Perhaps, she thought as she watched those big, capable hands enveloping the china cup, her reserves of joy were running low and needed replenishing, although why that would draw her towards someone full of shadows and detachment, she did not understand.
He was aware of her as a woman, she could sense it. But the boys liked him and she trusted their instincts, as she trusted her own. Whatever Hugo Travers was concealing behind that unsmiling face, it was not villainy.
‘What happened?’ She made herself go back in time to that dreadful night. ‘We were in Aylesbury, west of here. Giles was deep in a game and winning, so they told me, although the money miraculously vanished afterwards. His opponent accused him of cheating, drew a knife. The man said it was in self-defence, but of course, all the witnesses at the inquest were his friends and neighbours.’
The cold swept through her as it had when she had heard the shouting in the inn parlour below, had left the children to run downstairs. No, she would not think about what she had found, only of Giles alive and laughing.
‘I had little money and two three-year-old boys to feed,’ Emilia went on briskly. ‘I went into the market to look for work and helped an elderly man who tripped and fell on the cobbles. He had broken his wrist, so I drove his cart home for him, all the way here with the children tucked into the malt sacks behind. He was the brewer and this was his alehouse. I worked for him for two years and then, when he died, he left it to me, bless him.’
‘So you are now the alewife. A hard life.’
That worried him, she could tell. ‘It is not restful, that is certain. But would you comment on it if I was not, as you suspect, gentry-born?’ she wondered out loud.
She judged from the frown that he did not like the implication that it was snobbery that made him feel that way.
‘It would be hard for any woman, alone and with children to rear, and I suspect that things will become harder in the countryside now the war is over. The price of grain will fall, men will be flooding back from the army with no occupation to go to. Victory always has a cost.’
Emilia shrugged away the cold worry that breathed spitefully down her neck, as she did whenever it crept past her defences. ‘All one can do is work and hope and plan.’
‘What do you plan for those boys? The church?’
She picked up his meaning at once and laughed. ‘The Latin? I do not think so, somehow, do you? The law, I hope. I teach them at home and then they go to the vicar in Great Gatherborne for Latin and Greek twice a week. He likes them and finds them intelligent to instruct, so he takes them in return for his household’s ale.’
‘And one day they will be leading lawyers and maintain their mama in the manner befitting her?’
He grinned; it was the first time she had seen a smile crack that lean face and Emilia blinked at the impact. Enough of her problems—she had allowed this to become too personal and, along with the fear of revealing too much and making him uncomfortable, speaking of the past was like rubbing salt into half-healed wounds.
‘And have you far to go tomorrow?’ she asked. ‘Your family will be worrying that you have been delayed.’
‘If the roads are clear, I should be home in two days, easily.’ He held out his cup to be refilled when she lifted the teapot from the trivet. ‘But no one will be worrying about me, I have no family and the servants just know that I will be back in time for Christmas.’
‘None at all?’ What an appalling thought. She almost said it out loud. What would she do without the boys? And he had no one. ‘You will pass Christmas with your friends, no doubt.’
He did laugh then, a deep chuckle. ‘With so many of my fellow-officers all back in England together I had invitations aplenty, believe me. I had the choice of family gatherings with, I was promised, a dozen charming little infants all overexcited by the thought of presents, or two house parties well supplied with eligible young ladies on the look-out for husbands. Then there was the lure of a cosy gathering with not one, but three great aunts in attendance. My friends, who I had believed were carefree, sociable bachelors, all turned into devoted family men on arriving back in England and, I confess, I do not understand families.’
‘You do not?’ Her tiredness vanished as she stared at him.
‘I was an orphan from the age of three, brought up by four elderly trustees and a houseful of devoted staff,’ Hugo explained without, to her amazement, the slightest sign of self-pity.
‘But...were you not lonely?’
