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

‘I am not a loose woman,’ Emilia said with painful clarity, her eyes focused on a jar of pickled mushrooms. ‘I have only ever slept with my husband. I wanted to be held and I suppose you could tell that. I apologise for not making it clear that no such thing must happen.’

‘Damn it.’ Hugo was at her side in two long strides. He took the jar from her hands and banged it down on the table. ‘I do not need telling that you are virtuous. Nor do I need telling that your reputation in this hamlet is precious. I am on my way home, intending to seek and woo a wife.’

There was only the corner of the table and a large jar of pickles between them. Somehow she had to fight. ‘It seems to be something other than your good intentions in control,’ she said drily.

He gave a painful snort of laughter and pulled her round the table, setting the pickle jar rocking, and held her tight against him. ‘You think that desire drives me? You are an attractive woman, you feel good in my arms and my body sends me messages about more than holding you. I can ignore that. What I find it hard to ignore is the ache in my chest and the need for my arms to be around you.’

His cheek was pressed against her hair again. They were just the right height for that, Emilia thought hazily as she hung on to as much solid man as she could get her arms around. ‘You are sorry for me, that’s all,’ she muttered into the rough homespun shirt that smelled of her soap and his skin.

‘I am sorry for a lot of people, from the Prime Minister to beggars in the gutter,’ Hugo growled. ‘I do not have the urge to cuddle any of them.’

For a second, a blissful second, she relaxed against him, her soft curves fitting with erotic rightness against his hard angles. Then she felt his body harden into arousal, unmistakable against her stomach, and she pushed him, hard in the centre of his chest. For a second she thought he would not release her, she could almost feel decency and desire warring in him, and then he opened his arms and stepped back.

‘It seems you cannot control your desires as well as you boast, Major,’ she said, her voice unsteady.

‘Emilia…Hell, the boys are coming.’

‘You have ears like a cat,’ Emilia said as her sons burst into the kitchen. She pulled the greased paper off the jar of pickled mushrooms and delved in with a spoon to find enough to go in the soup. ‘Quietly, boys. Go and wash and clear your work off the table.’

It was like being two people. One was the sensible, hard-working mother and alewife who was capable of carrying on calmly despite chance-met travellers, snowdrifts or anything else life threw at her. The other was a yearning, passionate creature who wanted to be loved and held and to share joy and troubles with someone who understood.

But of course Hugo Travers did not understand. He was a gentleman, someone of sufficient standing to take part in the London Season when he searched for a wife. He was also was gallant and sympathetic and grateful for the shelter. And not averse to embracing a woman, a cold whisper of common sense told her. Perhaps he had hoped to see if she responded by lifting her face to be kissed and then he would not have been so gentlemanly. Or perhaps he needed hugging, too, the trusting part of her countered. It might have begun as a hug, but it almost got out of control.

Emilia ladled out soup and they sat down. Hugo already knew his way around her kitchen, she could see, for he had found the bread and was cutting it. She had the sense that he was used to moving from billet to billet with the army, settling in and making himself at home wherever he found himself. He was acting as though nothing had happened—she must match his control.

‘You’ll have business tonight,’ he said as he passed her a slice. ‘Either the result of a strong thirst from shovelling or a wish to check on the stranger under your roof. Your neighbours are protective.’

‘Were they hostile?’ she asked, anxious that he had been insulted.

‘No. They were reserved, but they made it quite obvious that they were watching. Your smith in particular wished to make it clear that he will dismantle me with his bare hands if there is anything amiss.’

‘I nursed his wife last year when she was sick,’ Emilia explained. ‘Joseph, why are you opening and shutting your mouth like a gudgeon?’

‘Why would Mr Cartwright hit the major, Mama?’

‘In case the major is a dangerous rogue in disguise. He might be here to rob us of all the gold sovereigns under the floorboards and our wonderful silver tableware.’ She swept a hand round to illustrate the horn beakers, the pewter plates, the earthenware jugs. The boys collapsed in giggles.

‘It is a good thing we will have some company,’ she added. ‘I want barrels shifting and we need several strong men for that.’ And with the taproom full of people there would be no temptation to look at Hugo, much less yearn for the caresses that were so dangerous.

