Snowbound Wedding Wishes: An Earl Beneath the Mistletoe / Twelfth Night Proposal / Christmas at Oakhurst Manor. Louise Allen
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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.
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 down 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