Snowbound Wedding Wishes: An Earl Beneath the MistletoeTwelfth Night ProposalChristmas at Oakhurst Manor (Harlequin Historical)

by Allen, Louise

  ‘Now then.’ She clapped her hands for silence. ‘How many people will be coming do we think?’

  * * *

  The boys were muttering at his heels as Hugo dug his way through the fresh snowfall so they could feed the pig. They had been subdued all through breakfast, he realised.

  ‘What’s the matter with you two?’ The three of them hung over the sty door and scratched Maud on her broad, bristly back as she rooted vigorously in the trough.

  ‘We were going into town to buy a present for Mama for Christmas and now we can’t,’ Nathan said. ‘We left it too late, but we were saving up and...’ His voice wavered.

  ‘Then you’ll have to make something, won’t you?’ Hugo said briskly. ‘What would she like?’ He thought about the craftsmen he had met the night before. The carpenter had seemed an amiable, easy-going man. ‘If you can think of something to make from wood, I expect Mr Daventry would take you on as apprentices for a few days.’

  ‘Mama said the other day she didn’t have a nice shelf to put the pretty jug we bought her on safely. If we made her one, she could put it in her bedroom with flowers in the jug,’ Joseph suggested. They both looked enthusiastic.

  ‘Come on, then, we’ll dig our way through to the old folks and then go and find Mr Daventry.’

  * * *

  When they came back, cheerful and hungry after a hard morning digging and negotiating, Emilia was standing in the sunshine on the front step, shaking out a duster. He felt a ridiculous stab of pleasure at seeing her there, as though she was waiting to welcome him home. Warmth spread through him when she saw them and smiled straight into his eyes, her face open and happy. She made him think of fresh-baked bread, wholesome and edible and tempting.

  He was forgiven for yesterday’s insanity. He wanted to taste her skin, to nibble, very gently, at those sweet curves. Stop it, she’s a decent woman. But what was that feeling in his chest, that ache that made him want to hold her and protect her and, yes, make love to her?

  ‘What a marvellous morning!’ she called when they came into earshot and he wiped his thoughts off his face. ‘But Granfer James says we’ll have snow again later. I’ve just been and taken him some chicken broth.’ They stamped into the yard, kicked snow off their boots and stacked shovels under the eaves. ‘What have you been up to?’ Emilia asked. ‘I sense mischief. Or secrets.’

  ‘Men’s business,’ Hugo said. ‘I’ve hired these two out as apprentices to Daventry the carpenter. He needs a hand. That’s all right, isn’t it? I can set them some Latin exercises for this evening.’ He winked at her over the boys’ heads and shook his head when she opened her mouth, obviously to demand to know what on earth he was about.

  ‘I see.’ Emilia clearly did not, but she was willing to trust him and play along. It provoked the most unexpected sense of partnership. ‘I had no idea Mr Daventry had so much on that he needs assistance, but we must be neighbourly. You two are to be back before it starts to get dark, or as soon as it begins to snow, do you understand?’

  * * *

  Goodness knew what Hugo and the boys were plotting, but she guessed it must be something to do with her Christmas present. Emilia had realised they were fretting about it and had been racking her brains for something she could hint that she wanted that they could make her. Their own presents had been bought weeks ago, the last time she had been into Aylesbury.

  But what about Hugo? Whatever she thought of, she was going to have to make it right under his nose... Nose! Of course. There was that fine white cotton she had bought for summer underwear. There was a good yard left, more than enough for handkerchiefs with his initials in the corner. She could whip those up without him noticing she was doing anything other than her usual sewing.

  * * *

  She had the fabric spread out on the table when he came back from seeing the boys off after luncheon. ‘What are you making?’ He hitched a hip on to the corner of the table. Big, relaxed, male. Gorgeous.

  Emilia felt the blush rise and turned it to her advantage. ‘Female underthings.’

  ‘Ah.’ He was off the table and over by the hearth at once, just as she had hoped.

