Dorran laughed. The noise was so unexpected that Clare jolted. It was deep and sharp, and even though it ended quickly, it left her feeling warmer.
“It is not that many,” he said.
“All right. I guess not. Especially in this house. How large is it?”
“Inconveniently large.” He shrugged. “It does not only house our family, but the servants as well.”
Clare’s eyebrows rose. “Servants?”
“Staff,” he corrected quickly. Clare thought she saw a flicker of embarrassment, but it was hidden almost immediately. “My apologies. That is another part of tradition that is well outdated. My mother wishes for the staff to be referred to as servants.”
“They must work hard to look after the house.” The room was glamorous enough that Clare could easily imagine needing help to maintain it. It wasn’t hard to picture the estate run like a Victorian-era mansion.
“Sixty of them,” he confirmed. “Maids, a butler—not that we ever have guests—footmen, cooks, gardeners, and my mother’s personal maids.”
“You said she wanted to call them servants.” Clare took a stab in the dark. “Is she the head of the family?”
He glanced aside, giving Clare the impression that he didn’t like the question. “Yes. She inherited Winterbourne and has control over how it is run.”
Clare sensed there was something more to it, something Dorran was avoiding. His posture had grown tense. She steered the conversation back to safer ground. “You said you were here alone, though, didn’t you?”
“Yes. Every winter, my family travels south, to our estate in Gould. Once the snow sets in here, it is impossible to leave.”
A second estate, like some kind of aristocracy. I counted myself lucky just to have a cottage. “Why didn’t you leave with them?”
“I did, initially, but we changed plans early into the trip. I left them and came back, intending to spend the winter here alone. That was when I found you. The snow came in earlier than normal, and now, I’m afraid, we are trapped here until the storm clears and the roads are passable again.”
Clare looked out the window. The sky beyond was still a map of white. “It’s too early in the season for the snow to be very thick.”
“I would think so too. But it has been snowing for two days now without respite.” He sipped his drink and frowned. “This is unnatural weather. It came out of nowhere and refuses to stop.”
Another memory hit Clare. Blowing past her like a cold wind, the thought was there and gone before she could do more than shiver at it. She’d been driving through a snowstorm, a bad one. There had been a car on the side of the road, abandoned.
“Now my priority is to get you back to civilisation as quickly as possible.” Dorran put his mug aside. “I cleaned and stitched your wounds, and we have antibiotics, but you will probably fare better in the hands of a proper doctor.”
She cleared her throat. “And my sister will be worried. She might even be looking for me. I need to tell her I’m all right.”
“I’m afraid we are cut off until the phones are restored.”
She hesitated, a last thread of cautious doubt clinging to her and warning her not to share her secret. Be careful, Beth’s voice said. Trust, her heart whispered. “I have a shortwave radio.”
His eyebrows rose. “Where?”
“In my car. My sister bought it for me. She keeps another set tuned to the same frequency so that we can contact each other in emergencies.” She shrugged and pulled the dressing gown a little tighter. “Because my house is rural, I’m usually the last to get services reconnected when something goes down. Once, I was snowed in for almost a week with no power to charge my mobile. I was fine, of course. I had food and water and everything. But Beth was frantic.”
“And she will be listening for contact from you?”
“I’m sure she will. My call was disconnected shortly before…” She blinked and saw Banksy Forest’s massive trunks passing either side of her car then saw herself glance towards the phone. “Before the crash, I guess. She’ll be worried sick. She might even be looking for me.”
“Your car should still be out there.” He stood and crossed to the window, running one hand through his hair. “It was off the side of the road. I almost didn’t see it. As long as no one has passed through and towed it, and I doubt they would in this snow, we should be able to retrieve the radio and signal for help.”
“How bad was the crash? Do you think the car might still work?”
“I wouldn’t expect so. The damage looked widespread. And even if it did run, the roads would be too heavily covered for you to get far.” He turned back to her. “But the radio is within reach. We can aim for that if nothing else.”
Chapter Six
“How quickly can we go?” Clare tried to rise out of her chair but had to sink back down as her legs shook.
“You will not be going anywhere for a while.” Dorran passed behind her as he paced the room. “The weather is too vicious.”
“I’m used to it.” Clare knew she sounded defensive, but she couldn’t help it. Moving to Winthrop had been an important moment for her. It was one of the first significant changes she’d made under her own power. Beth loved her, but she’d sheltered Clare, sometimes too much. Clare had handled every aspect of the move, though, from finding the house and hiring removalists to having to pay for repairs on her car after spinning into a ditch on her first winter there. Three years later, she felt as though she’d made the region her own. She loved the winters. She was a competent driver once snow set in. She’d endured hours outside in sleet to set up protection for her garden. Dorran’s questioning felt a little too close to Beth’s endless fretting.
Dorran tilted his head. “I didn’t mean to imply you couldn’t. But you are injured, plus you will have less resilience to the cold with the blood loss. This type of weather isn’t something to be taken lightly.”
“I’ve seen snowstorms before.”
“Yes. But the temperatures are abnormally low for this area. I have lived here my whole life, and I wouldn’t risk the trip without precautions.”
Clare chewed her lip. As much as she wanted to reach her car, she had to concede the point. She hadn’t made it far when she’d tried leaving the house. “What kinds of precautions would you need?”
“Your car is perhaps an hour’s walk away. I won’t try until the storm lets up.”
“And you don’t know how long that will take?”
“I am sorry, no. But hopefully not long. I would have expected it to have subsided already.”
Clare watched the blizzard beat at the window. “You don’t have a snowmobile or something like it?”
His smile was grim. “My mother would never allow it. She believes that too much technology erodes our minds, makes us soft.”
“Yikes,” Clare whispered. “You must have had a fun childhood.”
Dorran laughed. “Oh yes, I did.”
Clare looked around, absorbing the room’s details—the thick wallpaper and elaborate cornices. Every surface was polished until its dark wood shone. It felt stifling. She tried to visualise the family who lived there. Are they all as odd as Dorran? “So we can’t do anything except wait?”