Pyne arched his brows. “That’s true.”
Ellie bit her tongue on the information that Mr. Cavanaugh had written that he would bring a manservant. A London toff with a gentleman’s gentleman would be more likely to sit snug at the Unicorn in Ripon and wait for the roads to clear sufficiently so he could drive or be driven to the Hall.
Pyne and Morris were her father’s oldest friends and, as usual, had arrived midmorning to take Wednesday luncheon with her father and the family; given her father could no longer walk beyond a few steps and didn’t venture out beyond attending church on Sundays, it was kind of both men to so indefatigably turn up every Wednesday to spend the day with him.
Her father fixed her with a sapient eye. “How deep’s the snow?”
“Too deep for a carriage.” Ellie glanced back at the curtained window. “I doubt even a rider would make much headway out there now.”
“That means”—her father looked at his friends—“that, indeed, you’ll need to stay on until it clears. You both know you’re very welcome.”
Pyne and Morris murmured their thanks and acceptances of the offer. Like her father, both were locals born and bred and suffered the inconveniences of winter storms with the stoic resignation of those who have long ago learned the futility of railing against Nature’s unpredictable furies.
All three men looked at Ellie, and she summoned a smile. “I’ll let Kemp and Mrs. Kemp know, but I’m sure they’ll have already made arrangements.” Both butler and housekeeper had served the family for most of Ellie’s twenty-eight years; she felt sure Mrs. Kemp would already have sent the maids upstairs to prepare the rooms Pyne and Morris habitually used when they remained overnight at the Hall.
As the three men returned to their conversation, Ellie cynically observed that neither Pyne nor Morris were reluctant to stay, nor did they show any sign of concern over being trapped by the storm. Pyne’s wife was widely recognized as an unmitigated shrew, and he tended to seize any excuse to absent himself from his own hearth, while Morris was a widower of many years, and his home, Malton Farm, was a cold, lonely, stone mausoleum presided over by a crotchety housekeeper who believed in frugality above all else.
Neither man would regard a forced sojourn at the Hall as a hardship, and with the roads almost certainly blocked throughout the area, there would be no activity on Morris’s farm or at Pyne’s business in Ripon. Better for both men to be trapped at the Hall than under their own roofs.
For her part, Ellie viewed the prospect of having Pyne and Morris as houseguests for at least the next few days with equanimity. They would chat with her father and keep him entertained, and that would be a blessing.
She glanced at the curtained window; even through the Hall’s thick walls, she could hear the wind lashing and howling outside. The possibility loomed of the snow delaying Cavanaugh’s arrival for weeks, but after a second considering the notion, she resolutely pushed it aside; there was no telling how bad the impact of a storm such as the one raging outside might be. As her mother used to say, there was no sense in borrowing trouble.
She returned her attention to the men to discover all three looking her way.
“I just hope this storm doesn’t chase the blighter all the way back to London,” Pyne remarked.
Don’t even suggest it. “According to Mr. Cavanaugh’s expectations, he should have reached Ripon before the storm, and they’ll have been hit as hard as us here and rather earlier—no real wonder if he took shelter there. Regardless”—she reminded herself as well as her listeners—“he’ll have to wait for the thaw before he can go anywhere, and given he’s acting for the National Gallery, I can’t see any reason he would retreat rather than come on.”
Her father dipped his head in agreement. “True, but the delay will set the sale back by several weeks, if not a month or more.”
Ellie pressed her lips tight. Despite fully supporting her father’s decision to sell the painting that had been her late mother’s favorite to the gallery, she hated discussing the reason for the sale, especially before his friends.
Pyne cleared his throat. “If you need any assistance—just to bridge the gap, you know—I’m sure I could help to some degree.”
“I might not be able to manage much,” Morris gruffly said, “but I’d consider it an honor to help as much as I can.”
Her father’s expression cleared, and he gently waved aside the comments. “No, no—thank you, my friends, but it’s not a case of needing the money, at least not so desperately.” Her father met Ellie’s eyes, a soft, rather sad smile in his. “It’s more a case of having screwed up my resolution over selling that painting to the sticking point—having to wait, possibly for weeks, for this authentication to take place before any sale can go forward is…not a prospect I relish.”
Ellie returned her father’s smile with a sad yet understanding smile of her own; she felt much the same way. But regardless of their attachment to the painting, the Albertinelli had to be sold, and for as much as possible, to provide the funds of which the Hall and the estate were so sorely in need.
By exercising due care, they would have enough to last them through the winter and into the first months of spring, but after that, the Hinckley coffers would be empty. She and her father had assumed any sale to the National Gallery would take months to finalize, but an additional delay such as the one now facing them might see them skating close to the wind.
Determined not to dwell on what was beyond her control, she found a smile and swept it over the men. “I’ll go and speak with the Kemps.” She turned to the door, just as the muted thunder of footsteps rushing down the main stairs reached her.
She inwardly braced. What now?
The drawing room door burst open, revealing Ellie’s younger sister, Maggie, dancing with excitement. Before Ellie could ask, Maggie blurted, “There’s horses and a carriage and I think three men coming up the drive. They’re nearly here!”
“Good Lord!” Ellie rushed for the door, swamped by sympathy for anyone caught out in the storm. She hurried into the front hall. “Kemp?”
“Here, miss.” The redoubtable butler was swiftly lighting several lamps and had already summoned the two footmen to assist. “Just let me get the lamps going before we open the door.”
The thud of boots on the stairs heralded Ellie’s brother, Harry. “What’s afoot?”
“Strangers coming up the drive, seeking shelter.” Ellie joined Maggie in peering out of the narrow window alongside the front door. Through the unnatural darkness that had closed in, she searched what she could see of the drive.
“There!” Maggie pointed to the left. “See that lump? It’s moving.”
Staggering and barely that. Ellie finally realized what she was looking at. “There are horses—a pair in harness and a single mount. Get the grooms as well.” She squinted through the whirling snow. “And Johnson—there’s a carriage that’s too fine to be left outside.”
It was the carriage that confirmed the thought that, despite all incredulity, had popped into her head. “My God—it’s Cavanaugh!”
He’d come and had fought his way through the snow.