Snowbound Wedding Wishes: An Earl Beneath the Mistletoe / Twelfth Night Proposal / Christmas at Oakhurst Manor. Louise Allen
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beneath reddening the brick floor. Stone troughs stood around, pipework and spouts jutted from the walls and a row of barrels lined the walls. The floor was still wet around the biggest trough and a sodden mass of malt grains filled it halfway, steaming gently.
There was at least one more room at a higher level behind the wall, he realised as he dredged up the faint memories of the brew house at Long Burnham Hall. The trough was a mash tun, the mass of wet grains was the mash, and sparging must have involved soaking it in hot water. Not an easy job for a slight woman on her own. He stood frowning at the signs of activity: buckets and poles and sacks. Where was this Bavin fellow who was supposed to be helping her?
Mrs Weston had dragged a tub close to the fire and set a bucket beside it, alongside a stool with a piece of soap, towels and a small mirror. Hugo began to bail water out of the copper and into the tub, uncomfortably aware that she had set the things out for him as a wife might prepare a bath for a returning husband. There was an unsettling intimacy about this, which did not help him suppress his instinctive reaction to Mrs Weston in the slightest. Whomever her occupation made her now, his involuntary hostess was also a lady and should not be waiting on a strange man.
He tugged off his boots with difficulty, struggled out of his uniform jacket and hauled his shirt over his head. The heat of the fire on his damp, cold skin made him close his eyes in blessed relief.
‘Major?’ It was Joseph, peering over an armful of clothes. He dumped them on a barrel and scooped up what Hugo had discarded. ‘Mama says these should fit. She says, will you give me your breeches as well.’
Jaw set, Hugo clambered out of the sodden leathers and handed them over, waited until the boy had scampered back upstairs and clambered into the tub, still in his drawers. He wouldn’t put it past the unconventional Mrs Weston to come down to check he had washed behind his ears.
‘He’s got a great big scar right across here!’ Joseph gestured across his chest. ‘And he’s all brown!’
And I really do not need a mental image of that man without his clothes, thank you, Joseph. ‘Who is he? The cat’s uncle?’ Emilia enquired repressively as she wrung out a pair of socks. How did boys create holes in their hose without any apparent effort at all? Her back was aching, but if she just finished the day’s washing now she could concentrate on making up a bed for their visitor and finishing supper.
‘The major, Mama.’ Joseph dropped the shirt and stockings into the wash pail and hung the buckskin breeches over a chair.
‘The major’s got an enormous sword and pistols and a great big knife in his boot. Where do you think he is going, Mama?’ Nathan hung over the stew pot, stirring while he counted dumplings with a covetous eye. She had made six more and added some carrots and turnips to the pot. Hope-fully that would be enough to assuage the major’s hunger.
‘Home, I suppose. The war has been over for eight months now.’ Home to his wife and family who will be thankful that their man escaped with nothing worse than a scar. What a blessing for them. ‘Goodness, it is getting cold. Throw some more wood on the fire please, Joseph.’
Would Major Travers be all right on the floor of the tap-room? He was starchy enough to refuse the offer of the attic room with the boys, just next to her own, she was certain. Oh. well, he would have experienced considerably worse at war. Once he was dry and warm and fed, he would be all right.
‘Is there anything I can do for you, Mrs Weston?’ a deep voice behind her enquired as she shook out a chemise. Emilia turned and there he was in the doorway, the colour back in his tanned cheeks, shaved to within a painful inch of perfection, thick black hair combed. He managed to look the English gentleman even while filling out Peter’s homespun shirt and leather waistcoat with his wide shoulders. His long legs were encased in battered old breeches and well-darned stockings, his feet in borrowed shoes were set wide apart on the flags.
Do for me? Emilia blinked and tried to rescue some trace of common sense, some ghost of the practical mother and alewife. Oh, my goodness. Stop looking at me with those dark blue eyes, for a start. That would help.
Even cold, soaked and grumpy he had been a large, attractive male. Now, for an overworked, lonely widow, this dark, frowning, punctilious major was temptation personified and she must be all about in her wits to even think about it. She swallowed. His eyes narrowed.
Giles always said she wore her thoughts on her face. Emilia dropped her gaze to the embarrassingly intimate garment that was dripping in her hands and wrung it out with a savage twist while she dragged her treacherous thoughts back to practicality.
‘Shall I bring in some more logs?’ Hugo offered into the brief silence. No wonder Mrs Weston was blushing—he had seen what she was washing all too plainly. Not that it wasn’t a perfectly plain and workaday chemise, but even so…
‘And get soaked and cold again? I have only so much dry clothing for you.’ She was teasing, rather than irritated, he hoped. The quick blush had vanished and she was composed and smiling again. ‘Thank you, but we brought in a good supply of fuel this morning when the rain threatened. You might want to make up your bed now and let it get warm by the fire, though. There are some straw palliasses and blankets and so forth under the stairs.’ She pointed to a cupboard. ‘When we have the big brew for the midsummer festivities I have helpers here all night and eventually they talk and drink themselves to sleep.’
He found the things as she said, neatly stacked and rolled, blankets and linen folded around sprigs of lavender, all orderly and fresh like everything he had seen of her home and business. How much work did it take for one slightly built woman to maintain this, even with two willing boys to help her? Even as he worried about that, the image of her, strong and slender beneath his body on these palliasses in front of the fire came from nowhere to stop him in his tracks.
‘Are your servants keeping to their own cottages in this rain?’ he asked as he closed the cupboard door firmly on his fantasies.
That provoked a snort of laughter. ‘Servants? This is not a coaching inn, Major! Mrs Trigg comes in once a week to help me scrub, Peter Bavin does a couple of days a week for the heavy lifting—when he isn’t trapped on the other side of the river with the bridge down and the meadows flooded.’
She shook out some more garments and Hugo recognised his own shirt and stockings. He should never have let the boy take them, she had far too much to do without his washing as well. ‘There,’ she said. ‘All done.’ Everything was draped over airing stands on the far side of the fire, his shirts effectively providing a screen for more intimate items at the back.
‘If you will just bring that pot to the table, Major.’ The boys scurried around, finding plates and knives and producing bread from a big stoneware crock. There was stew, simple and savoury with fluffy herbed dumplings floating in it, bread and butter, cheese, stewed dried apples and ale to wash it all down with. Hugo tried not to eat like a wolf, despite second and then third helpings being offered.
‘Thank you, ma’am. It is delicious, but I’ll not eat you out of house and home—you will not have been expecting to cater for a visitor tonight.’
Mrs Weston sent him one of her flashing smiles. ‘It is a pleasure to feed anyone who appreciates my food. And we will not go short, believe me. I have ample in stock for the winter and once we can communicate with the outside world, fresh supplies are not so very far away.’
‘Where are we? I must have passed between Berkhamsted and Hemel Hempstead in the dark—my map had turned to mush and I couldn’t read the compass with no light. I was heading, I hoped, for the road towards Northampton.’
‘This is the hamlet of Little Gatherborne. On the other side of the River Gather is Greater Gatherborne and we are about six miles from Berkhamsted that way—’ she pointed ‘—and about eight in that direction from Watling Street, which