‘Not at all. Mrs Weston...Emilia, do not look like that! I had tutors and then I went to school and university and later into the army. I made good friends in all of those and when I was at home there was the estate to learn to manage. But I have to confess to not understanding how families work, the intimacy of them. And, frankly, faced with the thought of two weeks of someone else’s family en fête, it was no hardship to travel home,’ he added wryly. ‘Besides, I have much to catch up with and plans to make for the new year.’
She must have made an interrogative noise, for Hugo broke off and the shutters were over his eyes again. ‘It is time I settled down,’ he said abruptly and got to his feet. ‘I have been running the estate at arm’s length for five years while I have been in the army. And I must stop talking and keeping you from your rest.’
Emilia stayed curled in her chair as he took his cup to the stone sink and rinsed it out with, she guessed, the tidy habits of the soldier. Even as weary as he must be, he still moved beautifully with the unthinking grace of a very fit man. She fixed her gaze on the tea leaves in her cup, but there was nothing to be read there. ‘Goodnight, Major. Sleep well.’ She wondered if she would.
‘Goodnight, Mrs Weston. And thank you.’ He paused between the two rooms. ‘You should lock this door, you know.’
‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ she muttered as it closed and she stood up and stretched the stiffness out of her back. Major Hugo Travers was certainly dangerous to women, especially one who had been on her own far too long, but it would be the loss of his company she would feel when he went on his way in the morning that would do the damage, not any improbable assault on her virtue.
Her occupation and humble status cut her off from anything other than the polite exchange of greetings with the vicar, the squire and their families, even though they tacitly recognised that she had been one of them. The villagers treated her amiably, but also with the reserve that showed they thought of her as Quality. She sometimes concluded she was like the governess in a big house, neither family nor servant, stranded somewhere in the middle and lonely as a result of it.
‘On which self-pitying note you can take yourself to bed, Emilia Weston,’ she scolded herself as she bent to bank up the fire safely. The rain had stopped, the night was still. The major would have a muddy ride tomorrow, back to his waiting servants and his big house and his plans to settle down into the peace of an England no longer at war.
Chapter Three
The silence woke Emilia into a muffled world and the cold blue light brought her out of bed to stand shivering at the tiny window in the eaves. Snow glowed in the moonlight, heaped up in great drifts and banks, whirling through the air as if some celestial hand was plucking the largest flock of geese in the universe. Silent, deadly beauty.
The light from the lantern in the taproom below cut a golden track into the whiteness and she offered up a quick prayer for any traveller caught out in this. Eerily, the beam of light widened. For a moment she did not understand, then she realised that Hugo must be standing at the window and had pushed back the shutter. The guilty flicker of pleasure took her unawares as she pulled on the heavy robe she had made from a cut-up blanket, found her shoes and tiptoed out to the head of the stairs.
The twins were fast asleep with the utter relaxation that only cats and children seemed to be blessed with. Emilia tucked the covers higher over their shoulders and went downstairs. Why? she asked herself as she crossed the kitchen and lifted the latch on the taproom door. What am I doing d
own here?
Hugo must have heard the latch. He had already turned, and she saw in the lantern light that he was fully dressed with a blanket slung around his shoulders. ‘What’s wrong?’ His voice was deep and low and sent a shiver of warmth through her.
‘Nothing. The silence woke me and then I saw the light spill out on to the snow when you opened the shutter and wondered if everything was all right.’ That was a lie and she never lied. What had brought her down?
‘It is already deep and it is settling.’ Hugo pushed the shutter almost closed. ‘How close are we to a turnpike road?’
‘Too far and when you get there it will be no better than this. Even the mail will be stopped if it is lying so thick.’
‘The post boys will get through, even if they have to take a horse from the traces and abandon the mail coach.’
‘They will reach the next inn, perhaps. But you are not carrying the mails, so why should you even try?’
