The snow, as Laura had said, did not seem to amount to much, the wind was behind them, the horse fast, the roads well packed. Riatt glanced down at his lovely companion, and felt his spirits rising. He smiled at her and she smiled back.
“I do hope you really feel like that,” she said, “not sorry, I mean, to go on this expedition. Because it was extremely wicked of me to forget my father’s coat, and this was obviously the occasion to make amends, but there was no one to take me—”
“No one to take you?”
“Oh, I suppose one of the grooms might have driven me over, but I should have hated that. There was no one else. Jack is much too selfish, and I wouldn’t have gone with that Wickham person for anything in the world, even if he had ever driven a sleigh, which I am sure he hasn’t.”
“And how about Mr. Hickson?” Riatt asked. “Wasn’t he a possibility?”
“What has Nancy Almar told you about her brother and me?”
“Nothing but what he told me himself in every look and word—that he loves you.”
Christine sighed.
He smiled at her.
“And you’re glad of it,” he said.