Читать книгу Snowbound Wedding Wishes: An Earl Beneath the Mistletoe / Twelfth Night Proposal / Christmas at Oakhurst Manor - Louise Allen, Joanna Fulford - Страница 11

Her mouth had been open to protest, but she was pressed against Hugo’s front, inhaling warm man as his hands shifted and he settled her more securely against himself. One hand pushed into her hair, sending pins falling free as he cradled her head, the other hand pressed open against her shoulder blades, moving in slow, devastating circles. Her hands were trapped between her breasts and his chest and his heart was thudding against her palms

All the air in her lungs and the blood in her head had vanished. It was wonderful and terrifying and she felt alive as she had not been for years. And it was wrong to be held like this, it had to be if it was this good. Emilia pulled a hand free, fetching Hugo a blow on the ear by mistake.

He set her back a little, just enough that their bodies were no longer touching. ‘Ouch! I am sorry—’

‘So am I. I didn’t mean to hit you.’ They stared into each other’s faces, their noses almost touching, their breath wreathing white in the cold air. ‘I didn’t mean for you to stop,’ Emilia blurted. She curled her hands around his waist and pulled and Hugo, with a groan that was either desire or despair and was, she thought wildly, possibly both, pulled her to him again.

Kiss me. Somehow she managed to keep the words in her head.

‘Major?’ called a treble voice from upstairs.

‘Hell!’ Hugo set her free so abruptly that she sat down on the edge of the tun. He was across the cellar and standing at the foot of the steps before she could gather her wits and realise where she was, what she was doing. What she had almost done.

‘Yes? I am down here. Are you stuck with that exercise?’ he called up, as calm as though they had been discussing hops and ale recipes.

Both boys came down the steps. ‘No, we’ve finished. Look.’ Joseph was waving a sheet of paper under Hugo’s nose. ‘See, Mama, we’ve translated a whole page! What are you doing?’

Goodness knows! Embracing a totally inappropriate man in the cellar. He is either sorry for me or he thinks I am pitiful and grateful for his attentions. ‘Emptying the used mash,’ Emilia said briskly. She pulled herself together and studied her sons. ‘Has Major Travers been setting you Latin lessons?’ They seemed unusually cheerful about the fact.

‘Yes, and they are all about wars and battles!’

‘How interesting. I just hope you aren’t both going to rush off to the next recruiting sergeant who comes around.’ They grinned back at her, knowing teasing when they heard it. Her feet were freezing now she was out of the slightly warm mash. Emilia slid her feet into her wooden pattens and tried to ignore Hugo, who shot her an unreadable glance, although whether it signified remorse at having embraced her or the strains of teaching small boys their Latin, she could not tell.

Hugo sat beside her on the edge of the tun and heeled off his shoes. ‘Where does this used mash go?’ He rolled off his stockings. Emilia averted her eyes from well-muscled, hairy calves.

‘We’ll show you.’ Nathan seized one of the filled buckets. ‘It all gets dumped over here and then when it is dried we use it for the animals.’

Hugo shed coat and waistcoat and rolled up his sleeves. Emilia kicked off the pattens and swung her legs over to get back into the tun.

‘No. I’ll finish here.’ He put one hand on her arm.

She still could not look at him, or think of anything to say with the boys so close. She was acutely aware of her wet skirts and bare calves, of the blood pounding around her veins, of the closeness of him and the warm weight of his hand against the skin of her forearm. From somewhere Emilia found her voice and something coherent to say. ‘Of course. I must get some food together. You will all be starving.’

She scrambled back out, jammed her feet into the pattens, let down her skirts and hurried upstairs without stopping to look back at Hugo or brush off the grains that clung to her legs. She heard the scrape of the wooden shovel on the stone base of the tun, the laughter of the boys as they fought over who was carrying the next bucket, then she was in the kitchen with the door safely closed behind her.

This was a disaster. What had she done? What had she risked, simply because of the aching need for strong arms around her, for the respite from being continuously in charge? And, yes, she thought, if she was going to be honest, she had wanted that fire in the blood, that sensual tingle between a man and a woman.

Emilia pulled onions and carrots out of their sacks and began scrubbing them to add to the soup that simmered on the hob. She worked as though she could rub away the feel of Hugo’s arms around her, the scent of him. She had made her decision when she had slipped away from that ball and fallen, laughing, into Giles’s arms. She had chosen love and laughter and joy for however long it lasted. And she had been blessed with four years of happiness and two wonderful sons.

But you paid the price of whatever your choices brought you. The boys had her total love and every moment she could devote to them, to building their futures. And the price for that was hard work and maintaining her reputation, not dallying with big strong soldiers. They were such good boys, so bright, so loving. She chopped the roots with savage swipes of the knife. They deserved the lives of opportunity their grandparents could give them.

But that was part of the price, too. And she had written three times and been rejected. So, no more false hope. One large tear plopped into the stock. ‘Stop it,’ Emilia said out loud.

‘Stop what?’ asked Hugo’s deep, concerned voice.

‘Stop being foolish,’ she snapped back as she peered into the jar of peppercorns and estimated how many she could afford to grind up for the soup. It kept her face turned from him, too. ‘Where are Joseph and Nathan?’

‘Checking on the animals and taking Ajax a bucket of mash. They offered,’ he added, coming fully into the room and leaning his broad shoulders back against the door. ‘I was not trying to get them out of the way, although it is convenient, I have to admit, for we need to talk. I should not have touched you. I do not know what came over me, which is hardly original or convincing, or even an excuse.’

‘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.