She was going to be stranded somewhere overnight—without any female companion and without a great deal of money since she had refused what her great-aunts had tried to press upon her. She would be fortunate if that somewhere did not turn out to be this carriage.

The very thought was enough to make her gasp for air.

But it was a distinct possibility. It had seemed to her eyes just a couple of minutes ago that the road was all but invisible.

She countered panic this time by setting her feet neatly side by side on the slightly warm brick and clasping her hands loosely in her lap.

She would trust to the skills of the strange, impertinent Peters, who had turned out not to be hunchbacked after all.

Now this would be an adventure with which to regale her friends when she finally reached Bath, she thought. Perhaps if she looked more closely at him, the gentleman would even turn out to be describable as tall, dark, and handsome—the proverbial knight in shining armor, in fact. That would have Susanna’s eyes popping out of her head and Anne’s eyes softening with a romantic glow. And it would have Claudia pursing her lips and looking suspicious.

But, oh, dear, it was going to be hard to find any humor or any romance in this situation, even when she looked back on it from the safety of the school.

His mother had warned him that it would snow before the day was out. So had his sisters. So had his grandfather.

So indeed had his own common sense.

But since he rarely listened to advice—especially when offered by his family—and rarely heeded the dictates of common sense, here he was in the midst of a snowfall to end snowfalls and looking forward with less than eager zeal to spending the night at some obscure country inn in the middle of nowhere. At least he hoped he would spend it at some inn rather than in a hovel or—worse yet—inside his carriage.