‘Well, my stomach ain’t in the least bit delicate,’ roared the Captain, having finally managed to wrench the utensil out of the weaker man’s grasp. ‘It’s just grumbling from lack of sustenance!’
‘Please, please, gentlemen,’ interposed the distraught Lucan. ‘Have a little consideration for my poor wife in her hour of need.’
Casting sullen looks at one another, the two elderly squabblers ceased their wrangling and did their utmost to appear suitably chastened at his appeal.
Stepping forward, Marcus reached across and relieved Gibbons of his recently acquired trophy.
‘Since there appear to be at least half a dozen cooking pots readily available,’ he commented sagely, ‘it would seem sensible for each of you to have his eggs in whichever way suits him best. If you would care to sit yourselves down at the table, gentlemen, I am sure I can attend to both your requirements.’ Then, turning to Lucan, he added, ‘You too, my good sir, if you please—from your agitated demeanour I must assume that your wife is at this moment doing her best to provide you with an heir. I hasten to point out that you will do the young lady no favours by collapsing at her bedside for want of an egg or two.’
Although he cast a somewhat piteous look in his direction, the young father-to-be obeyed the Viscount without comment, reluctantly sitting himself down at the table while Marcus proceeded to break three eggs into the already sizzling frying pan, before turning his attention to the whipping up of several more prior to tipping them into a butter-laced pot.
What an extraordinary day this is turning into! he mused, as he stirred the eggs in one pan and flipped the others over in the skillet. Chopping logs, milking cows and now—by all that’s marvellous—acting as kitchen maid to as big a set of nincompoops as I’ve ever come across! Damned lucky I spent so much time down in the kitchens at Bradfield when I was a lad. What next, I wonder? Just so long as they don’t expect me to deliver the blessed baby!
At this thought he frowned, having suddenly realised that the continued absence of both Sophie and Mrs Webster seemed to indicate that the two of them were engaged in that very task. Hardly a suitable occupation for an unmarried girl, surely? Although, from what he had already gathered from her earlier remarks, it would seem that there were few things at which that particular young lady would demur from attempting, if the need arose.
His lips twisted as Sophie’s query as to his involvement in the country’s recent hostilities returned to haunt him, and, as always, a hot surge of resentment ran through him as he recalled his father’s absolute obduracy over the matter throughout the past six years. Although why it should now concern him what conclusion a virtual stranger might have reached over his apparent lack of participation, he was hard put to fathom. Yet for some unknown reason it did.
The faint smell of singeing alerted him back to the task in hand. Hastily he slid the pan of frying eggs away from the hotplate before any real damage was done, and skilfully tipped the contents on to Captain Gibbons’s plate, then returning to the range to collect the pot of scrambled eggs, which he placed on the table and exhorted the other two men to ‘dig in’ while his offering was still at its best.
Sadly enough, Mr Lucan had barely dipped his fork into the minute portion of the creamy mixture to which he had helped himself before the passage door sprang open and a laughing-eyed Sophie was informing the assembled company of the safe arrival of one Master John Henry Lucan.
‘I believe your wife would like to see you now, sir,’ she said, shooting the new father a mischievous smile. ‘She is rather tired, of course, but has asked if you could manage to spare her a few moments of your time …?’
Dropping his fork, Lucan was on his feet in a flash, had dashed through the doorway and was halfway up the stairs before any of his table companions could even draw breath to offer him their congratulations.
Heaving a deep sigh, the now slightly tearful Sophie turned to look at the coffee-pot, simmering at the back of the range. ‘I believe I have earned a cup of that, if one of you gentlemen would be good enough to pour it for me,’ she murmured, as she lowered herself into Mrs Webster’s fireside chair and, leaning her head back against the cushions, closed her eyes.
Marcus had sprung to attention before either of the other two men had even registered her words, and in no time at all he was at her side, offering the requested refreshment.