Was it really such a prison sentence to be trapped here? But then he had shied away from all his close friends’ invitations because he did not want to be with a horde of children—and hers certainly qualified for the description—and he had been uneasy about her lack of a chaperon. Was that what the matter was? Not the interruption to his journey, not the presence of two lively boys, but her? Did he expect the poor lonely widow to make a pass at him? The idea brought the colour flaming up under her skin.
‘I am an unconscionable nuisance to you and, whatever you say about your supplies, you cannot have expected to be feeding a large man and a considerably larger horse.’
‘When the weather is like this the whole hamlet works together and shares food and fuel with everyone, residents and chance-met strangers alike. It is called neighbourliness, Major. Or perhaps on your big estate you are not familiar with the concept of neighbours and mutual dependence.’ She was fanning her temper as though she could cover her own embarrassment, and, deep down, her guilty pleasure that he had to stay. ‘We will set you to work for your board, Major, never fear. There are several elderly people to dig out and check upon and that will be the first task come morning.’
Even in the poor light she could see him stiffen, presumably with affront at being spoken to like that by an alewife. ‘I have helped dig out villages in the Pyrenees, Mrs Weston, you need have no fear that I do not know one end of a shovel from the other. And it is not that I do not understand and appreciate the hospitality of your community, merely that I have no wish to add to its burdens.’
‘Excellent. Then we understand each other,’ Emilia snapped. He did not like having to explain himself. Presumably majors did not have to very often, let alone ones who were well-bred landowners. ‘I will see you at first light, then.’ She gathered her inelegant robe around her with as much dignity as she could muster and swept out, remembering in the nick of time to close the door quietly so as not to wake the boys.
Idiot, idiot, idiot, she apostrophised herself all the way back up the stairs. You go and disturb a man in the early hours, you blush like a rose because you have no sensible excuse for doing so and then you bite his head off quite unfairly because he unsettles you. Emilia hesitated on the landing at the top of the stairs. Should she go back and apologise? And what, exactly, would be her explanation? No, there was nothing for it but to go back to bed and hope he was still talking to her in the morning.
* * *
And what was that about? Dim light struggled through the shutters and Hugo gave up on sleep and sat up in his cocoon of blankets to contemplate his situation. And his hostess.
Another woman and he might have suspected that her visit was an invitation of a most blatant kind and one he would have been sorely tempted by. But no woman bent on seduction, however humble her circumstances, visited a man clad in a frightful garment apparently cobbled together from an old horse blanket and with her hair in plaits, and then picked a quarrel.
He was going to have to get used to the company of respectable women, if he was to find himself a wife this coming Season as he had planned. The idea had seemed reasonable when he had thought of it, months ago in France. It should be easy enough to find a well-bred young lady, a pretty society virgin who would give him an heir and, he had thought vaguely, a few other children to be on the safe side. He was eligible enough not to have too much trouble finding the right bride, he concluded without undue modesty. He had title and lands and wealth and an unblemished reputation.
This theoretical bride had no face in his dreams, no name, no character, now he came to think about it. In fact, he supposed he had not given her much thought at all. But living with a woman like this, in a home, with children, was unsettling. It made him realise that he could not just marry a cipher, he must find a person, one he could get on with, one whom he would like and respect.
Finding a bride would not be like buying a horse and he was guiltily aware that he had been thinking in much the same terms—age, bloodlines, temperament, looks... Yes, he was going to have to consider someone he could look upon as a companion.
He shifted uncomfortably on the hard straw mattress. Was this theoretical woman he intended to court going to insist on declarations of love, exchanges of emotion and intense conversations about feelings? He had the suspicion that she would, but how the devil did a man spout this stuff when he did not feel it, or understand it?
A gentleman was self-reliant and kept his feelings to himself, that was how he had been raised. Duty, honour, patriotism, friendship, loyalty—those were the important emotions and gentlemen did not need to speak of them. They took it for granted that their friends felt like that, too.
No true gentleman experienced violent emotions that might burst forth inappropriately—love, despair, fury. Passion. There had been liaisons in the past, of course, but even sexual encounters should not descend into uncontrolled passion and the sort of lady he would be courting would be horrified by those kinds of demonstrations.