  ‘Thank you for helping the boys.’ She took up the scissors and cut along her markings, careful to get the edges straight. For some reason her hand did not seem quite steady.

  Hugo sat down on the arm of her armchair. ‘My pleasure. They were fretting about not being able to finish their shopping.’

  ‘It seems very quiet without them.’ She had ruined that square—oh, well, it would make a smaller handkerchief for her. With an effort of will Emilia completed the six squares, folded them all into her workbasket and cleared up the scraps.

  ‘In the summer they must be out a great deal of the time,’ Hugo observed. He did not move as she came and set the basket down by her chair.

  ‘Yes. Of course. It is just that...’ Her normally fluent tongue seemed to be in knots.

  ‘That having me in the house when no one else is here is disconcerting?’ Hugo asked with devastating directness.

  ‘Yes.’ Emilia found she had no idea what to do with her hands, which appeared to want to tie themselves into knots.

  ‘Why? Do you feel unsafe with me?’ He stood up and she found they were almost toe to toe. ‘Is it because of yesterday?’

  ‘No! It is just that I want...I mean I...’

  ‘You want me to hold you?’ he asked softly.

  ‘Yes. No,’ she corrected with desperate honesty. ‘I want you to kiss me.’

  ‘What an extraordinary coincidence,’ he said. She glanced up at him, confused. ‘I was just thinking how much I would like to kiss you.’

  It was not tentative, or gentle or subtle. Teeth bumped, she trod on his feet, his hands were so tight around her waist that she was breathless. It was wonderful and life-affirming and dangerously exciting.

  When they fell apart, Hugo’s eyes were dark, deep blue and he looked faintly stunned. ‘I am sorry.’

  ‘Why? I am not.’ She wasn’t. She should be, but she couldn’t find a whisper of regret anywhere.

  ‘My technique seem to have become inexcusably clumsy.’ His grip on her waist loosened, but he did not let her go.

  ‘Perhaps it is a while since you kissed a woman?’ she suggested. The sudden calculation she could see in his eyes was amusing.

  ‘A month or two,’ Hugo admitted. ‘I am not in the habit of wantonly kissing my way around, you understand.’ He cocked an eyebrow quizzically, but Emilia sensed he was concerned with how she replied.

  ‘No, I can tell that.’ His hands were still warm on her waist, she was no longer treading on his toes, so she reached up, curled her fingers around the strong column of his neck and drew him down. ‘We could try again?’

  ‘I would appreciate a second chance. You disconcert me, Emilia.’

  Disconcert him? Me, plain ordinary Emilia Weston? Then his mouth closed firmly over hers and his tongue swept along the fullness of her lower lip and she let herself sink into the sensation. It was strange to know what she was doing, to know what to expect, and yet to be experiencing it with a different man.

  And any memories were lost almost immediately. Hugo tasted different, felt different, kissed differently. She had thought that to make love with any other man would feel like disloyalty to Giles, although she knew he would never want her to be alone after he had gone. But this felt right and wonderful as sensations she had almost forgotten about tingled and throbbed and ached deliciously from her lips to her thighs.

  Hugo explored deep into her mouth as though he wanted to drink her in and she responded with as much boldness, learning the taste of him, teasing him with nips and licks, digging her fingers into his broad shoulders.

  When he lifted his head finally they stared at each other until he released his grip on her waist and she dropped her hands from his shoulders. Emilia groped her way to the nearest chair and sat down on it with a thump. Her breasts felt heavy, as sensitive as if he had been caressing the na
ked flesh, and between her thighs the pulse of arousal beat a distracting, insistent rhythm.

  ‘I did not send the boys to the carpenter’s so I could do that,’ Hugo said abruptly. ‘It has just occurred to me that you might believe I had schemed to get them out of the house.’ He put one hand on the mantel and stood looking down into the fire, then abruptly swung the kettle over the heat.

  ‘No. It never occurred to me that you would do such a thing.’ Was she being hopelessly naïve and trusting? But did men set on selfish seduction raise such concerns? Perhaps they did if they were very subtle. Emilia gave herself a mental shake. Every instinct had told her to trust Hugo from the moment she set eyes on him. ‘I asked you to kiss me.’ She ought to feel shame at being so bold. She certainly should feel alarm at what she was doing.

