Frozen Fancy

by Tabetha Waite

  Frozen Fancy

  By Tabetha Waite

  Copyright © 2021 Tabetha Waite

  Cover Design by Covers and Cupcakes

  This title is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to similarly named places or to persons living or deceased is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever, including but not limited to photocopy, digital, auditory, and/or in print, without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations for a review.

  Also by Tabetha Waite

  Ways of Love Historical Romance Series

  How it All Began for the Baron (Christmas prequel novella)

  Why the Earl is After the Girl (Book 1)

  Where the Viscount Met His Match (Book 2)

  When a Duke Pursues a Lady (Book 3)

  Who the Marquess Dares to Desire (Book 4)

  What a Gentleman Does for Love (Book 5)

  Season of the Spinster Series

  Triana’s Spring Seduction (Book 1)

  Isabella’s Secret Summer (Book 2)

  The Spinster’s Alluring Season (Book 2.5)

  Alyssa’s Autumn Affair (Book 3)

  Korina’s Wild Winter (Book 4)

  Novellas

  Twelve Gifts by Christmas

  Lord Castleford’s Fortunate Folly (Fortunes of Fate #1)

  A Lady’s Guide to Marriage

  A Promise Beneath the Kissing Bough

  Miss Pageant’s Christmas Proposal

  The Scot’s Bairn

  Bedeviling Lord Coxford

  The Brunette Who Stole His Heart (A Tale of Two Brunettes – Book 1)

  In Love with a Charming Brunette (A Tale of Two Brunettes – Book 2)

  The Harlot’s Hero

  Frozen Fancy

  A Captivating Compromise

  Novels

  Behind a Moonlit Veil

  The Secrets of Shadows

  The Piper’s Paramour

  Kiernan Fantasy Series

  The Kingdoms of Kiernan (Kiernan – Book 1)

  Wanton Wastrels

  The Rapscallion’s Romance

  Anthologies

  Heyer Society (non-fiction essays)

  Christmas on Scandal Lane (Historical)

  Dedication

  For the one and only Martha DelVecchio and her precious dog Chauncey, who was the inspirational name for my hero. RIP to a lovely canine companion. And to all of my readers, I hope you enjoy this sweet fairy tale retelling of Frozen and Snow White and Rose Red!

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  Charming, Texas

  Early December 1863

  Elise Erindelle hummed a light tune as she tended to her hothouse flowers. In a couple months, she would be hauling her wagon down to the village in the valley below where she would sell her beautiful blossoms. It was a bit more difficult to keep the delicate blooms from getting frostbitten in the harsh, northern Texas winter, but with patience and care, she always managed to find a way. But then, she’d been on her own since the death of her mother two years ago. She’d already lost her father several years before that.

  Of course, Granelda Charming, or Grannie as she was affectionately called by the locals, would have loved to see Elise move away from her cabin in the dense forest atop the mountains. She’d offered her a place at the inn whenever she wished, in order to stay with the townsfolk all year, but Elise found it difficult to leave the home that still retained all the fond memories of her childhood.

  However, she realized Grannie felt a certain sort of responsibility for her, for she had been good friends with her mother. Not only that, but she had never made it a secret that she wished for Elise to find happiness the way her parents had when they’d founded Charming. It was a fact Grannie was more than happy to tell to whoever passed through their quaint little town.

  She smiled, hearing the older lady’s voice in her head even now.

  “Princeton Charming tossed a coin in the river and wished for love. After my mother held him at gunpoint and robbed him of all he possessed, he pursued her for a year, where they came back here to settle in 1797. In the hopes that others would find love, he dug that well in the center of town.”

  It was these fond stories that Grannie told that made Elise sell her flowers right next to that same wishing well. Although, at twenty-three, it appeared the days of courting were firmly behind her. But while sometimes she got lonely, it didn’t really bother her to be alone.

  When she attended school in Charming, there were always boys that teased her about being the “Ice Queen” who practiced magic, claiming that her mother was a witch, simply because she chose to live in the mountains instead of in the village, when that couldn’t have been further from the truth. Her mother was a healer who practiced with herbs and ointments rather than leeches and bleeding, and that made her eccentric.

  Of course, the color of Elise’s hair didn’t help to squelch the rumors; for it was such a light blond it could easily be mistaken as white. Combined with her direct, dark blue gaze, people were generally kind when she ventured into Charming for supplies, but they gave her a wide berth when she wasn’t carting her wagon full of flowers with a rented horse from the village livery.

  She leaned down and smelled the sweet fragrance of a pink peony. It was one of her favorite flowers, other than the elusive frost flower. But then, they were an anomaly that couldn’t be planted. These delicate ribbons were formed from layers of ice. They created curls of elegant designs that clung to dormant plant stems. In the early morning mist, in shaded areas of the woods, she might be lucky enough to come across one or two, but they were quite rare.

