Pulling on his thick coat, Joe threw open the door and ventured out into the snow. It was even thicker than earlier, with soft flurries still falling from the dark cloud above, making him doubt whether Cecilia would be on her way tomorrow. The idea of having her company for one more day was more appealing than he liked to admit, despite her probing questions and knowing eyes.
‘Gosh, it’s cold,’ her cheerful voice rang out from somewhere behind him.
‘Go back inside,’ he growled. He was only out here because of necessity. There was no way he would let the fire die down and they needed more wood, but there was no need for Cecilia to accompany him.
‘I thought I’d lend you a hand,’ she said, taking the other handle of the wicker wood basket and lifting it.
‘I’m perfectly capable of fetching the wood myself,’ Joe said, feeling the familiar irritation he always did when someone doubted his physical prowess.
‘I never said you weren’t,’ she said carefully. ‘I just thought I would help.’
‘Do you often take on tasks around the house?’ he asked, hearing the sarcastic tone to his voice, but unable to stop it.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Never. But then again my guardian has a houseful of servants paid to do this sort of thing. You have no one. So I should help.’
‘Go back inside,’ he grumbled, ‘or you’ll catch a chill and be stuck here even longer.’ The image of Cecilia lying in his bed popped into his mind and he found it very hard to shift it.
He started pulling the cold logs from the pile and throwing them into the basket, making quick work of the task. Throughout his rehabilitation he’d been eager to become fitter, stronger than he had ever been before. Physically he was in peak condition, the rational part of his brain knew that, but still it felt as though some part of him was lacking.
Once the basket was full he hefted it up, ignoring Cecilia’s outstretched arm offering to help. He strode back towards the house and deposited the basket inside the door, waiting for Cecilia to enter before he did.
‘You are a very stubborn man,’ she said as she put her booted foot on to the step.
Joe was just about to answer when he saw Cecilia start to slip. Her boots were no match for the thick ice that was hidden under a layer of white snow and her foot began to slide forward at an alarming rate. He lunged to catch her, gathering her to his chest, but the movement meant he, too, lost his footing and they both tumbled into the house together. Cecilia landed on top of him, her petite body still managing to wind him as an elbow connected with his solar plexus.
They lay there for a few seconds, both stunned and unsure if the other was injured. Joe scrambled to his feet, cursing loudly when his leg gave way, tumbling him back to the floor. On the second attempt he was more successful, levering himself up using the doorframe.
‘Are you hurt?’ he asked, reaching out his hand to help Cecilia. She grimaced as she sat, moving her ankle from side to side with a wince of pain.
‘I think I’ve just pulled something,’ she said. ‘Nothing that won’t heal.’
‘Can you get up?’
Carefully she stood, letting out a low groan of pain as she put her weight on her ankle.
‘I seem to be fine if I stay still,’ she said. ‘It just hurts a little when I move. I don’t think it’s even properly twisted.’
Joe hesitated. Chivalry was inbuilt into him, he couldn’t ever sit before a woman, fail to open a door or assist a woman in need, but right now he was hesitating. What he wanted to do was sweep her up into his arms and carry her to one of the armchairs. It was only a few paces away and he wasn’t doubting his physical ability. His leg might trouble him still, but he was perfectly capable of carrying someone as petite as Cecilia. The reason he was hesitating was the woman in front of him, or, more precisely, the feelings she elicited inside him.
He knew that if he gathered her close to his body, however briefly, he would feel her skin against his, learn the curves of her body as she rested in his arms. Already he was finding it hard to banish the inappropriate thoughts whenever he brushed against her in the small cottage, it wouldn’t take much for him to be tipped into doing something completely inadvisable. Something like kissing her.
Unable to resist, he glanced at her lips. They were rosy and full and looked perfect for kissing.
‘Come here,’ he said, knowing it was a mistake, but still sweeping her up into his arms all the same.
He carried her the few paces to the armchair and gently deposited her there, trying to keep hold of his desire as her body brushed against his.
‘Thank you, I’m sure I could have hobbled,’ Cecilia said, probing her ankle through the material of her dress. As he watched her he felt an unfamiliar sense of affection. Cecilia had come crashing into his life only very recently, but he realised he felt as though he’d known her for so much longer. He was comfortable around her and he struggled to be comfortable around anyone.