  ‘I am honoured. And flattered. And I think we should stop this right now while there are only kisses between us.’ He began to spoon tea into the pot as though the banal domesticity of the act would somehow disperse the tensions that thickened the air between them.

  What is this? she wondered, but did not ask. Hugo was apparently too decent to seduce her and leave her and she was impossible as a mistress—no man, certainly no aristocrat, offered an alehouse keeper with children a carte blanche.

  ‘That would certainly be sensible,’ she agreed, dredging up remnants of common sense from wherever they had vanished to. ‘It would also be a saving on the housekeeping if you stopped heaping tea into that pot.’

  ‘Oh, Lord!’ He peered into it and began to spoon tea out again. Emilia laughed and for a minute or two while she fetched mugs and milk it was as though those kisses had never happened. Then Hugo looked up, straight into her eyes and said, ‘I have never met another woman like you, Emilia. I doubt I ever will again.’

  What could she say to that? What did it mean? He seemed blurred somehow and then she realised it was not her emotions playing havoc with her eyesight, but the light dimming. ‘Oh, no, here comes the snow again.’

  ‘I’ll go and get the boys.’ Hugo swept his heavy cloak from the peg, clapped his hat on his head and went out, snowflakes swirling into the room in his wake.

  They melted in the warm air and all trace of him was gone, only the two mugs standing on the table left to mark that she had not dreamed the last half-hour.

  ‘You are going to break my heart, Hugo Travers,’ Emilia said. But hearts had been broken before and no one died of it, not while there were stockings to darn and boys to feed and ale to brew. She swirled her big white apron around her waist and went to survey the larder shelves in search of inspiration for supper.

  * * *

  ‘Have you done your Latin exercises?’ Hugo felt the concerted power of two sets of eyes on his back, but he did not look round from grooming Ajax.

  ‘Yes, Major. And we’ve done our chores and Mama says we are under her feet because she is trying to sweep. Is it ever going to be Christmas?’

  ‘Today is the twenty-third. Christmas Eve is tomorrow. How are the shelves coming along?’ He sponged Ajax’s muzzle and the big horse sighed gustily, spraying him with water. He was bored, standing in this stall. The deep, narrow paths through the snow were unfit for anything but walking, but he would take him out in a minute.

  ‘Really well, they are finished almost. Mr Daventry has carved a star on both ends for us and he is going to help us put our initials on it this afternoon.’ There was an anxious pause. ‘Do you think we have enough money to pay him for the wood and carving the stars and helping us?’

  ‘How much have you got?’

  ‘Two shillings and four pence halfpenny.’

  Hugo had already spoken to the carpenter, agreed a price and promised to make up the difference. ‘Well, that should do it. Do you want to come and help me exercise Ajax?’ He untied the halter rope, slid the bridle on to a chorus of excited agreement and led the horse out into the front yard. ‘Come on, then, up you go.’

  He swung Nathan up, then Joseph. They were almost too excited to speak. Hugo put the reins into Nathan’s hands and walked away into one of the pathways through the snow. Ajax plodded behind, the boys’ feet brushing the tops of the snow banks.

  It was a relief to get right away from the house. He had been trying to ever since he had yielded to temptation and kissed Emilia and felt the ache of desire sweep through him, felt the pain under his breastbone that he did not understand intensify. He had dug, visited, joined the other men in planning, helped clear the barn and select the beast for the roast. And every time he had gone back to the house the very lack of contact, the control with which Emilia ignored what he had done, scarified his pride.

  That would be sensible, she had said when he had summoned up every ounce of his crumbling will-power and said that they should put a stop to it. Whatever it was. She had spoken calmly, dispassionately, as if she had taken all she needed from him. Certainly she was not hurt or desperate to be back in his arms. He had thought she needed him more than he needed her and it seemed he was wrong.

  I do not need her. I need a wife.