‘Will you brew again before Christmas?’

Emilia laughed. ‘Of course! This is good weather for it because when it is cold I can control the fermentation better. Besides, we will need plenty for the Christmas celebrations.’

‘But not today.’

She suspected that was an order. ‘No, not today,’ Emilia agreed. ‘I have the housework to catch up with and baking to do.’

Hugo took himself off to the stables while she worked. Probably escaping from the reality of being trapped with two small boys, a never-ending list of menial chores and a foolish woman who cast herself into his arms. He hugged me first, she told herself, sweeping the hearth with unnecessary vigour.

Hugo strode into the stable, stripped the sacks off Ajax’s back and set to with brush and curry comb. The big horse grunted with pleasure at the strength of the strokes and leaned into them.

He had to do something physical. Getting into a fight was the most tempting solution, but there was no one to spar with, only himself to beat up, mentally.

What had he done? He should never have touched her, let alone caressed her, allowed himself to become blatantly aroused. Damn it, he had boasted to her that he could control himself.

Disgusted with himself, Hugo swore, viciously, in Spanish, Portuguese and, for good measure, French. Emilia had pushed him away. Had needed to push him away. That fact alone was shocking. He simply did not behave like this. If he took a mistress, then it was a considered act, properly negotiated like everything else in his life.

She had pushed him away. Rejected him. Of course she did, she’s a decent woman. That did not help. Hell, he wanted her and he wanted her to want him. He should have had some restraint, he was the one with years of disciplined living and trained self-control behind him, he was not the lonely overworked one who should have tumbled into his arms with gratitude.

Coxcomb, he thought and added a few choice epitaphs. Emilia is not lonely. She has her sons to love and a village full of people who like her and protect her.

Perhaps he was lonely. How could that be with dozens of friends, innumerable acquaintances? And no one to love, a small inner voice murmured. Well, that was easy enough to deal with. When he got out of here he would get on with finding a wife, a rational, intelligent, suitable wife who would fill any empty niches in his life. Not love, of course, whatever that was.

He began to talk to Ajax in Spanish. ‘She’ll be blonde. Blue-eyed, I think, or grey. Quite tall. Very elegant and self-possessed, but quiet. I don’t want a chatterer.’ Not someone who makes jokes at mealtimes and who teases me. ‘Responsive in bed, of course. An iceberg would be unpleasant to live with. But not demanding reassurances all the time that I love her or some such nonsense.’ Not melting into my arms as though I am all she desires and then pushing me away.

‘Is that Spanish?’

Hugo dropped the curry comb and Nathan dived to pick it up. ‘Yes, Spanish.’ Thank God. ‘Thank you.’ He took the metal scrapper and cleaned the dandy brush.

‘Why are you talking to Ajax?’

‘He’s the only thing around here that doesn’t answer back,’ Hugo said with some feeling. ‘Pass me the hoof pick, will you?’

The old long-case clock in the corner of the taproom chimed four. The house was clean, the fires made up, a somewhat muscular chicken was in the pot for dinner and the boys were with Hugo.

Emilia sat down by the hearth and contemplated doing nothing for an entire, blissful, half-hour of self-indulgence. Only her mind refused to relax and every time it did she found herself thinking about that embrace.

But brooding about Hugo made her think of his lack of a family and that led inevitably to her own. The boys were growing up without their grandparents. Her parents would never know her sons. It was Christmas—surely a time for forgiveness and new starts? She would write, try again one last time. Perhaps if she made it clear they did not have to see her again, that she wanted nothing for herself, their ruined daughter, they would relent towards the boys.

Paper was expensive and she could not afford to waste it. She sat at the table, chewing the end of her pen and composing in her head and then wrote, slowly, taking care over every word.

There, done. Emilia scrubbed the back of her hand across her wet eyes. At least she hadn’t dripped tears on the page, that really would have looked like a plea for sympathy. She folded the sheet carefully, wrote the direction on the front and went in search of the sealing wax.

Where had she left it? The taproom, she realised after ten minutes of fruitless rummaging in drawers. She had used it to seal that order to the maltster last week.