‘I’ll get you something for it,’ he said, turning quickly. Opening the front door, he deftly avoided the doorstep with the hidden ice and walked around to the side of the cottage. Under the windowsill were a few perfectly formed icicles and he broke them off, returning inside to find something to wrap them in. ‘Let me see,’ he said, motioning to her ankle.
Joe ignored Cecilia’s blushing cheeks as she lifted the hem of her dress. All he wanted to do was check she wasn’t badly injured. The skin of her calf was smooth and creamy and he found his pulse quickening as his fingers came to rest on her ankle. He heard her inhale sharply, but a quick glance at her face told him it wasn’t in pain as she studiously avoided his eyes.
‘Hold this against it,’ Joe instructed when he had satisfied himself there was no great injury. ‘It’ll help with any swelling.’
‘Another skill you picked up from your time in the army?’ Cecilia asked as she took the icicles wrapped in a piece of fabric from him.
‘There were never enough doctors,’ he said grimly, trying to forget the dozens of times he had watched his men die when medical intervention might have saved them.
‘Do you still think about it?’ she asked. ‘The battles, the men, your time away?’
‘Yes. All the time.’ It felt strange to be admitting it. Normally he gave a terse reply to any questions about his time on the Peninsula—it discouraged any follow-up questions and allowed him to wallow in his memories alone.
‘If it wasn’t for your injury, do you think you’d still be in the army?’ she asked quietly.
‘Yes.’ He hated it, had hated war and fighting and death, but the army had been his life for nine years and it was hard to imagine anything else.
‘Perhaps...’ she said thoughtfully, grimacing as she shifted the icicle fabric to another spot, ‘you need to find some way to contribute that doesn’t involve actually fighting, of course.’
Joe glanced over to the small pile of papers in the corner of the room. On the top was an envelope, thick with documents and as yet unopened. His time in the army had been spent commanding men, making decisions and fighting on the front line. That was how he’d wanted it. There had been numerous offers to secure him a different post, something safer where he would work on an advisory level, but he had always turned it down. Somehow it hadn’t seemed fair, the thought of leaving his men without their commander. Still, the higher-ranking officers had always grumbled about what a shame it was to put someone like Joe at risk over and over again. Someone who could speak four languages and solve problems even the sharpest of mathematicians had trouble with.
Since his return to health he’d had a couple of offers from a friend in the Foreign Office, mainly translation work. To help keep the peace even if you’re a lame horse nowadays, Theodore Long had written.
Always he’d sent the packages back unopened, but perhaps it was time to stop wallowing in self-pity and find himself something else to focus on.
‘Let me see,’ he said softly, guiding her hand away and placing his fingers back on her leg. There was no bruising, no obvious swelling.
‘Will I live?’ Cecilia asked, her smile breaking through her mock-serious visage.
‘Don’t fret, you’ll live to see your spinster house yet.’
She grinned up at him and it struck him he’d never known anyone so happy at the thought of living out their life as a spinster. Women of Cecilia’s birth and upbringing were expected to marry, and before they did they were expected to obsess about their choice of suitors, about proposals and eligible bachelors. They weren’t meant to want to be ridiculed by society and spend their lives alone.
Suddenly Joe felt uneasy. The pieces were all beginning to fall into place: the reaction she’d had when he’d climbed into bed beside her, the handiness with a candlestick, her insistence that she would not marry, that she would stay a spinster.
‘Cecilia...’ he said, unsure how to put into words the question that was burning in his mind, ‘has that Turner boy tried to force you? Is that why you’re so adamant you won’t marry?’
She laughed, but there was little humour in it and Joe felt sick to his stomach. The idea of anyone touching her...forcing her...made him feel angry beyond belief.
‘Turner wouldn’t know where to start,’ she said grimly.
‘Someone else, then?’
He saw he’d come to the correct conclusion by the flare of desperation in her eyes and wondered at the world that left an innocent young woman open to this sort of abuse.
‘No one has ever laid a hand on me,’ she said. Joe believed her, but wondered at what cost.
