Chapter Five

      Aristocrat. It was not until she heard the word in her head and felt the sharp pang beneath her breastbone that Emilia understood her own foolishness. Part of her, some part that was utterly out of touch with reality, had been dreaming that her handsome major would want her, kiss her, fall for her. Ridiculous, even if he had merely been a landowning officer, for he was too decent to seduce her and anything else was simply moonshine.

      But an aristocrat? Connections, respectability, dowry were all. The only relationship Hugo Travers, Lord Whatever He Was, could have with her was as a kindly passing acquaintance or to take her as a mistress. She almost laughed at the notion of herself as mistress-material as she brushed ashes off her worn skirt and held out one chapped hand to the warmth of the fire.

      ‘You’ll have that bread in cinders,’ old Mr Janes cackled. ‘Looking for your lover in the flames, eh?’

      ‘You’re a dreadful old man and you’ve had too much mulled ale,’ she scolded him, pulling back the toasting fork and setting it aside. Years of practice putting on a cheerful face for the boys under all circumstances stood her in good stead with adults, too, she was learning.

      He grinned, revealing one remaining tooth and a great deal of gum. ‘I’m old, that’s a fact, my pretty. But you gets wisdom with age.’

      ‘And what’s your wisdom telling you now, eh, Grandfer Janes?’ one of the younger men called.

      ‘It’s telling me we’re having snow from now until Christmas morn and none of us is getting out of this hamlet for a week, so we’d best be thinking what we’re going to do about the Feast.’

      ‘Are you certain?’ Hugo’s deep voice cut through the buzz of comment.

      ‘Aye, he’s certain,’ the smith said. ‘Best weather prophet in the Chiltern Hills is Old Janes. Best make your mind up to it, Major. You’re spending Christmas in Little Gatherborne.’

      Hugo’s face in the candlelight, through the haze of tobacco smoke, was unreadable to anyone who did not know him as she was beginning to. His lips moved. She thought he murmured, ‘Hell’, then he asked, ‘What feast?’

      ‘The Christmas Feast,’ Cartwright explained. ‘We hold it every Christmas Eve over at Squire Nicholson’s big barn in Great Gatherborne. Everyone comes from both villages and the farms all around, there’s dancing, music, games for the little ones, food.’

      ‘So where will you hold it over here?’

      ‘Don’t see how we can,’ someone complained. ‘None of us has a barn and Squire provides the beast for roasting.’

      ‘What’s the barn up the hill, then?’

      ‘That belongs to Sir Philip Davenport. He’s got a big house down the valley,’ Emilia explained. ‘I think he’s going to sell it to the Squire. It’s empty, though. We could use it if it isn’t locked.’

      ‘What, without asking? He’d be powerful mad and he’s a magistrate.’ That was Jimmy Hadfield, who’d had a close scrape over a poached pheasant or two if she wasn’t mistaken.

      She couldn’t ask Sir Philip, that was for certain. She had actually danced with him, just the once, at her very first, and last, ball on the night she and Giles had eloped. If he didn’t know who she was, he would not see her, the humble alewife, but if she told him her real identity to gain an interview he would be highly embarrassed. And it would be even more embarrassing for her parents if he let slip to society that Lord Peterscroft’s wanton daughter was running a rural alehouse.

      ‘I could have a word with him afterwards,’ Hugo said. ‘If we don’t do any damage—’ The rest was lost in a roar of approbation.

      ‘What about food?’ Emilia managed to make herself heard above the din. ‘The squire gives us a bullock.’ She tried to sort out the conflicting emotions in her head. Delight, of course, that the hamlet could have its Feast after all and a grudging resentment that Hugo would stroll into see Sir Philip, exchange a few casual words and it would all be settled. Once she had accepted that kind of privilege without thought. Now she knew she could never be that girl again.

      ‘None of us has got any spare livestock,’ someone said from the back of the room. Gloom descended.

      ‘Has anyone got an animal you could spare if you had the money to replace it?’ Hugo asked. ‘I’ll buy it as my contribution to the feast.’

      That settled it. Several meaty palms slapped Hugo’s shoulders before the men recollected who he was and then, when he showed no sign of taking exception to the treatment, he was offered a quantity of dubious snuff and a tot of Granfer Jane’s even more dubious, and decidedly illegal, home-distilled spirits, which rendered him speechless after one mouthful.

      Emilia filled another jug with ale. This was going to turn into a planning meeting and that required lubrication. Across the room she met Hugo’s eyes. He raised his eyebrows and grinned and she found herself grinning back. He was a good man, she had known it instinctively, and it was pleasant to be proved correct. If only she could hold on to that and not allow those wicked, wistful longings to creep in when she looked at him, thought about him.

      ‘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