Page 56 of A Winter Scandal

“He isn’t doing it for me.”

“For who then?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, as long as he is doing it, I suppose that is what matters.” Thea jammed the knitted cap down over her wild tangle of curls and turned to Lolly, who sat on the hearth, watching them. “Be sure my brother gets that note tomorrow—well, I guess it’s this morning. I trust we shall return with Matthew.”

“Yes, miss, I pray you do.”

Thea picked up the baby’s basket and the blankets she had stuffed inside it and started for the door. Gabriel opened the door and followed her out, picking up the lantern as they went.

He once again attached the lantern to the curricle and went to his horses to give each of them a pat and a few words. Climbing into the vehicle beside Thea, he took up the reins, and they started off into the night.

Gabriel kept the horses to as fast a pace as was safe on the snowy road. Thea pulled up the heavy, fur-lined lap robe high around her, tucking it in on the outside. Her other side was flush against Gabriel—for warmth, she told herself. It was perfectly true, but she could also not help but be aware that his muscled leg pressed against hers. And that, she told herself sternly, was an utterly inappropriate thing to be thinking about at a time like this.

She fixed her attention on the road in front of them, peering through the falling snow. The circle of the lantern lit only a small area, and there was little to see but the falling flakes. Thea hoped that the horses would be able to stay on the road. Their pace was perforce slow, but before they had gone far down the road, Gabriel pulled the team to a stop and handed the reins to her, then jumped down and took the lantern from its hook. He carried it over to the side of the road and held the lantern up as he stared at the ground.

Thea could see that the snow was different there, far less deep and smooth—as though, she realized, the snow had been trampled and chopped up sometime recently, then a layer of snow had fallen on top of it, leaving odd valleys and peaks. There, at the edge, was a darker pile, just beginning to be covered by snow.

She leaned forward. “Is that—”

“Yes. Horse droppings.” Gabriel turned and hurried back to the carriage to rehang the lantern and hop in. He took the reins back from her and slapped them over the horses’ backs, continuing to talk with an undercurrent of excitement in his voice. “It appears to me that a horse was tethered there for some time tonight—just as it would be if the fellow tied his horse out on the road and walked in to grab the baby. Quieter that way, I’d guess, and no one would see a horse waiting in front of your house and think it odd and come to investigate.”

“Then we are on the right road.”

He nodded. “I think so. Carrying a baby is bound to slow him to some extent, not to mention the fact that he was on foot till he got here, and I dare swear his horse cannot match my pair. We should make up time on him. The problem will be making sure we catch it if he’s turned off. I don’t want to run past him.”

They were alone on the road in the snow, which was growing increasingly heavier. Thea thought of Matthew, wrapped in his blanket, carried by some stranger through this night, and her heart clutched in her chest. She prayed that whomever they were pursuing had thought to wrap an extra blanket around the baby.

The team forged on through the night as the snow grew deeper around them. Since Gabriel had to keep all his attention on driving through the treacherous conditions, Thea kept a sharp lookout on either side of the road, watching for some sign that the kidnapper had passed this way or that he might have turned off the road. The quiet, broken only by the sound of their passing, and the blur of the falling snow were enough to lull her into a daze, and Thea kept having to blink and shift around in her seat to maintain a sharp focus. It began to seem as if they had been driving through this cold, isolated landscape for hours, as if they might continue to do so forever.

“Gabriel, look!” Thea shot straight up, pointing out the right side as the lap robe slid unheeded down from her shoulders.

“What?” Gabriel hauled back on the reins.

“I’m not sure. But the snow was disturbed back there.” She was already scrambling out the side of the curricle, and Gabriel quickly followed her.

Picking up her skirts, she ran through the snow to the spot she had seen a few yards back. She stopped and looked down at the area of churned snow. Gabriel stopped beside her.

“I think the horse stumbled here,” he said, excitement tingeing his voice. “Probably not enough to fall, or at least not more than to his knees, but he is struggling. And look, there’s only a light dusting covering it all. I don’t think it has been very long.”

“Oh, Gabriel!” Fear choked her voice. “It has been so long already. And he is so little!”

Gabriel took her arm, his grip hard and strong. Thea turned to look at him. A hard, bright light burned in his eyes. “We shall get him back. He is going to be all right.”

Though she knew he could not promise that, his words reassured Thea. She swallowed back her fear and gave him a tight, hard smile. “Yes, we will.”

The light of the lantern picked up the other horse’s tracks now, at first faintly, then more and more clearly. The gap between them was narrowing. Thea clenched her hands together tightly in her lap as the team labored on. The snow grew deeper, their pace slower. Thea could feel the tension mounting in Gabriel’s body beside her. Finally, he climbed down, taking the lantern, and went to the head of the team. He stroked their heads, murmuring to them, then hooked his hand in the harness and urged them forward, the lantern bobbing in his other hand.

They could not continue like this long, Thea knew. How could the kidnapper still be running? Where did he intend to go? It was impossible to tell where they were in the darkness and snow, but she felt they must be some distance still from Bynford, the next village on this road. Had the man managed to reach there? Would they be able to get that far? She could not imagine what they would do if the horses stopped, unable to plow on through the snow.

In the still night, Gabriel’s sharp exclamation carried back to her. She straightened, peering out. Gabriel let go of the horses and carried his lantern to the left side of the road. He stepped off the road, and in the light of his lantern, Thea could see tracks leading off the road in front of him. He whirled around and came back at a run, sending snow spraying around him. He led the horses off the road and onto the lane.

Since the lane was somewhat sheltered by a hedge on one side, the snow was not as deep here. Gabriel returned to take up the reins again, urging his team to a last hard effort. The animals responded, picking up their pace. The hedge ended, and the snow became deeper again, but still they plowed through it. Finally, up ahead, at the farthest limit of her vision in the snow, Thea saw a small, dim glow.

“A light?” she asked, peering forward just as Gabriel slapped the reins and let out a cry, urging the team forward.

Gradually the light resolved into something faintly glowing and square in the midst of a low mass. A window, she thought, in a small house. The team pounded forward, the sound of their hooves muffled by the snow. Now Thea could see a dark lump of a figure trudging through the snow around the side of the house. The shape turned and let go of the load he had had in his hands. It was logs, she saw as they fell, bouncing and rolling, disappearing in the soft snow.