It Happened One Night by Stephanie Laurens EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: Stephanie Laurens
- Language: English
- Genre: Western & Frontier Romance
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
It was a dark, stormy, and utterly miserable night. Rain fell from the sky
in unrelenting sheets; whenever Robert “Rogue” Gerrard, fifth Viscount
Gerrard, managed to squint through long lashes weighed down by icy
droplets all he saw was more rain.
Hunched in his greatcoat on the box of his traveling carriage, he held
the reins loosely in one long-fingered hand; he’d stripped off his sodden
gloves miles ago. There was no risk of the horses bolting.
“Just a little further,” he crooned, urging them on. He doubted they
could hear over the drumming downpour, but the coaxing croon was
ingrained habit. If one wanted females or animals to do what one wanted,
one crooned; in Ro’s experience, it usually worked.
The powerful pair, normally arrogantly high-stepping, were disdainfully
lifting first one hoof, then the other, free of sucking mud. Their pace was
down to a crawl.
Inwardly cursing, Ro peered through the water coursing down his face,
trying through the darkness to make out some-any-landmark. It was
February. His mother always maintained one should never travel in
February; as with many things, she was proving to be correct. But business
had called, so Ro had dutifully left the luxurious warmth of the hearth at his
principal estate, Gerrard Park, near Waltham on the Wolds, summoned his
trusty coachman, Willis, and set out that afternoon for town.
He’d imagined putting up for the night along the way, possibly at the
Kings Bells in St. Neots.
As usual, they’d joined the Great North Road near Colsterworth. It was
only after they’d swept past Stamford that Willis, glancing idly back, had
seen the massive storm clouds rushing down on them from the north. The
turnoff to Peterborough had already been behind them; when applied to for
orders, Ro had decreed they’d press on with all speed, hoping to reach
Brampton. They’d just raced through the hamlet of Norman Cross when the
heavens had opened with a ferocity that had instantly made traveling, even
on England’s most major highway, a nightmare.
They’d limped toward Sawtry, but with the smaller, slighter Willis all
but drowned on the box, having increasing difficulty managing the reins,
Ro had insisted on trading places. His drenched coachman was now a
shivering lump inside the coach, while Ro, also drenched to the skin, but
courtesy of his size and constitution better able to withstand the apocalyptic
downpour, squinted through the torrent.
They’d reached Sawtry over an hour ago, only to find every possible
habitation packed to the rafters with travelers seeking shelter. The Great
North Road was the country’s busiest highway; mail coaches, post coaches,
and private coaches, let alone wagons and carts, had been stranded and
deserted all around Sawtry.
No shelter of any sort was to be had, but the deluge had shown no signs
of abating; if anything, as the hours dragged on, the downpour had only
increased.
That was when Ro had remembered the small but tidy inn in
Coppingford. The lane along which it lay met the highway about a mile
south of Sawtry.
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