Snowbound Surrender Page 11

  No, he had let her go, pretended it hadn’t happened and had made his way back to his own chilly bed to spend a restless night thinking about icicles, cold porridge and gentlemanly behaviour.

  Now the sensation of a critical glare between the shoulder blades had him fighting the urge to turn round and say something defensive. It had been an accident, nobody’s fault, but a gentleman would accept the blame if the lady did not see it in that light.

  Behaving myself is a thankless task, he grumbled inwardly as he straightened up with the ash pan in his hands.

  There were certainly disapproving eyes fixed on him, but they were amber, not grey, and belonged to Fred, whose mood had clearly not improved overnight. Julia was standing just inside the door with a smile on her lips that looked as though it was fixed there by force of will. Her cheeks were decidedly pink.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said brightly.

  So we are going to pretend that it didn’t happen, are we? Fair enough. If she can rise above my arrival on her doorstep in a state of frostbitten indecent exposure, I am sure she is capable of ignoring a clumsy buss on the lips.

  Which left him with the unfamiliar problem of what to talk about with a respectable young lady in a situation like this.

  Giles ‘did’ the Season, of course, with all its balls and soirées and masquerades. He attended house parties. He conversed with young ladies, danced with them, squired them about and indulged in very mild flirtation. He rescued wallflowers, dodged matchmaking mamas, kept on the right side of the Patronesses of Almack’s and generally behaved like any twenty-six-year-old aristocrat who had no desire to either find himself leg-shackled or to scandalise society. Then he let off steam at the races, in the boxing saloons or at card play in the company of his friends. Of course, that might skate close to the edge of a scandal if they found themselves assisting at an elopement or disentangling a companion from feminine toils.

  But how to converse with a lady under these circumstances? Society gossip hardly seemed appropriate. The weather was certainly not going to furnish them with much of a basis for chit-chat and they had exhausted the subject of the village and locality last night at supper. He could pretend that Julia was his sister and behave as though he and Lizzie were snowed up together. But his younger sister would faint dead away at the thought of being without her maid, her morning chocolate and the shops, so that image was not helpful. Pretend Julia is a man, he decided. That was safe. Stick to the practical, don’t swear, don’t get close enough for the slightest risk of touching.

  That worked until he actually looked at Julia. Pretend. Act. Practical, remember?

  ‘Good morning. It hasn’t started snowing again, I see. So what needs doing?’

  ‘Breakfast first. If you could fill the kettle and set it over the fire, I will make a start. Bacon, egg and sausage with toast and preserves, I think. If you could open the door for Fred, he’s got a box of sawdust in the wood store. I’m afraid he’ll grumble at you because it is sure to be your fault that the ground is too hard to scratch in.’

  That was prosaic and practical enough, Giles thought as he swung the kettle on its hook over the fire and clicked his fingers at the cat. ‘Come on, sir.’

  To his surprise Fred followed him, muttering under his breath, tail up like a standard. Giles left him to his shock, horror and outrage that the humans hadn’t done anything about the snow and stepped out into the clean, cold, gasp-inducing air. Above, the sky was a clear and cloudless blue and a few yards away the edge of the thick beech woodlands that crowned the ridge pressed close, still covered in the golden-brown dead leaves that would not be shed until the spring.

  A robin fluttered down and regarded him with an appraising black beady eye.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Giles promised. ‘Watch out for the cat.’

  The frying pan was sizzling as he came back in and Julia was keeping an eye on it while holding bread on a toasting fork to the heat. Giles found butter and plates, cutlery and preserves, then went to pour boiling water into the earthenware teapot. ‘Coffee?’

  ‘In the pantry. That’s where the sugar is.’

  * * *

  By the time breakfast was on the table it felt as though they had been working together like this for weeks, not just an hour. As Giles reached across to take the weight of the frying pan his hands closed over Julia’s and they landed it safely on the table, then separated, he to heap the toast on to a plate, she to pour her tea, his coffee. So much for not touching, he thought, and smiled ruefully to himself. Was he such a cockscomb that he thought this practical woman would be undone just by the touch of his hand?

  ‘What amuses you?’ Julia asked as she untied her apron and sat down.

  ‘The fact that I can help in the kitchen without creating havoc.’ That was true as well.

  The look she gave him was a mixture of teasing and approval. ‘I may not have you making pastry yet, though.’

  More relaxed now, Giles tackled the food with appreciation, washing down the savoury saltiness with half the coffee. ‘I promised your robin I’d take him something.’

  Julia nodded. ‘He knows I’ll come with scraps and water,’ she said as she got up and began to clear the table. ‘Keep the bacon rinds and cut them up.’

  She was no longer wary of him, Giles noticed as they moved around the kitchen, the cat weaving in and out of their legs as if they were engaged in some elaborate country dance, but she was distracted by something, judging by the flickering glances she kept directing at the back door.

  ‘What is wrong?’ he asked bluntly when he came back from breaking the ice on the birds’ water and scattering bacon scraps, breadcrumbs and pieces of cheese rind.