No, you did not treat ladies—or respectable ale wives, come to that—as you treated a courtesan.
And that, Hugo concluded, rolling out of his nest of blankets, included removing one’s unshaven, unwashed self before she came downstairs to start the day.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later Hugo emerged from the cellar, where the copper had yielded enough warm water for a wash and a shave, rolled up his bedding, stowed it in a corner and went out to check on the animals. When he came back the inner door was open and both boys, hair uncombed, were standing in the kitchen, looking confused.
‘Mama’s still asleep,’ Nathan said. This was obviously outside their experience.
‘Are you sure she isn’t unwell?’ Hugo asked. In retrospect she had not seemed quite well last night, standing there shivering in that hideous robe, which was probably why he had wanted to put his arms around her.
Both boys stared at him, wide-eyed with anxiety. ‘Don’t know,’ said Joseph. ‘How do we tell?’
‘I had better have a look.’ Hugo walked softly upstairs. One door stood open on to what was obviously the boys’ room, the other was closed. He cracked it open, but the still figure under the heap of blankets did not stir. Now what? Knock and risk disturbing her if she was simply asleep or go in and check she was not running a fever?
He padded across the boards in his stockinged feet until he could see Emilia’s face. She looked peaceful enough: there was no sweat on her brow, she was not shivering and her breath stirred a wisp of hair in a steady rhythm. Hugo reached out and brushed it back, his fingers just touching her forehead. Her skin was cool, not feverish. Just tired, then.
It was an effort to lift his hand away. Her skin was smooth, soft, and yet beneath his fingers he could feel the delicate arch of her brow bone, the brush of her eyebrows. He felt himself hardening with desire and cursed his own lack of self-control. He should stop touching her. Now. Then Emilia stirred and her lips curved into a slight, tender smile. Something caught in his chest, almost painfully. His hand cupped in an instinctive g
esture to caress her face and she opened her eyes.
* * *
‘Hugo?’ she murmured. She had been dreaming about him and here he was bending over her bed, those deep blue eyes intent on her face, his face serious, his hand brushing lightly over her cheek. It was still a dream, of course, a lovely dream. Emilia closed her eyes and drifted away again. Such a real dream...she could feel the cold of the room, the warmth of his breath, smell the soap on his hand.
‘Hugo?’ Emilia sat bolt upright. ‘What is wrong? The boys—’
‘Nothing is wrong.’ He backed away towards the door as she began to push back the covers. ‘They were worried because you were still asleep. Apparently that is unusual. I was concerned in case you were ill.’
‘No, I am quite all right. But I never oversleep.’
He shrugged, halfway through the door now, in full retreat. She realised what she was doing and left the covers as they were.
‘Perhaps you felt more secure with a man sleeping downstairs. More relaxed. We’re fine,’ she heard him say as the door closed. ‘I’ll start breakfast.’
Breakfast? Emilia threw back the blankets and almost fell out of bed. The chill of the room was more than enough to banish hazy dreams of tall, blue-eyed men. What on earth did he mean, relaxed? That she never slept properly because she always had one ear open for danger, for the boys, for the animals?
Perhaps he was right, she conceded reluctantly, as she splashed cold water on to her shivering body and scrambled into her warmest clothes. But she had never been aware of fear, of being braced for trouble. It was just that it was all her responsibility now, hers alone.
By now there was probably carnage in the kitchen. She bundled her hair into a net as she ran downstairs and then stopped dead, her hands still lifted to tuck in stray locks. The table was laid, the boys were dressed, their hair ruthlessly brushed, and the aroma of frying bacon was wafting appetisingly on the warm air.
Snowbound Wedding Wishes: An Earl Beneath the MistletoeTwelfth Night ProposalChristmas at Oakhurst Manor (Harlequin Historical) Page 3