And then she could feel the carriage rocking and slithering again and grasped for the strap once more. She looked out and ahead, not really expecting to see anything, but actually she could see a dark shape, which appeared to be blocking the way ahead. In one glimpse of near-clarity between snowflakes she saw that it was a carriage and horses. She even thought it might be a blue carriage.

But though the horses pulling her own had drawn to a halt, the carriage itself did not immediately follow suit. It swayed slightly to the left, righted itself, and then slithered more than slightly to the right—and this time it kept going until it reached what must have been the edge of the road, where one wheel caught on something. The conveyance performed a neat half-pirouette and slid gently backward and downward until its back wheels were nestled deep in a snowbank.

Frances, tipped backward and staring at the opposite seat, which was suddenly half above her, could see nothing but solid snow out of the windows on both sides.

And if this was not the outside of enough, she thought with ominous calm, then she did not know what was.

She was aware of a great clamor from somewhere—horses snorting and whinnying, men shouting.

Before she could collect herself sufficiently to extricate herself from her snowy cocoon, the door opened from the outside—not without some considerable assistance from male muscles and shocking male profanities—and an arm and hand clad in a thick and expensive greatcoat and a fine leather glove reached inside to assist her. It was obvious to her that the arm did not belong to Thomas. Neither did the face at the end of it—hazel-eyed, square-jawed, irritated, and frowning.

It was a face Frances had seen briefly less than ten minutes ago.

It was a face—and a person—against whom she had conceived a considerable hostility.

She slapped her hand onto his without a word, intending to use it to assist herself to alight with as much dignity as she could muster. But he hoisted her out from her awkward position as if she were a sack of meal and deposited her on the road, where her half-boots immediately sank out of sight beneath several inches of snow. She could feel all the ferocity of the cold wind and the full onslaught of the snow falling from the sky.