"I'm well enough," the coachman said, though his grizzled face showed tension around his mouth. " Tis sorry I am for running us off the road."

"It was an accident," Helen soothed. "Certainly we've survived worse. Remember that sandstorm in North Africa? And the earthquake in Turkey?"

"Lord Hathaway saved us from those catastrophes," Miss Gilbert said worriedly. "He led us to safety. How can we manage without him?"

Helen wondered, too.

Her father, the Marquess of Hathaway, often accompanied Helen on the journeys she had taken over the past five years. After the disastrous end to her betrothal, she had left England, restless to seek a new life. She had traveled the world, and as time passed, she had come to relish her freedom.

Lord Hathaway had intended to join her on this tour of the Highlands. But as they had been about to depart at dawn, a messenger had arrived from the docks. A fire had broken out on a ship belonging to his lordship, and he needed to assess the damages. Helen wanted to delay the trip, but her father insisted he could catch up to the party later.

That had been the first disaster of the day.

The second had occurred after luncheon, when a few pale flakes had drifted from the leaden sky. As it was too early in the season for a storm, Helen had insisted upon pressing onward. She was enthralled by the rugged scenery, so ancient and natural, the trees displaying their autumn brilliance. Except for the occasional croft with smoke drifting from a stone chimney, the Highlands were a rough masterpiece untouched by man. Great crags of rock towered over heather-carpeted moors. Once she glimpsed a herd of red deer grazing deep in the shadows of a pine forest. Another time, a waterfall shimmered against the mossy rock of a hill.

As the coach climbed higher into the mountains, the powdered-sugar dusting of snow had thickened into a dense white blanket. The wind whipped the flurries into a frenzied dance, but even then Helen had been enchanted by the savage splendor of it all…