A Yuletide Kiss by Madeline Hunter EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: Madeline Hunter
- Language: English
- Genre: Short Stories Anthologies
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
Konrad Juncker prodded the exhausted post-horse pulling his rented gig
down a snowy lane. Normally, he’d reach Sanforth before nightfall easily,
but not now that it was sleeting. The sign with a white rose at the turn from
the main road could only mark the site of the exclusive inn he sought,
which his friend Thorn, the Duke of Thornstock, had once described to him.
“Just a bit more, and you can rest,” Konrad muttered to the horse.
He hoped he was right. His stomach grumbled, his eyebrows were
crusted with ice, and even his greatcoat failed to keep him warm. The horse
struggled a few hundred yards more and suddenly the lane widened to
reveal a circular drive with an impressive building nestled in the evergreens.
There was an entrance arch and a sign with the words THE WHITE ROSE.
This had to be the place.
Still, it didn’t look like a fully functioning inn. It seemed deserted, with
no ostler bustling to attend to his horse, no noise from within to indicate
people eating or drinking. But why should that be? The storm had come up
suddenly—no one would have had time to gather their mounts and head off.
They would have been stuck here . . . as he clearly was.
He’d been told it had a sizeable stable. That had to be through the other
archway he could see. Even the horse pricked up its ears as if it knew this
was to be its home until the storm abated and the roads cleared.
Konrad climbed down, tied the horse to a post, and entered the stables.
There wasn’t a single groom about, although there were a couple of nags in
the stalls. While that was a good sign, it didn’t explain the lack of people.
So he trudged back out and through the snow to the front of the inn.
Hearing what sounded like voices coming from the other end of the
archway—finally—he headed that way.
He shivered as he walked along the passageway, beyond which sleet fell
steadily. As he came out into what proved to be an alley behind the inn, he
spied two young women and a man of about sixty laboring to drag a rather
stalwart fellow . . . somewhere.
“Good God,” Konrad couldn’t help saying as he strode toward them. “Is
he drunk? Dead?” Or worse yet, murdered. It would be just Konrad’s luck
to have stumbled across a criminal act in progress.
He’d expected the man to answer, but it was the older of the two women
who blinked over at him while snow continued dusting her heavy wrap and
blond hair. “Neither, I hope. We found him outside in this state. He seems
quite ill.”
Konrad approached her and the brown-haired girl who was probably a
maidservant, judging by her youth and her apron. Each was tugging on one
of the prone fellow’s arms while the old gentleman attempted to lift the
man’s legs.
Now that Konrad was closer, he could hear the ill chap mumbling and see
his flushed face. “Where are you taking him?” Konrad asked.
“To a room, of course. Although how we’ll get him onto the bed, I don’t
know.”
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