Having reluctantly managed to pry her eyelids apart, Sophie was startled to find herself immediately confronted with Marcus’s dark brown gaze, only inches from her face. For a moment it seemed that her heart had stopped beating and her entire body seemed to be flooding with the oddest sensations, the like of which she had never before experienced. An inexplicable feeling of panic ran through her, causing her to shoot bolt upright, and it was only Marcus’s quick reaction to her sudden movement that prevented her from being deluged with the scalding contents of the cup he held in his hand.
‘Whoa, steady, there!’ he cautioned, as he laid the cup down on the hearth. ‘A breath of fresh air is what you really need, you know,’ he said, frowning in concern as he took in the faint shadows beneath her eyes. ‘I believe it stopped snowing some time ago. If you would care to step outside for a few moments, I should be more than happy to keep you company.’
Sophie rose to her feet, desperately trying to control the violent wave of trembling that still beset her.
‘I—I’ll just get my pelisse—it should be dry by now—Mrs Webster kindly hung it on the drying frame for me …’
She had the distinct feeling that she was talking gibberish but could not seem to get a grip on herself. Before she could even attempt to extricate her pelisse from the overhead frame, Marcus had reached up and unhooked it and was, even now, coaxing her into sliding her arms through the sleeves. Ignoring her muted protests, he proceeded, in the most matter-of-fact way, to pull the coat-fronts together and fasten the buttons, before standing back and regarding her with a quizzical frown.
‘Not exactly the warmest coat I’ve ever come across,’ he observed, with a crooked smile. ‘You had better have my scarf.’
Tucking her arm into his elbow, he led her across to the back door where, after collecting his thick red woollen scarf from the hook on the wall, he wrapped it firmly over her head and around her neck before opening the door and leading her out into the stableyard.
‘Oh, goodness me!’ she gasped, stepping back as the cold air hit her. ‘I’m not sure I wouldn’t rather have stayed by the fire!’
‘A little bit of exercise will soon get the blood flowing,’ he teased and, bending down, he picked up a small handful of snow, compressed it into a ball and gently tossed it towards her, taking great care to avoid actually hitting her.
‘Why, you …!’
Filling her hands with snow, she balled it and flung it at him, missing him by several feet. Stooping to gather up more ammunition, she found herself obliged to dodge the hail of missiles that Marcus had seemed able to conjure up before she had managed to collect even the one—although she quickly came to the conclusion that his aim was no better than hers since very few of his snowballs ever made real contact with her person. Nevertheless, dashing from one side of the stableyard to the other soon had her feeling warmed from the tip of her nose right down to her toes, and it was not long before she was obliged to seek refuge against the cowshed wall where she held up her hands and laughingly begged him for mercy.
‘Only if you pay the time-honoured forfeit.’
He walked towards her, his lips curved and eyes gleaming with unsuppressed amusement. Standing directly in front of her, he reached out his hands and began busying himself with a purposeful rearrangement of her head covering, which had gone somewhat adrift during their boisterous frolic.
‘F-forfeit?’
Sophie cast a wary glance upward and then wished she had not done so, for the look in his eyes as he stared down at her was more than enough to have her heart doing that very same stop/start dance that had brought her out here in
the first place. She was almost certain that he was about to kiss her and she was not at all sure if that was such a good idea. She had been kissed before, it was true—swift, daring pecks on the cheek by bashful sub-lieutenants, for the most part, as her upbringing, though irregular, had been somewhat meticulous in certain respects. But, given what she had experienced the previous night, coupled with the strangely disturbing feelings that he seemed to engender within her simply by catching her eye, she could not help feeling that allowing herself to be kissed by Marcus Wolfe would prove to be a very big mistake.
Carefully easing one hand behind Sophie’s neck, the Viscount, hardly daring to breathe lest he broke the spell that he had succeeded in conjuring up, bent his head to claim his much-desired forfeit.
Quick as a flash, Sophie ducked beneath his arm and spun out of reach, only to find herself suddenly sliding sideways across the snow-covered ground in the most inelegant fashion. With a startled oath Marcus grabbed at her falling figure, whereupon he too found himself sliding on the ice. Concerted cries of dismay emanated from the pair as, wildly clutching at each other and powerless to prevent their descent, they fell headlong into a nearby snowdrift.