She was halfway across the room when she heard the sound of footsteps from the direction of the stable. The high mantelshelf over the hearth was out of reach of small boys. She reached up to hide the letter and when they came in with Hugo on their heels she was making up the fire. ‘Goodness, this chimney is smoky.’ She mopped at her cheeks, smiled and ignored the swift frowning glance that Hugo sent her.

He strode across the room and tucked his roll of bedding more tidily into the corner.

‘You could put it back into the cupboard, for the moment,’ Emilia suggested.

‘I don’t think so, do you?’

The level look brought the colour to her cheeks. Of course, he wanted to reinforce the point about where he was sleeping when the villagers came in this evening. I wish it was upstairs.

Hugo had been correct in his prediction. Every man in the village, including old Mr Janes, found their way along the narrow paths, some bringing their shovels with them in case they had to dig their way back.

Emilia sent the boys to bed and heated a large pot of mulled ale over the fire. Hugo was sitting at a corner table, apparently engrossed in the pile of tattered news sheets he had found with the kindling. He looked up and exchanged unsmiling nods with the men as they came in.

They crowded into the taproom, blowing out lanterns, filling the space with the smell of tallow, wet wool, tobacco and hard-working man with a rich undertone of cattle.

‘Good evening, everyone.’ Emilia straightened up from her stirring and smiled at them as they stamped snow off their boots and heaped coats in the corner. ‘Would some of you do me a favour and bring two barrels up?’

‘Aye, I’ll do that for you, Mrs Weston.’ Cartwright, the smith, rolled his broad shoulders. ‘The major here will give me hand, I’ve no doubt. The two of us will manage.’

Damn. That was a deliberate challenge. It normally took four of them to roll the barrel on to the carrying cradle and get it up the stairs. Two men could do it, if they were strong enough, but Joseph had reported that Hugo had a big scar across his chest. Was it a recent wound? But there was nothing she could do about it, they were on their way downstairs.

There was bumping and a thud or two from the cellar. the other men stood around nudging each other. Really, they are such boys, she thought crossly. Then there were heavy footsteps on the stairs and the blacksmith appeared carrying the front handles of the wooden cradle. She held her breath, the weight of the contraption would be tipping down now on the man still on the stairs. If he fell, he would be crushed by the barrel.

But Cartwright kept coming and Hugo emerged, his jaw rather set, but not visibly struggling. They rolled the barrel on to its rest and set down the cradle. ‘Game for the other one?’ There was grudging respect in the smith’s eyes.

‘Some of the others will do it, if they will be so good.’ Emilia pressed a beaker of mulled ale into his hands and gave another to Hugo. ‘On the house for those who carry.’

It had broken the ice, although why Hugo’s ability to lift heavy weights should convince the smith that he was a good man eluded her. Some strange male code, no doubt. Emilia set out mugs and began to fill orders.

Two hours later her cash dish was full of coppers, a cut-throat game of dominoes was going on between Billy Watchett, the ploughman, and one of the Dodson brothers, someone was attempting to wager a piglet against a load of hay on a card game and Michael Fowler was telling anyone who would listen that his heart had been broken by that flighty Madge Green from over the river.

Emilia set a fresh jug of ale down on the end of the table and leaned a hip against it for a brief rest. In the corner Lawrence Bond, a smallholder, smiled and moved his head towards the bench beside him as though in invitation. She pretended not to notice. Bond was the son of a yeoman and apt to give himself airs as a result. He would flirt if he had the opportunity and, of all the men in the village, he was the only one she would feel uneasy about being alone with.

Behind her Hugo was deep in conversation with the smith and his cronies and she shrugged off the discomfort the smallholder’s scrutiny evoked and listened.

‘So what’ll you be doing with yourself now you’re out of the army?’ someone asked.

‘I’ve some land to look after and I was thinking of politics. I ought to take my…I ought to think what to do about that,’ Hugo replied.

No one else picked up on it. Feeling as though she had lost the air in her lungs, Emilia made her way back to the fireside and blindly stuck another slice of bread on the toasting fork. Take my seat is what he had almost let slip. His seat in the House of Lords. Hugo was an aristocrat.

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 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.