. ‘Will anyone come, do you think?’

Another question. This time aimed at the carriage in general.

‘No one.’ The younger man was quick in his reply. ‘They will not come until the morning and by then Mama will be…’

‘Dead…dead and frozen.’ His mother finished the sentiment off, her pointless rant an extension of the son’s understanding of their predicament.

‘If we sit close and conserve our energy, we can wait it out for a few hours.’ The stranger’s voice held a strand of impatience, the first thread of anything other than the practicality that she had heard.

‘And after that…?’ The younger man’s voice shook.

‘If no one comes by midnight, I will take a horse and ride towards Brentwood.’

Bea stopped him. ‘But it is at least an hour away and in this weather…’ She left the rest unsaid.

‘Then we must hope for travellers on the road,’ he returned and brought out a silver flask from his pocket, the metal in it glinting in what little light there was.

After a good swallow he wiped the top and handed it over to her.

‘For warmth,’ he stated. ‘Give it to the others when you have had some.’ Although she was a woman who seldom touched alcohol, she did as he said, the fire-hot draught of the liquor chasing away the cold. The older woman and younger man, however, did not wish for any. Not knowing quite what to do now, she tried to hand it back to the man squeezed in beside her.

When he neither reached for it nor shook his head, she left it on her lap, the cap screwed back on with as much force as she could manage so that not a drop would be wasted. He had much on his mind, which explained his indifference, she decided, the flask and its whereabouts the least of all his worries.

Finding her own bag wedged under the seat, she brought out the Christmas cake that she had procured before leaving Brampton. Three days ago? She could barely believe it was only that long. Unfolding the paper around the delicacy, she looked up.

‘Would everyone like a piece?’

The two opposite reached out and she laid a generous portion in their hands, but the tall man did nothing, merely tilting his head as though listening for something. Beatrice tried to imagine what it was that had caught his attention as she tucked the cake away. She did not take any either, reasoning perhaps he wished for her to ration the food just in case the snowstorm kept up and nobody came.

Nobody. The very word cast her mind in other directions. There would be nobody to meet her or to miss her if she failed to arrive in London. Not this week or the next one.

Perhaps the head gardener whom she had befriended in the past few weeks might one day wonder why she had never come to visit as she had promised she would, but that would be the very most of it. She could vanish here and be swallowed up by snow and her disappearance would not cause a single ripple.

Twenty-eight years old and friendless. The thought would have made her sadder if she had not cultivated her aloofness for a reason. Protection was a many-faceted thing and her solitariness had helped when Frankwell, in his last years, had become a man who wanted to know everything about everyone.

Lord, she smiled wryly. Easier than the man he had first been, at least. She felt with her forefinger for the scar that ran down from her elbow, the edges of skin healed as badly as the care she had received after the accident had happened. So badly, in fact, that she had worn long-sleeved gowns ever since, even in the summer.

Summer? Why was she thinking of warmth when the temperature in this coach must be way below freezing point now?

The driver groaned loudly, struggling to sit, his face a strange shade of pale as he opened his eyes.

‘What happened?’

The tall man answered his question. ‘The wheel fell off the carriage and we overturned.’

‘And the horses? Where are the horses?’

‘I tethered them under a nearby tree. They should last a few hours with the shelter the branches are affording them.’

‘Brentwood is at least an hour on and Colchester two hours back.’ He hung down his head into his hands and looked across at the three figures opposite, his face curling into fear as he saw the dead passenger.

‘If they think that this is my fault, I’ll lose me job and if that happens…’

The right wheel feathered from its axle. It would take an inspector two minutes to ascertain such damage and I can attest to your good skill in driving should the need arise.’

‘And who might you be, sir?’

‘Taris Wellingham.’

Beatrice thought she had never heard a more interesting name. Taris. She turned the unusual name over in her mind as the driver rattled on.

‘The next packet won’t be along till after dawn even should we fail to arrive in Brentwood. They will think in this weather we have sheltered in Ingatestone or stopped further back at Great Baddow. By morning we will all be in the place that he has gone to.’ His hand gestured to the passenger opposite, but he stopped when the old woman started to wail.

‘It will not come to that, madam.’ Taris Wellingham broke into her cries. ‘I have already promised to ride on.’

‘Not alone, sir.’ Beatrice surprised herself with such an outburst, but in these climes a single misstep could mean the difference between life and death and a companion could counter at least some of that danger. ‘Besides, I am a good horsewoman.’ Or had been, she thought, fifteen years ago in the countryside around Norwich.

‘There is no promise that we will make the destination, madam,’ he returned, ‘and so any such thing is out of the question.’