‘Deuce take it, woman!’ gasped Marcus, when he had recovered sufficiently to take a breath. ‘What in God’s name was that all about?’
With the full weight of his body on top of her, Sophie was finding it impossible to concentrate her mind on the whys and wherefores of her precipitate action, but, as the melting snow began to make its presence felt through the thin fabric of her pelisse, the need to extricate herself became paramount. ‘Kindly remove yourself!’ she grated through clenched teeth. ‘The snow is soaking through my coat.’
‘Hardly surprising,’ he snapped, as he clambered to his feet and reached down to haul her out of the drift. The whole experience had left him feeling decidedly irritated. Hardly had he had time to react to Sophie’s unexpected rejection of his advances before he had found himself pitched ignominiously into a heap of snow where, to his everlasting shame and annoyance, he been unable to control his all too swift reaction to the soft imprint of her curves as they pressed against his body. The powerful sensations that had swept through him had left him in a state of stunned bewilderment which had, somehow or other, exacerbated his feelings of umbrage towards the wet and shivering creature standing in front of him. ‘You really need to furnish yourself with a much more suitable outfit, my dear, if you will insist on long-distance travel at this time of year,’ he ground out tersely.
Now thoroughly chilled to the bone, Sophie was in no mood for such high-handed observations from someone who clearly had no notion of how it might feel to be inadequately clad and all but penniless.
‘Some of us have little choice in the matter of what we are obliged to wear,’ she flashed back, doing her level best to stop her teeth from chattering. ‘We don’t all have fat purses and wardrobes full of furs!’
He stilled, staring down at her, a mental picture of her sprawled across his bed draped in white furs suddenly filling his imagination. ‘You could have all of that and more if you really wanted it,’ he said huskily, his fingertips reaching across to caress her damp cheek. ‘I have the neatest little cottage in Chelsea—’
‘How dare you, sir?’
An ice-cold hand hard across the side of his face brought the trembling Viscount swiftly to his senses. Good God, he thought, aghast, was I really about to offer a carte blanche to an impoverished governess? I must be losing my mind!
Shaking with a curious combination of heart-wrenching desolation coupled with out-and-out fury, Sophie angrily divested herself of the Viscount’s scarf and, after flinging the offending article at him, started back towards the inn, taking very careful steps across the now visibly melting snow. She had almost gained the back door when the faint but unmistakable jingle of horses’ traces reached her ears. She stopped, straining hard to identify the sound. Yes, there it was again! There was traffic moving on the road above. Her eyes shining, she whirled round to face the still rigidly motionless Viscount.
‘There!’ she cried. ‘Do you hear it? The road must be passable again. We must all set to and dig out a passageway for the coach. We could be away first thing tomorrow if we put our backs into it!’
‘Dig out a passageway?’ returned the Viscount, with a disdainful curl of his lip. ‘Who? You, me and those two old has-beens in the stable, I suppose? It would take us until a week next Friday to clear that amount of snow!’
She stared at him in disbelief, then shook her head. ‘You can take it from me that neither Lapworthy nor Hastings will be so faint-hearted when they hear that the road is open,’ she said, before adding disparagingly, ‘It’s little wonder that you chose not to join the military. I doubt that you would have even survived the Channel crossing!’
Clenching his fists, Marcus took a single step forward, then stopped.
‘Had you been a man, you would have paid dearly for that insult,’ he ground out. ‘Let me assure you that you’ll get your passageway, Miss Flint—even if I have to carve it out with my bare hands. Might I suggest that you take yourself off and devote your efforts to attending to the needs of those who clearly appreciate your company more than I do?’
With that, he turned on his heel and stalked towards the door of the stable, from which were already emerging the elderly coach driver and his guard, each of them carrying an assortment of tools.
‘Did you hear it?’ called the guard, as he rolled up his sleeves and started to shovel at the softening snow. ‘That be the four o’clock mail out of Bath, sure as my name’s Gus Hastings. Trifle tardy, to be sure, but they allus keeps the mails runnin’, no matter what! Bit o’ fierce diggin’ and we’ll be out of here before the cat can spit!’ Then, turning to the Viscount, he added, ‘How’s about it, sir? You’ll be up for it, I’m sure.’
