Christmas With A Stranger

She froze when he came into the kitchen, as if she’d suddenly come face to face with an intruder bent on unspeakable mischief. She stood on the far side of the table, knives and forks cradled in her graceful nun’s hands, her big gray eyes all wide and startled, and it irritated the hell out of him.

“What’s with the nervous tic?” he inquired.

She stared at him, the way a cornered kitten might. “Is it all right to do this?”

He frowned. “Do what?”

“Prepare the table for dinner.”

“Of course it’s all right,” he snapped, his irritation boiling over. “Why on earth wouldn’t it be?”

“It upset your hired hand, when he came in for lunch. He seemed to think I was interfering.”

“Oh, that.” Morgan selected a bottle of wine from the rack built next to the Welsh dresser and found a corkscrew. “It wasn’t you so much as the memories you stirred up. Beyond making sure the plumbing doesn’t freeze when I’m not here, he doesn’t spend much time in the main house since his wife died. I guess coming in and seeing the place looking the way it did when she was alive took him aback, especially with it being so close to Christmas.”

“I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

“No reason you should.” He took down two wine glasses. “Will you join me, or don’t you drink?”

“A little red wine with dinner would be nice.”

A little red wine with dinner would be nice, she said, mouth all ready to pucker with disapproval. Oh, brother, it was going to be a long evening!

While she served the food, he filled the glasses and wondered unchivalrously if his getting roaring drunk might pass the time more pleasantly. She sat across from him and shook out her serviette, her movements refined, her manners impeccable, as if she’d been born with a silver spoon in her mouth and a flock of servants on hand to do her slightest bidding. And yet the meal she’d turned out suggested a more than passing familiarity with the working end of a kitchen.

They had cream soup made from carrots and flavoured with ginger, followed by stew with dumplings and rich brown gravy, and he had to admit the food went a good way toward improving his mood.

“These dumplings,” he said, spearing one with his fork, “remind me of when Agnes, Clancy’s wife, used to do the cooking. She always served them with venison, too.”

“Venison?” Jessica Simms echoed, managing to turn rather pale even as she choked on her wine.

“Deer,” he explained, thinking she hadn’t understood.

She pressed her serviette hurriedly to her mouth and mumbled, “I was afraid that was what you meant.”

“Why, what did you think you were eating?”

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