But Bea stood firm. ‘How many horses are there?’

‘Four, although one is lame.’

‘I am not a child, sir, and if I have a desire to accompany you to the next town and a horse is available for me, then I can see no reason why you should be dictating the terms.’

‘You could die if you come.’

‘Or die here if you fail to come back.’

‘This is a busy road…’

‘Upon which we have not seen another vehicle since the journey was resumed after luncheon.’

He smiled, the warmth in his face seen even through the gloom surprising her into a blush. ‘It would be dangerous.’

‘Less so with the two of us.’

‘I’ll take the driver with me, then.’

‘Both his hands are broken, sir. Surely you can see the angle of his fingers. He is going nowhere!’

Silence greeted her last outburst, but she heard him draw in a careful breath and just as carefully expel it.

‘What are you called?’ The imperiousness of his tone brought to mind a man who seldom had to wait for anything.

‘Mrs Bassingstoke. Mrs Beatrice-Maude Bassingstoke.’ She never felt happy giving her name and this occasion was no different, though the eyes that watched her did not fill with the more usual amusement. Nay, rather they seemed to focus above her and away as if he were already plotting their journey.

‘Very well, Mrs Bassingstoke. Do you have other clothes in your bag?’

‘I do, sir.’

‘Then I should take them from where you have them and dress in as many layers as you can manage.’ He passed the fabric she had given him a few moments earlier back. ‘You will need this shawl for your neck.’

‘It is a muslin cloth, sir. From around the cake.’

He hesitated. ‘In lieu of a scarf it will do.’

Damn it, Taris thought, the thing had felt just like a woman’s scarf. Sometimes the sharpness of touch deserted him as fully as sight did and he had heard a questioning note in the voice of this Beatrice-Maude Bassingstoke.

Her voice did not suit the hardness of her name though in its careful cadence he fancied he heard the whisper of secrets.

Bassingstoke? A Norfolk family and she had made mention of Brampton. He had heard something only last month about them, though he could not quite remember what. Would this woman hail from the same bloodline? The quiet strength in her voice had helped him with everything and she had not eaten any of the cake when he had failed to understand what it was she was offering and did not reach out. Even now the small scent of raisins and rum permeated the air and he wished he might have asked her to open her bag again and cut him a slice.

The thought made him smile, though in truth there was very little humour in their situation. If a carriage or a horseman did not pass by soon he would need to get going himself, for the breathing of the older woman was becoming more shallow, a sign that the cold was getting to her. At least the lady next to him seemed determined to accompany him and for that he was glad. He would need a set of good eyes on the frozen road, one that could see even a glimmer of light in any of the fields, denoting a farmhouse or a barn. In this cold any help was gratifying. He had looked for his own luggage outside but could not glean even a shape of it in the snow. Indeed, the carriage had dragged along for a good few seconds before it had tipped and his case might be anywhere. A pity! The clothes inside it would have been an extra layer that he would have to do without, though with the driver recovered he could ask for his cloak to be returned at least.

He listened to the rustle of Beatrice-Maude Bassingstoke dressing, her arm against his as she wriggled into the extra layers. A thin arm, he realised, the bones of it fragile.

Finally she seemed ready. He wanted to ask her if she had a hat on. He wanted to know if her boots were sturdy. He voiced none of these questions, however, deciding that silence was the wiser option and that Mrs Bassingstoke seemed, even on such a short acquaintance, a rather determined woman and one sensible enough to wrap herself up warm against the elements.

Chapter Two

The weather had worsened when they slipped outside half an hour later, Taris Wellingham carefully replacing the door and patting wads of snow in the gaps that he felt along both edges.

Bea was relieved in a sense to be away from the carriage and doing something, the wait almost worse in the extreme cold than this concerted push of energy, though her heartbeat rose with the fear of being swirled away by the wind and lost into greyness.

As if he could read her mind his hand reached out and clamped across her own, pulling her with him towards the horses, who were decidedly jumpy.

His fingers skimmed across the head of the big grey nearest to him, and down the side to the leather trace, hardened by ice.

‘You take this one.’

He held his hand out as a step, and she quickly mounted, abandoning propriety to ride astride. Gathering the reins in tight, she stepped the horse away from the tree. Her hat was a godsend, the wide brim gathering flakes and giving her some respite from the storm. She watched as Taris Wellingham gained his seat and turned the horse towards her, his cloak once again in place and the hat of the younger man jammed in a strange manner down across his ears.

‘We’ll ride south.’

Away from the direction they had come, which was a sensible choice given the lack of any buildings seen for miles.