  As the light outside began to wane, she realized it would soon be time to make supper. She didn’t have to make a big meal for one, and she always made ample provisions for winter, doing most of her canning in the autumn. But now she was getting low on a few things, and she had promised herself that she would make bread this evening.

  A chill chased through her as she reluctantly exited the warm confines of her hothouse. She looked up through the towering, fragrant pines around her and pulled her cloak more tightly around her. The sky was darkening quickly, a sure sign that a winter storm was about to blow in.

  Elise quickened her pace and entered her modest, log cabin. There were only two rooms inside, including her bedroom, but it was enough for a single woman without a family. She walked over to the fireplace and added another log to the smoldering coals. Before long, the heat enveloped her and she sighed in contentment.

  After that, she put a kettle on to boil on a hook above the fire and grabbed a basket from the table. She walked back outside to the root cellar dug into the side of the hill, located next to a neatly stacked woodpile. She opened the door and went down a few crude steps, the smell of cold earth enveloping her as she began to gather a few vegetables, as well as a jug of milk and butter.

  She unlaced her boots as she reentered the cabin, setting them to the side of the door as she hung up her cloak and tied her apron around her waist.

  It didn’t take her long to cut up the vegetables, and once she’d added them to the iron kettle, the welcoming aroma of
stew caused her stomach to grumble. She quickly set about kneading dough for the bread, and then set it near the fire to rise, just as the wind began to pick up outside.

  Elise walked over to the window and saw that the snow had arrived, the swirls of white combined with the howling wind making her thankful that she was inside where it was safe and warm.

  Once she’d cleared off the counter from the excess flour and set aside the dirty dishes to be cleaned after she ate, she hummed another light tune as she grabbed a broom and began to sweep the hardwood floor. She eyed the rug in the living area with a critical eye and decided that it could do with a firm beating in the morning, for she had procrastinated on that particular chore long enough. Hopefully, the storm would be over by then.

  Elise ladled out a bowl of stew to cool, when there was a sudden knock at the door. Curious, for it wasn’t often that she entertained visitors, especially on a night like this, she grabbed her woolen shawl that had been tossed over her favorite, worn chair and threw it about her shoulders.

  Elise opened the door on a sturdy gust of wind. She was temporarily blinded from the snow, but when her vision cleared she gasped when the stark outline of a black bear penetrated her consciousness.

  As a scream hovered at the edge of her throat, the bear spoke. It was raspy and soft, but it was enough to tell her that a man was beneath the heavy fur. “Help… me…”

  He stumbled toward her.

  Chapter Two

  Chauncey Cade wavered between consciousness and the dark oblivion that had threatened to claim him at the onset of the vicious Texas storm. It had been ages since he’d been this far west, and yet, the sight of this magical scenery was still as magnificent as he remembered. The towering pine trees that nearly blotted out the sun, majestic mountains with their snow-capped peaks, and the rugged valleys below that beckoned him to tarry were all familiar.

  Some sort of mouth-watering fare reached his nostrils and he almost smiled, a long-forgotten memory tugging at his brain. Just like the delicate curl of smoke that had guided him to this cabin in the midst of an unrelenting winter blizzard.

  Unfortunately, while he wanted to explain his situation, any strength that he had was focused on holding himself upright, and even that failed him as he fell forward. He braced for impact as he fell forward, for any good it would do, but the smack to his face never came. Instead, he was caught up in the arms of something soft and decidedly…feminine. He opened his eyes long enough to glimpse a face that surely belonged to that of an angel, before he remembered his faithful companion was still somewhere outside.

  His lips were wooden as he tried to speak and he knew that a chill was starting to set in. “Beau…” He managed to get out. “Dog… still… out there.”

  She nodded, and he sagged in relief, grateful that she understood his nonsensical ramblings. “I’ll look for him, but first, let’s get you settled in front of the fire so you can warm up.” She lowered her voice and muttered, “Why you would dare venture out on a night like this is beyond me.”

  “Trapper…” he said between chattering teeth. “Got…lost.” He didn’t know if she would believe him or not, but he hoped so. His life might very well depend on it.

  However, she said nothing, but led him over to a chair by the fire. He removed his heavy pack from his shoulder and dropped it to the floor and collapsed onto the wood, hearing it creak beneath his weight. The woman gathered a blanket and tucked it around his chest. She had just finished when there was a slight scratch at the door, followed by a decided whimper. She hastily walked over and opened the door long enough for the brown-haired hound to enter. The dog instantly wandered over to his master and sat down, laying his head on his knee. He looked up at Chauncey with those large, brown eyes that had first drawn him to the hound that had been abandoned on a street somewhere in Oklahoma.

  Beau had been his source of sanity ever since.

  He reached out a shaky hand and scratched the dog behind the ear. “Hi… boy…”

  The dog answered with another whimper as he licked his hand.

