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

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 naked 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

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