Please, God, let there be a house or a barn or travellers who knew the way well. Please, please let us find a warm and safe place and men who could rescue the others. Her litany to an everpresent and omnipotent deity turned over and over, the echoes of other unanswered prayers she had offered up over the years slightly disturbing.

No, she should not think such thoughts, for only grateful vassals of the Lord would be listened to. Had not Frankwell told her that? Squinting her eyes against the driving snow, she lay low across the horse, the warmth of its skin giving her some respite from the cold and she kept her mind very carefully blank.

Quarter of an hour later she knew she could go no further. Everything was numb. Taris Wellingham on the horse beside her looked a lot less uncomfortable, though she knew him to have on fewer clothes than she did. A man used to the elements and its excesses, she supposed. A man who strode through his life with the certainty that only came with innate self-assurance. So unlike her!

When the shapes of two travellers on horses loomed out of the swirling whiteness she could barely believe them to be real.

‘There…in front of us…’ she shouted, pointing at them and amazed that Taris Wellingham had as not yet reacted to the sighting. The shout of the newcomers was heard and they waited in silence as the men came abreast.

‘The coach from Colchester is late. We have been sent to find it. Are you some of that party?’

‘We are, but it is a good fifteen minutes back,’ Taris shouted. ‘The wheel sheared away…’

‘And the passengers?’

‘One dead and two more lie inside with the driver, who is badly injured.’

The other man swore.

‘Fifteen minutes back, you say. We will have to take them over to Bob Winter’s place for the night, then, but that’s another twenty or so minutes from here and you look as if you may not be able to stand the journey.’

‘What of the old Smith barn?’ the other yelled. ‘The hay is in and the walls are sturdy.’

‘Where is it?’ Taris Wellingham sounded tired, the gash on his head still seeping and new worry filled her.

‘Five minutes on from here is a path to the left marked with a white stone. Turn there and wait for help. We will send it when we can.’

When we can? The very thought had Bea’s ire running.

‘I cannot…’

But the others were gone, spurred on by the wind and by need and by the thick white blankets of snow.

‘It’s our only chance,’ Taris shouted, a peal of thunder underlining his reason. The next flash of lightning had her horse rearing up and though she managed to remain seated, the jolt worsened the ache of her lip. Tears pooled in her eyes, scalding hot down her cheeks, the only warmth in the frozen waste of the world.

‘I’m sorry.’ She saw him looking, his expression so unchanged she knew instantly that he was one of those men who loathed histrionics.

‘Look for the pathway, Mrs Bassingstoke. We just need to find the damn barn.’

Prickly. High-handed. Disdainful.

Dashing her tears away with the wet velvet of her cloak, she hated the fact that she had shown any man such weakness. Again.

The path was nowhere. No stone to mark it, no indent where feet might have travelled, no telltale breakage in the hedges to form a track or furrows in the road where carts might have often travelled.

‘Are you looking?’

Lord, this was the fifth time he had asked her that very question and she was running out of patience. She wondered why he had dismounted and was leading his steed, his feet almost in the left-hand ditch on the road. Feeling with his feet. For what? What did he search for? Why did he not just ride, fast in the direction they had been shown?

She knew the answer even as she mulled it over. It was past five minutes and if they had missed the trail…?

Suddenly an avenue of trees loomed up.

‘Here! It is here!’

He turned into the wind and waited.

‘Where? What do you see?’

‘Trees. In a row. Ten yards to the left.’

The stone was where the travellers had said it would be, but covered in snow it was barely visible, a marker that blended in with its background, alerting no one to the trail it guarded.

When Taris Wellingham’s feet came against it she saw the way he leant over, brushing the snow from the top in a strangely guarded motion, the tips of his fingers purple with the extreme and bitter cold. The stillness in him was dramatic, caught against the blowing trees and the moving landscape and the billowing swirls of his cloak. A man frozen in just this second of time, the hard planes of his face angled to the heavens as though in prayer.

Thank the Lord they had found the barn, Taris thought, and squinted against the cold, trying to see the vestige of a pathway, his eyes watering with the effort.

Beatrice-Maude Bassingstoke’s teeth behind him chattered with an alarming loudness, though she had not spoken to him for the last few moments.

‘Are you able to make it to the barn?’ he asked, the concern in his voice mounting.

‘O…of c…c…course I c…c…can.’

‘If you need any help…?’

‘I sh…shan’t.’ Tears were close.

‘Are you always so prickly, Mrs Bassingstoke?’ Anger was easier to deal with than distress and with experience Taris had come to the realisation that a bit of annoyance gave women strength.

But this one was different, her silence punctuated now with sniffs, hidden he supposed by the muffled sound behind the thick velvet of her cloak.