  Chauncey laid his head back against the chair and willed the arctic hold that had permeated his body to go away.

  He must have drifted off, for he woke up sometime later to the crackle of the fire. He glanced down at his boots and saw that there was no longer a puddle beneath his feet. He’d felt bad for making a mess in this woman’s cabin, but he’d been too frozen to do much about it at the time.

  He tested the movement in his right hand and tried to bend and straighten his fingers. After a bit of protest, they obeyed the command until he was comfortable enough to take off his buckskin gloves and see what damage there might be. He didn’t think he’d been out in the wild long enough for frostbite to kick in, but in a ravishing storm like this one, it didn’t take long for extremities to fall prey to the dreaded fate.

  He breathed a sigh of relief to see that all five fingers were accounted for, with none of the black shading that followed too much exposure to the cold. A quick check of his left hand showed the same, so he wiggled his toes in his boots, and other than a slight sting, they appeared to be in working order as well.

  As his other senses slowly began to return to him, he glanced about the simple cabin and wondered about the woman who lived here, if she was, in fact, real, or just a figment of his imagination.

  He caught the sound of dishes rattling and he turned his head to see a curvaceous outline outfitted in green, a long alabaster braid trailing down her back. For a moment, all he could do was stare as she continued her task, his gaze threatening to glance lower, but then respect for her modesty compelled him to turn away. He might be a bastard in many respects, but when it came to a lady, he knew where to draw the boundary line.

  However, she must have heard him shuffle in his seat, for she glanced over her shoulder. And froze.

  ***

  Elise lowered the dish in her hand as she was confronted with a heart-stopping, dark stare. When the stranger had first arrived, he’d kept his head lowered so that the only thing she could see was that terrifying bear fur that he had draped over himself.

  But now that she had her first good glimpse of him, she couldn’t help but take in every bit of him that she could. The first thing she noticed was that he was positively…handsome. She knew such thoughts were wrong, and if her mother were here she would scold her for such lascivious imaginings, but he was like no other man she’d ever met before. Rugged, with a black beard and hair, she could tell that he was tall and muscular and broad of shoulder. For the short time she’d had her arms around him she’d been able to deduce that much.

  He was sturdy, like the lumberjacks she had met in the village mill, but none of them had ever looked at her with such…intensity.

  Forcing herself to glance away, she wiped her hands on a towel to keep her shaking hands occupied and said, “Would you like something to eat? I have leftover stew and freshly baked bread.”

  While his voice was still husky, he sounded much stronger than when he’d arrived. “I would be much obliged. Thank you.”

  Elise set about gathering the appropriate dishes and scooped out some of the stew still hanging over the fire. It came out steaming and after she set out the butter and sliced some bread for him, she poured a glass of milk and placed it on the table next to some silverware. And then sat back and waited.

  A slight smile curved his mouth and he unfolded his large form from the chair. He laid the blanket that she’d placed over him along the back and lumbered over to the table. She tensed as he drew near, but he didn’t even look at her again until he’d sat down and picked up his spoon. He didn’t immediately take a bite, but leaned over the steaming fare and inhaled deeply.

  Elise tilted her head curiously, but then decided it must have been a while since he’d had any sort of home cooking. This instantly put her on alert, for there were lots of deserters from the war heading out west in the hopes of starting a new life. It was no secret that many hid in the dense forest
s to escape the mercenaries that were hired to track them down for abandoning their post. To harbor one of these fugitives was punishable by death. She certainly didn’t need that sort of trouble.

  “What’s your name?” While she didn’t believe that he would actually tell her the truth, at least she would have something to tell the authorities should they come searching for him. Either way, come morning, she intended to send him packing.

  He stopped and glanced at her. “Chauncey Cade.” With that, he returned to consuming his stew. She said nothing more as he finished, just observed him quietly until he put his spoon in the empty bowl. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had something that good. Your husband is a lucky man, Mrs.—?”

  She debated on whether or not to tell him anything about herself, but good old-fashioned manners won out over her reservations. “It’s Miss Elise Erindelle.”

  He frowned. “You live out here…all alone?”

  “I do.” Elise stood and reached for his bowl, taking it over to the pan to soak with the rest of the dishes she had yet to finish. She grabbed her rag and began to scrub, unsure why she was suddenly feeling restless. Perhaps it was the growing fears that should he decide to overpower her, she knew that was one battle she wouldn’t win.

  She glanced toward the cabinet where she kept her flintlock rifle, but since she didn’t keep it loaded, it wouldn’t do her much good should she have need of it.

  Instead of allowing her anxiety to show, she forced herself to keep her calm as she finished the dishes. When she gathered her courage to face Mr. Cade once again, he was still seated at the table, although he was casually scratching the hound’s ears and murmuring in a soothing voice. She couldn’t tell what he said, but she found she liked hearing that deep rumble.