‘Your guardian?’ he growled.
Silently she nodded. ‘Among others. Life changes a little when you have no one to look out for you.’
‘Surely you have someone?’ he asked, thinking of his large family, the group of friends who still maintained frequent contact despite his foul mood this past year, the men who’d served under him who would have given up their life for his.
‘No. No family whatsoever since my parents died. I have a few true friends—your sister, of course, and one or two others—but no one who can protect me from the man who is meant to put my welfare above anything else.’
‘What has he done?’ Joe asked, forcing his voice to remain calm.
‘Nothing, not really. Nothing that I could report him to a magistrate for, but I’ve learned that doesn’t mean anything.’ She paused, closing her eyes for a few seconds as if trying to block out the memories, then laughed bitterly. ‘What does it say about your life when your staunchest protector is Peter Turner, a man who couldn’t stand up to the friendliest of beetles?’
‘He tried to protect you?’
Cecilia shrugged. ‘In his own way. He’d distract his father if he was getting too insistent I sit on his lap, or pour his father another drink if he wouldn’t let me leave the dinner table and make my escape.’
‘Your parents left you in his care?’ Joe asked, incredulous.
‘No, not knowingly. The relative who was supposed to be my guardian died a few weeks after my father. Mr Turner was the last resort after him.’
‘And this is why you want to be a spinster? Not all men are like the Turners, Cecilia.’
She caught his eye and he felt something squeeze inside his chest. There was such sadness in her gaze and a sense that she was wise beyond her years.
‘Are you offering, Major Crawley?’ she asked and Joe was quick enough to school his face into a neutral expression. Of course she was joking, but it wouldn’t do to look like a petrified rabbit at the idea of marrying her.
‘You wouldn’t want to tie yourself to a lame dog like me,’ he said.
‘A lame dog is better than a lecherous one,’ she said quietly. ‘But don’t fear, I will not press you into marriage. And, no, it is not just because of the Turners I’ve decided to become a spinster. In three days’ time I turn twenty-one. Then I inherit my father’s fortune. I’m told it is quite considerable and, over the past few years, I’ve realised that people will do almost anything to get their hands on that money. Even pretend to be in love with me.’
Joe grimaced. He could just imagine the fortune hunters rubbing their hands together in glee when Cecilia made her debut. A pretty young girl with no parents or family to guide her, soon to be in possession of one of the biggest fortunes in England.
‘What’s your excuse?’ she asked, her eyes seeming to look beneath his skin and into his soul.
Joe almost laughed at the directness of her question. His mother could learn a lot from Lady Cecilia. For months his mother had tried to convince him that one near miss on the marriage front shouldn’t put him off for life, but had never been able to come out and ask directly what had happened with Rebecca.
‘I don’t have a fortune women are eager to possess, I’m not a perfect physical specimen and I’m a grumpy old cripple, too, not exactly the sort of man women are clamouring for.’
‘Any woman would be lucky to have you, Joe,’ Cecilia said softly, all traces of humour gone from her voice. He looked up at her then, saw the kindness and affection in her eyes and realised that there wasn’t any pity there. He hated pity, had grown used to it, but Cecilia didn’t look at him that way.
His hand rested on her leg and he felt the warmth and softness drawing him in. It would be so easy to kiss her, so good, so satisfying. Already he could imagine their lips meeting and was filled with a desire so intense it shocked him. He wanted to kiss her until they were both senseless and then make love to her for hours in front of the flickering fire.
Ever so gently his fingers moved on the bare skin of her leg. He heard her sharp intake of breath, saw the flush on her cheeks and the sparkle of desire in her eyes. For a moment he was about to go through with it, and then quickly he pulled away. As much as he might want this he couldn’t do this to her. She’d just told him about being pursued by men who shouldn’t have an interest in her—her guardian, the fortune hunters. While he was neither of those he wasn’t offering her what she deserved: a future. If he ruined her now, he would take away any chance of her being happily married one day soon and, although she might protest she didn’t want that, he’d seen the wistfulness in her eyes.
‘And any man who just sees your fortune is a fool,’ he said quietly, standing to put some distance between them.