  * * *

  The ride had been a wild success. After half an hour Hugo swopped them around so Joseph had the reins, by which time they had their voices back.

  ‘Are you married, Major?’ Nathan asked.

  What? For an appalled moment he thought he was being asked his intentions towards their mother, then he realised his own conscience was imposing undertones on a perfectly innocent piece of curiosity.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’ Joseph enquired earnestly. ‘Aren’t you really old not to be married?’

  Chapter Six

  ‘I am twenty-eight,’ Hugo said. ‘Which is a perfectly good age to get married. And besides, I have been away fighting.’

  ‘So who are you going to marry?’

  ‘I haven’t met her yet.’ It felt important to state that.

  ‘How will you find the right one then?’ Nathan asked. ‘A wife has to be able to cook, doesn’t she?’

  ‘No, not always. I employ a cook. I will go to London after Christmas and attend parties and balls and hope to find the right lady.’ That was the plan. It had seemed perfectly sensible. It was perfectly sensible. It was how a gentleman found a wife.

  ‘How will you know? Will she be pretty?’

  ‘Perhaps she will.’ Blonde, blue eyes, tall. Cool. ‘How do you know when you like someone?’

  ‘But it’s more than liking, isn’t it?’ Joseph chimed in. ‘You’ve got to live with her for ever and ever and have babies and love each other.’ His voice trailed away. ‘Until one of you dies.’

  ‘We will have to like each other,’ Hugo said briskly. ‘Love could grow afterwards. And she will come from the same sort of background as me so she will know how to look after quite a lot of servants and tenants and a big house.’ He was not sure who he was trying to convince, himself or the boys. Or perhaps, part of himself suggested, they will tell Emilia and she will understand that really, this thing between us is just something that has sprung from the enforced closeness.

  ‘When do you exchange presents?’ he asked. This was definitely the time to change the subject and presents was one topic guaranteed to secure their undivided attention.

  ‘On Christmas Eve—tomorrow—before we go to the Feast.’

  ‘Then shall I put the shelves up in your mama’s bedroom while you distract her by calling her out to the stable?’ he suggested. ‘I’ll go and pick them up and ask the carpenter for some nails.’

  He tried to recall the process of giving presents when he was a child. His trustees would provide suitable amounts of money, then he sat down and wrote a careful note to each of the staff to wrap around their cash gift that would go on top of the new uniform they would receive every Christmas. His trustees would receive an immaculately penned letter of Christmas good wishes and thanks for their guidance during the past year, all under the supervision of his governess.

  At school, and in the army, there were gifts for fr
iends, of course, but those were easy enough. All that was involved was a little thought, a cheerful straightforward exchange. This business of plotting and worrying over the right present, of secrets and schemes, of really caring about finding the right thing for each recipient, this was new. A family thing, he supposed. He rather liked it, he realised as he turned back to the stable, Ajax nudging him in the back in a friendly way as they walked.

  * * *

  ‘Mama.’

  ‘Yes, Nathan?’ Emilia carried on kneading dough while she waited for whatever awkward question her sons were about to throw at her this time. She recognised the tone of voice for a Big Question. They had covered where do babies come from? At least, they had in as much detail as she felt appropriate at their age. And they had talked about how they knew Papa was in Heaven and why Johnny Pullin was such a bully. This was obviously another important topic.

  ‘Why doesn’t the major marry you? He’s looking for a wife and you’d do very well, even if he doesn’t need someone who can cook.’

  ‘Why—? How on earth do you know?’ Her hands stilled, sticky dough hanging in a lump in midair.

  ‘We asked him if he was married and he said no. So we asked why not and he said he was going to look for a wife after Christmas, but he’s already got a cook so that doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Indeed? And why would I do very well, might I ask?’ Her pulse was all over the place. What on earth had Hugo said to them?

  ‘He said it would be nice if she was pretty. And you are pretty, we think. And he said she should be from the same sort of background because of knowing all about servants and tenants and things. But I expect you could learn that, couldn’t you, Mama?’