A woman at the very end of her tether and who could blame her? She had not sat in the coach expecting others to save her or bemoaned the cold or the accident. She had not complained about the deceased passenger or made a fuss when she had had to vacate her seat to allow the driver some space. No, this woman was a lady who had risen to each difficulty with the fortitude of one well able to cope. Until now. Until an end was in sight, a warm barn with the hope of safety.

He had seen such things before in the war years in Europe, when soldiers after a battle had simply gone to pieces, the fact that they had remained unscathed whilst so many others had perished around them pushing them over the edge.

A place where Beatrice-Maude Bassingstoke seemed to have reached.

He wished he could have scanned her face for a clue as to her state of well-being, but with only the near-silent sniffles he had little to go on.

How much further to go, he wondered, the snow deepening in the trail with every passing step, though an eddy in the wind against his face told him that a building must be near, the breeze passing over an edifice and rising.

His own awareness of the proximity of objects kicked in too, his cursed lack of sight honing other senses. Placing his hand against the solidness of wood, he thanked God for their deliverance and reached out for the bridle of his companion’s horse.

‘I will help you down.’

‘Th…thank y…you.’

Her hand came to his shoulder as he lifted his arms, fitting them around a waist that was worryingly thin. When he had her down she held on to him still, her fingers entwined in the cloth of his cape.

‘I c…can’t feel my f…feet,’ she explained when he tilted his head in question.

‘Then I’ll carry you.’ Hoisting her against him, he walked a few paces around the edge of the building, finding it open on the southern side, the horses following them in.

The smell of hay and silage was strong and another smell too. Chickens, he thought, listening for the tell-tale sound of scratching. Perhaps there might be eggs or grain here.

Taris liked the feeling of Beatrice-Maude’s breath against his collarbone, the warm shallowness of it a caress that surprised him. How old was this lady? When her hand rested against the smoothness of his skin, he felt a band of gold on the third finger of her left hand.

Worry engulfed him. Would her husband be mad with worry somewhere?

‘I c…can s…see that th…there are bl…blankets in the f…far corner, I th…think. Perhaps we c…could w…warm ourselves.’

Which corner? In the gloom of his vision Taris could detect nothing save the walls enclosing this space. Another thought heartened him. Perhaps if he let her down she might lead him to them.

When her feet touched the dirt floor Beatrice winced, the numbness now replaced by a pins-and-needles pain that made contact with anything unbearable. She could never in her whole life remember feeling this cold, the sheer pain of it seeping into her bones and making her heavy and sluggish. She almost crawled to the corner, glad to finally be off her feet; removing her boots, she burrowed into the warmth of a scratchy grey horse blanket.

But her clothes were wet and stiff and the cold that she thought might disappear suddenly increased with the change in circumstance.

Taris Wellingham at her side was peeling off his cloak, and the wet steamy shirt he had on followed it.

She looked away, her breath indrawn by the tone of muscle, the shaped contours attesting to the fact that he must spend much of his life out of doors.

‘Take your cloak off too,’ he said as he jumped under her blanket and heaped his cloak on top.

‘Wh…what are you d…doing?’ Panic lent a screeching sound to the query.

‘One can die of the cold in a matter of moments. Skin to skin we can warm each other.’

‘Sk…in to skin?’ Lord, that he should even suggest such a thing.

‘Feel this,’ he returned and placed her hand across her throat. A clammy coldness emanated from her, the beat of her heart beneath shallow and fast.

‘And then feel this.’

Now her fingers lay against his chest, the hair tickling her palm. But it was his heat that got to her, a blazing hotness that seemed to cover each and every part of him.

She could not pull away, could not make herself remember manners and propriety and comportment. All she wanted was to be closer and when he helped her take the cloak from her shoulders she did nothing to dissuade him.

‘How old are you?’ he said above the silence.

‘Tw…twenty-eight.’

‘And your husband?’

‘Is d…dead.’

‘Then I have no need to be concerned that an avenging swain will appear and challenge me to a duel.’

‘No, sir. It is only your w…warmth that I w…want.’

‘Good.’ His response was measured and brisk, her worries about anything more between them singularly ridiculous in the whole situation.

Of course he would not want more from her! She bent her head so that he might not see her blush. Lord, the thinness of her arms against his healthy shape was unattractive and her dress with the long sleeves was as wet as his shirt.

‘Take this off, too.’

‘I will n…not.’

In response he simply sat her up and unbuttoned the gown before slipping it from her. In the darkness she saw that the livid red scar near her elbow was difficult to make out. Still when his fingers touched the skin they lingered, his question of how this had happened almost a physical thing in the gloom.