  ‘I’m worried about Dorothy, my maid. She is staying at Bluebell Cottage, the last one in the row that way.’ Julia gestured towards one wall. ‘Miss Jepson and her sister Miss Margaret are both quite elderly and it is their only maid who is expecting a baby. There’s Molly, the scullery maid, as well, but she’s only twelve and they are training her up.’

  ‘I recall you said the baby was due soon?’

  ‘After Christmas. I just hope...’ She bit her lower lip as her voice trailed away.

  ‘Where’s the father?’

  ‘Will was a thatcher and he was killed in a fall just a week before they were going to get married. Then Annie discovered she was expecting. The ladies are being very good about it—I suspect they are looking forward to having a baby to fuss over.’

  ‘First babies are often late,’ Giles said with an authority he was far from feeling.

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I helped deliver one once. Not a first baby, but it came up in conversation.’

  ‘You delivered a baby?’ Julia stood, apron half-untied, and gaped at him.

  ‘Didn’t have much choice. I was visiting my gamekeeper who had a badly broken leg and his wife went into labour a week early. I sent my groom for the doctor, but it took him an age, leaving me the only adult on their feet in a household of four children under ten. Mrs Wilmore told me what to do, I did my best not to make a complete pig’s ear of the business and Wilmore was able to add a bouncing son to his tally. By the time the doctor arrived I was feeling as though I needed his attentions more than the mother did, to be frank.’

  He sat down. ‘Makes me shake just remembering it.’

  ‘Goodness, I am impressed.’

  ‘I didn’t have much option, really,’ he said ruefully.

  ‘Yes, you did.’ Julia placed the apron on one side and began to put on a shabby long-skirted coat. ‘Many people would have simply ridden away, women as well as men. Just the gamekeeper’s wife, they’d have said. She’s fortunate that I sent for the doctor. They might have felt moved to pay his bill, I suppose, but that’s all.’

  It felt uncomfortable being praised for something he’d felt he had no choice over. It
felt strange to be praised for anything worthwhile that he’d done, if he was honest with himself. Viscounts tended to be admired for their title, their wealth, their looks, their style—and the rucks and riots that they kicked up to the amusement of the bored ton.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he asked in an effort to turn attention away from himself.

  ‘To see how thick the snow is between us and Bluebell Cottage. I don’t like to think of them being alone now and Dr Hemmingway will never be able to get here if the baby starts to come before the thaw.’ She unhooked a vast sacking apron from behind the door and wrapped it round herself, then pulled out a dresser drawer and began to rummage through a heap of knitted items. ‘There’s a path right along the back of all of the cottages and it is usually more sheltered.’

  ‘It is deep. You won’t get through. Let me come and dig.’

  ‘You will ruin your boots,’ she said doubtfully as she pulled on a pair that were exceedingly battered and looked as though they were more suited to one of the village boys than a lady.

  ‘That would be a blow,’ Giles agreed. ‘But not as bad as the knock my self-esteem would take in your eyes if I abandoned the inhabitants of Bluebell Cottage.’

  ‘And that matters?’

  Yes, it does. I liked that warmth in your eyes when I told you about the baby. I like the trust you showed me last night. You wouldn’t be so trusting or approving if you knew how much I want to take you in my arms and kiss you until you forget about robins and babies and stranded spinsters...

  ‘Of course. I do not want to find myself out in the snow again with the doors locked against me.’

  ‘You’ve got no overcoat.’

  ‘I’ll get warm soon enough. Are there spare gloves and scarves in that pile?’

  Chapter Four

  Giles seemed to be amused and surprised by her practicality, Julia thought, puzzled a little by that. After all, he knew she had been a country-dweller for almost two years. He had tried to protest when she had trundled the first barrowload of snow to tip on to the lawn beside the house, but had only shrugged when she had pointed out that the space was too narrow for him to turn it easily himself.

  While he filled the next one she took a stiff brush to the cleared section, then sprinkled on cinders from the ash can, in between leaning on the broom and admiring the sight of a tall, fit man using his muscles. Giles might not be used to manual labour, but he clearly did not spend his time lounging about with his feet up either.

  Of course, she had seen him without a stitch, but that had been from the front and she had been too surprised and embarrassed to do more than take a fleeting glance. But even dressed, from the back the view was admirable.

  And I am a perfectly healthy female and surely I can admire what is in front of me?

  Then Giles stuck his spade into the piled snow and straightened up, his hands in the small of his back, groaning as he stretched.

  ‘You are almost at the boundary wall,’ Julia called. ‘It is only about three feet high.’

  ‘Halfway, then?’ Giles asked without turning and attacked the snow in front of him until there was the clang of metal on stone.

  ‘Just about.’ She dropped the handles of the empty barrow and wriggled to his side through the trench he had cut. ‘There are rough stone steps, careful.’

  The shovel hit something hard again and Giles began to scrape snow off the stones that projected from the face of the wall, then cleared the flat top.

  ‘I am having a rest.’ Julia climbed up, folded the thick tails of her coat under her and sat down on top of the wall. ‘There is smoke coming out of two chimneys in Bluebell Cottage. See?’

  Giles stood close and craned. ‘So someone is up and about.’ A whir of wings made him laugh as the robin landed just a foot away on top of the wall. ‘Your friend is back.’

