Cast in Ice Read Online Free PDF

that my grandfather is dead, she’s had plenty of opportunity to come back if she wanted. My uncle has made numerous offers to set my father up in business here in London, but he and Mother prefer life in Cumbria, north of the Lake District. They’re happy where they are, and now that my three sisters have married and started families, nothing can pull her away from her grandchildren for more than short visits to London every once in a great while.”
    “You have sisters?”
    “Three.”
    “Brothers?”
    “Unfortunately, no. I had to battle my three older sisters on my own.”
    Winnie was intrigued with Nick Stillman’s story, and his willingness to share it. “Why did you leave Penrith? Weren’t you content living there?”
    “Perhaps I would have been, if I’d never come to London. But once I came,” he said, “I found it impossible to leave.” He lowered his gaze and looked at her with an intense look in his eyes. “What about you, my lady? Do you enjoy London?”
    “How can one not enjoy all the opportunities here? The opera, the theater, the balls, and musicals. There is never a lack of entertainment.”
    “I understand that your mother enjoyed life in London as well. That she was quite an influential member of the ton. ”
    Winnie’s breath caught. Nick Stillman’s reference to her mother was like a splash of cold water on what had been until now a friendly and enjoyable conversation.
    “Yes, she was. She was exceedingly fond of life in London.”
    “I imagine she dearly misses being here for your Season, as well as your sister’s,” he said more as a statement than a question.
    Tiny pinpricks of unease stabbed at her nerves. “You speak of my mother as if she’s still alive, Mr. Stillman. Yet, you were with us when we discovered what she’d done. You read her note. Saw her cloak.”
    The hesitation before he answered left no doubt as to what his true thoughts were. “Yes, I did,” he said, but the tone of his voice spoke as to the disbelief of what everyone else had accepted as fact.
    How could she have forgotten the threat he presented? How could she not have remembered the final words he’d spoken to her when they’d last seen each other?
    “What have you done with her, Lady Winnifred? Where have you hidden your mother?”
    Somehow he knew. Somehow he realized that the Duchess of Townsend wasn’t dead. He obviously didn’t have any proof or he would be doing more than just insinuating that he believed her mother was still alive.
    She never should have come out here with him. She should never have allowed her attraction to cloud her judgement. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said, glaring at him with eyes she prayed showed her anger, and not her fear. “We should return now. We’ve been out here long enough. Our absence will be noticed.”
    She took her first step away from him, but halted when his arm shot out to stop her.
    “How long do you think you can keep her hidden?”
    There was a threatening tone to his voice, a menacing suggestion in his words that sent shivers racing down her spine. “I don’t know why you think my mother is still alive,” she said in an attempt to convince him he was wrong.
    “Would you like to know the many reasons I believe so? Such as, no body has ever been discovered? Or, how every clue to indicate your mother had taken her own life was so very conveniently placed where we would find it?”
    Her breath caught in her throat. “I’d like to go inside now.”
    “What if your mother manages to escape from where you’ve put her? How long do you think it will take her to make her way to London?”
    Winnie felt the blood drain from her face. There was always a possibility that her mother could escape from Saint Christina’s, even though the sisters assured her that they were taking special care to make sure that couldn’t happen.
    “How long do you think it will take before she manages to do something similar to what she did before? Only