‘Lead on, Macduff,’ murmured Marcus resignedly, as he divested himself of both his greatcoat and jacket, at once revealing the hefty muscles in his arms and thighs, courtesy of his many hours spent in Jackson’s parlour, sparring against the great man himself. ‘At a guess, I’d say it’s about fifty or sixty yards to the turnpike.’
With a brief nod, the driver screwed up his eyes and stared across the snow-covered terrain in front of them. ‘Uphill, too,’ he said tersely, as he gathered together his chosen implements. ‘We’ll be slippin’ an’ sliding all the way—puts me in mind o’ that winter when we was holed up in Lisbon, Gus. Do you recall?’
‘Hard to forget!’ came his companion’s cheerful reply. ‘Still, at least we don’t ‘ave to cross a flooded Douro on this occasion!’
Laughing together, the pair set to, but it soon occurred to Sophie, who had been unable to drag herself away from the scene, that the advanced ages of the driver and his guard would eventually tell against them, for in spite of their obvious courage and determination it was clearly all they could do to stay abreast of Marcus, who was shovelling away as though his very life depended on it. Which, in the terms of bolstering up his dented pride and filling him with a much-needed sense of achievement, perhaps it did.
‘I’ll show the cold-hearted shrew,’ he muttered to himself, as he tossed yet another hefty shovelful of snow to one side. ‘I’ll have her out of here by morning, if it’s the last thing I do!’
The sight of the damp shirt clinging to his rippling muscles was more than enough for Sophie to begin to regret her earlier outburst, for it was becoming increasingly clear that Marcus Wolfe was hardly the chicken-hearted poltroon that she had all but accused him of being. After watching him for some minutes she turned away and, with hot tears pricking at the back of her eyes, re-entered the inn to do as he had suggested and concentrate her attentions on the needs of the three invalids—at least they seemed to appreciate her efforts, she thought as, with a plaintive sniff, she wiped away the unbidden tears.
The snow-clearing operation continued well into the evening, when the lack of light brought such proceedings to a halt. Ev
en Lucan had insisted upon taking his turn, and had done sterling work for almost an hour, despite the fact that neither he nor his wife were likely to be in any position to complete their own journey for some days. Even the doughty Captain managed a couple of feet or so, before a violent bout of coughing sent him back into the welcoming warmth of the inn’s kitchen. Throughout the entire range of shift-changing, however, Marcus pressed on, oblivious to the various recommendations that he should stop and take a well-earned rest. Sheer dogged determination drove him on—to give up now would be to admit defeat, and there was no way he was going to allow Sophie to witness failure at this stage of the game!
In the end, however, despite the fact that the ever-cheerful Gus Hastings had brought out a lantern to help the Viscount carve his way through the waist-deep drifts that had formed throughout the previous night and earlier part of the day, the growing darkness finally overcame even his obdurate resolution.
‘Best jack it in now, mate,’ advised the guard. ‘A good night’s sleep and we can ‘ave at it again come first light—less than twenty yards to go now, by my reckonin’.’
Utterly spent, and with every muscle in his body crying out for reprieve, Marcus at last agreed that it was time to quit, and, after virtually dragging himself back to the sanctuary of the kitchen, he collapsed into the chair by the fireside and thankfully accepted Mrs Webster’s offer of a hot toddy.
‘I’ll take myself off to my bed now, if you have no objections,’ he croaked wearily, after he had downed half of the spicy mixture. ‘If you could manage to dry my shirt by morning, I’d be most grateful.’
‘No problem at all, sir,’ Mrs Webster assured him, as she draped a large towel over his heaving shoulders. ‘I’ve put extra rugs and cushions on the settle, so you should get a fairly decent sleep tonight. Just pass me out your shirt and I’ll have it clean and ready for you when you need it.’
Regency: Rakes & Reputations (Mills & Boon M&B) Page 29