  Julia peeled off one glove and dug in her pocket for the crust of bread she’d put there. ‘Keep still, I am trying to get him to eat from my hand.’

  The robin watched as she crumbled the bread and slowly extended her fingers towards it. Beside her she could feel Giles, stock-still, the warmth of his breath misting in the cold air to mix with hers.

  For a moment she thought the two of them together would frighten it, then the robin hopped forward and on to her fingertips, his claws sharp, his beak sharper as he pecked. It tickled and Julia laughed. The robin took off almost vertically, she jerked instinctively and knocked into Giles.

  It was not a hard blow, but he sidestepped and his boots, not made for walking on hard-packed snow, slid under him. With an oath Giles skidded and toppled backwards into the snowbank.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ Julia hopped down from the wall.

  ‘Only my dignity.’ He stayed where he was, sprawled on his back, arms and legs flung out.

  ‘You have preserved rather more of it than the last time you fell on your back in the snow,’ she observed. ‘At least you have your clothes on.’

  ‘Unkind,’ he said and held up his right hand.

  Julia took it, prepared to pull, and was tugged forward to land beside him in the drift. ‘Beast!’ She flailed, sending snow flying as she struggled to sit up and get leverage to help her stand.

  ‘I owed you that.’ Giles was laughing as he took her arm and flipped her over so she was lying on top of him, nose to nose. ‘You are nice and warm and dry now.’

  It was disconcerting to feel so much hard muscle under her, to feel the warmth of his breath on her face and to be looking so close into his eyes. She had thought them brown, but they were a dark hazel, she realised, flecked with green and gold.

  She could remember the taste of him from last night and that fleeting, accidental kiss, and it was hard not to dip her head the inch it would take to sample his lips again. Julia picked up snow in her right hand, planted the left firmly on his chest and pushed as she dropped the icy whiteness on his face.

  He should have let her go, that had been her plan. Instead Giles tipped her over until she was in the snow and he was poised above her.

  ‘I should roll you over and over until you are nothing but a giant snowball,’ he threatened.

  ‘You wouldn’t dare!’

  ‘It is that or kiss you.’

  ‘Oh.’ That knocked the breath out of her.

  ‘And I promised myself that I would do no such thing.’

  ‘You did? Why?’ The question was out of her mouth before she could think. It was a miracle that the snow wasn’t melting to steam about them, she felt so hot and embarrassed.

  ‘It would hardly be the gentlemanly thing to do, now would it?’ he said, his voice mocking, the look in his eyes rather more serious.

  ‘And it is hardly the ladylike thing to wish that you would,’ Julia said. Where had those words come from? Her lips?

  She was still wondering as Giles rolled again, pulling her with him so she lay along his body again, clear of the snow.

  ‘You choose,’ he suggested as she stared at the crease his half-smile produced at the corner of his mouth.

  We are lying in a snowdrift. Surely nothing too awful can happen in a snowdrift, can it? Men don’t seduce women in three feet of snow...

  Julia lowered her head and let her lips brush against his.

  Just a touch, only a taste, like last night...

  The touch lingered as his mouth moved under hers, as his tongue stroked against the swell of her lower lip. She felt herself sink down against his chest, no longer tense, and his arms came round her and they were kissing.

  It was extraordinary, so intimate, so intense, so...trusting. Julia had wondered what it would be like. Wet and embarrassing had come to mind even as she had found herself looking at the mouths of attractive men and wondering. There was certainly moisture involved and heat, but strangely it was not at all embarrassing.

  Something cold and wet slithered do
wn her cheek and she realised they must be sinking, or perhaps snow was falling on them, but somehow she couldn’t care, lost in the heat of the man who seemed to surround her.

  This was magic. She could hear bells ringing...

  ‘Miss Chancellor! Oh, Miss Chancellor, please!’

  Clang. The sound of a handbell being shaken violently.

  Julia sat up with a jerk, provoking a grunt of discomfort from Giles as she elbowed him in the chest. ‘What the—?’ He floundered to extract himself from the drift into which they had sunk and sat up beside her.

  ‘It is Dorothy, my maid, the one who went to help at Bluebell Cottage. Something must be wrong.’ Julia got to her feet and stumbled to the wall. She could see the top half of Dorothy, auburn hair vivid against the whiteness, one arm waving while the other kept swinging the bell.

  ‘Stop making that noise!’ Julia shouted. ‘What is wrong?’

  ‘Oh, miss! It’s the baby. It’s started.’

  ‘Oh, hell,’ Julia said, and almost sat down in the snow again as Giles stood beside her. ‘We will never get the doctor here, or the village midwife, not in this. How deep is the snow at your end?’ she called.

  ‘Couple of feet, miss. I could start to clear it. Can you get through?’ Dorothy was eighteen, a tall, strapping county lass used to helping out with the cows and the haymaking. She could certainly make an impact on the path while they dug towards her from their deeper end.

  ‘Yes, we can get to you,’ Julia shouted back, hearing the edge of panic in Dorothy’s voice. ‘Although what I am going to do when I get there...’ she added to Giles. ‘But of course—you know exactly what is needed. Oh, thank goodness.’