‘I f…fell against a f…fence.’

‘And it was not tended?’

‘The doctor tried his hardest…’

A sharp bark of laughter confused her. Not humorous in any way. Just harsh. Critical.

Her stays and chemise and petticoat beneath were a little damp and she was pleased he did not insist she take them off too. She noticed after removing his boots he left his own trousers on, the wet fabric catching on the skin of her legs as they laid themselves down.

Together. Spooned. His back against her face. She could not help her hands wandering to the warmth.

‘Will the h…horses b…be s…safe?’

‘They will keep warm together if they have any sense.’

‘You h…have d…done this before? B…been caught in the s…snow, I mean?’ Lord, the clumsiness of her question made her stiffen. Of course he would have lain with a woman. Many women probably, with his fine face and his courage!

He did not seem to notice her faltering as he answered her question. ‘I fought in Europe in the Second Peninsular campaign and it often was colder there than in England. The men were not as soft as you are, though, when we lay down at night.’ A smile was audible in his voice.

A personal compliment! Bea left the edge of awkwardness alone and thought about other things: the sound of the horses nuzzling in, the snow outside, and a wind that howled through the rafters of the roof. All things to keep her mind off a growing realisation that the warmth was no longer concentrated solely in him.

To lie with a man in a snow-filled night, safe after adversity, a man who was neither sickly nor mean. A man with a man’s body, a man’s tastes, the smell of his skin woody and strong, his muscles even in the dimness defined and substantive.

So unlike Frankwell.

Years of celibacy suddenly weighed against opportunity; the widow Bassingstoke was presented with a fine handsome man and a night that would hold no questions.

The ghost of a smile played around her lips before sense reined it in. Of course she could not take advantage of the situation. She was a lady and a widow. Besides, already she thought his body had relaxed into sleep, the even cadence of his breath confirming it. To him she was nothing more than a warm skin to survive against. When the tip of her finger reached out to the ridge of his shoulder blade and traced the muscle in air, she wished that she might have been braver and truly touched him.

So unwise, another voice cautioned, the knowledge of her plainness leading only to a rejection that would be embarrassing to them both.

He came awake with a start. Where the hell was he? A leg lay across his stomach. A shapely leg by the feel of it, fully exposed almost up to the groin.

His groan took him by surprise, his manhood rising without any help from his mind.

Lord. Mrs Beatrice-Maude Bassingstoke had a sensuality about her that was elemental. He had not felt it before with his tiredness and his worry, but here with the first slam of awareness he was knocked for six. It lay in her smell and the breath of trust against his chest. It lingered in the hair uncoiled from the tight knot he had felt before finding sleep and which now curtained across him, thick and curly. The line of her breasts too was surprising. The thinness of her waist and of her arms was not mirrored here, her fat abundance of soft womanhood moulded against him, her nipples through thin lawn grazing his own with a surprising result.

God. His erection had grown again, filling the space of his trousers with warmth and promise. God, he muttered once more as she moved in sleep, this time all but crawling on top of him in her quest for warmth. His sex nudged at her thighs and he did not stop it, the very sensation tightly bound up in the forbiddenness of the situation.

A quandary he had no former experience of. A stranger who seduced him even in her sleep, the smell of her wafting beneath his nose. Flowers and woman.

And trust. A powerful aphrodisiac in a man who had forgotten the emotion, forgotten the very promise of intimate closeness!

He opened his eyes as widely as he could, trying to catch in them a reflection of light. Any light. But the darkness was complete, the snow and wind blocking moonbeams with the time, by his reckoning, being not much past the hour of two.

The witching hour. The hour he usually prowled the confines of his house away from the stares of others, darkness overcoming disability and all of the lights turned down.

Here, however, he did not wish to rise. Here he wanted to stay still, and just feel. The incline of her chest, the tremor in her hands as if a dream might have crept into her slumber, the feel of her hair wound around his fingers, clamping him to her.

His!

This thin and sensible lass, with her twenty-eight years and her widowhood.

Was it recent? Had her husband just died, the ring she wore a reminder of all the happy years she now would never enjoy? Were there children? Did she rule a domain of offspring and servants with her sense and sensibility? A woman at the centre of her world and with no need for any other? Certainly not for a man with fading sight and the quickening promise of complete blindness!

His arousal flagged slightly, but regained ground when her fingers clamped on his own, anchoring her to him. A ship in a storm, and any port welcomed.

He could not care. The rush of desire and need was unlike any he had ever experienced. He needed to take her, to possess her, to feel the softness of her flesh as he pushed inside to be lost in warmth.

He rocked slightly, guilt buried beneath want. And then he rocked again.

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