Really, for a heedless rakehell Lord Missenden was proving to be an exemplary house guest, Julia decided when he took himself off to his bedchamber with the sheets she had been airing in front of the range. He had maintained a flow of unexceptional light conversation throughout supper, he had dealt with the fires, brought in more wood and wiped the dishes she washed, although she would have been amazed if he had ever been called on to do such a thing before.
Should she have offered to make up his bed? No, she concluded, that was too intimate a service and they appeared to have established a very pleasant, safe-feeling neutral manner between them.
He appeared to have forgotten the shocking nature of his arrival and she managed not to think about it for quite a few minutes at a time. With one last check on the fires Julia filled an ewer with hot water from the copper and followed him upstairs, snuffing candles as she went.
The staircase rose from the back of the hall to the rear of the wide first-floor landing which divided the house in two. At the front the landing ended in a window with a view out over the Vale and on either side at the front were the two main bedchambers with the maid’s room, a linen store and box room at the back.
Light shone from under the left-hand door and she could hear the flap of sheets and the pad of feet as Lord Missenden wrestled with bed-making. A muffled curse made her smile as she opened her own door. With the door closed the only sound was the soft sough of the wind in the chimney and the crackle of the settling fire.
Julia set the ewer on the washstand, drew the curtains on the snowy darkness and banked up the fire before she glanced at the door again. Should she lock it? She was alone in the house with a stranger, so that was the prudent thing to do. She began to turn the key, then stopped. If she locked herself in, then she was thinking that Giles Darrowby was a danger and she had absolutely no proof that he was anything but a gentleman.
‘I am not some nervous peahen,’ she said aloud. ‘And if he does try anything then I shall shoot him.’ She had not been exaggerating about the loaded pistol in the bedside drawer. Burglars were a real threat—chance-met noblemen who did the washing up and chopped carrots seemed far less of one. She left the door unlocked.
Rational decisions did not necessarily make for peaceful slumbers, she found after half an hour of pummelling her pillow. An attractive young man in the house, let alone one who had displayed his impressive anatomy in its entirety, did not make for tranquil thoughts.
What would all that hairy skin feel like? How hard were those muscles beneath it? She had seen nude male statues in museums and in engravings, of course, but they had all been smooth white marble and equipped with modestly placed fig leaves. It was difficult to imagine a fig leaf that would have ensured Lord Missenden’s modesty, she thought with an inward flutter that was more than mere curiosity.
Julia hauled the quilt up over her ears and admitted to herself that what she was feeling was a quite disgraceful desire to put her hands on the man and have him put his on her.
Which is what you get for living the life of an old maid when you are not yet twenty-three, she scolded herself. It is a natural feeling. You just have to keep it under control. And go to sleep.
It was the stillness that roused her, she realised after a moment lying blinking into the darkness. She was completely awake. The wind had dropped and the lack of sound was almost a physical sensation. Julia sat up and saw that the fire had burned down to a red glow, casting just enough light for her to get out of bed and light her candle on its hot embers. She banked it up with fresh coals, then parted the curtains. Outside it was dark, her view blocked by the old holly tree that grew outside, but she could see a sprinkling of stars above its jagged crown. It had stopped snowing.
Her toes were cold on the bare boards, but her slippers were by the fire and were warm when she put them on. With her unglamorous quilted robe belted firmly around her waist, she opened the door and padded out on to the landing. What time was it?
The comforting heartbeat of the ancient longcase clock in the hall sounded loud in the stillness.
Tick, tock...tick. Pause. Tick, tock...tick.
She would creep down and make a cup of tea, well sugared to make up for the lack of milk, she decided. Then some instinct made her glance at the long window at the front of the landing and she caught her breath. Outside the snow was dazzling white and bright under the starlight and she could see, far away in the Vale, the twinkle of lights from the scattered farms and hamlets.
There was a battered old ottoman that she used for storing smaller linens standing in front of the window to form a seat and she went to it, all thoughts of tea forgotten as she sat down and gazed out on to a white wonderland.
Giles Darrowby moved so silently that the first warning Julia had that someone was behind her was the feeling of warmth from another body close at her back.
‘Magic,’ he breathed.
‘You can see better here.’ Julia moved to make room for him beside her and he moved around the ottoman, furling the counterpane from the bed around him as he sat.
She glanced down, saw he was in stockinged feet and caught a glimpse of the livery breeches. ‘Did I wake you?’ she asked, almost in a whisper.
‘I heard a board creak and thought I had better check in case it was not you or that heavy-footed cat.’ His voice was as low as hers, both of them, it seemed, instinctively unwilling to break the silence. ‘It looks as though we are suspended in space with stars above and below. Why so many lights? It is past two.’
‘In weather like this most cottagers will keep a lantern burning. You never know who might be out there lost in the snow and needing a guiding light, or one of the family might have to go out to tend to animals.’ She snuggled down further into her robe, stilling suddenly as her elbow brushed his.
‘Here, keep still or you’ll let the warmth out.’ He shrugged out of the quilt, then wrapped it around both of them.
‘Lord Missenden—’
‘Giles, I think, under the circumstances.’ There was amusement in the low murmur.
‘What circumstances?’ she asked warily.
‘The fact that we are huddled under a quilt at two in the morning watching the stars, Julia. First names are appropriate—the etiquette books are quite clear on the subject.’
‘And you would know?’
She felt, rather than heard, his amusement at her sarcasm.
‘Of course I do. I am a viscount, after all, a pattern book of correctness. I am not going to bite or anything else undesirable. Lean on me and we can both stay warm.’ But when she stayed where she was he made no move to touch her.
‘There’s the moon,’ she said. The merest sickle of silver hung amid the stars. It was the final touch of otherworldly beauty and her resistance melted at the sight. Julia lifted her feet so she was curled up on top of the ottoman, propped against Giles’s side, snug under the cocooning quilt.
She felt him shift to accommodate her, tug the cover closer around them both. His arm came around her shoulders, but then he was still again, a warm, strong presence. Her head tipped, came to rest on his upper arm and they sat in silence.
A barn owl drifted past, a great, lethal snowflake on soundless wings, and Julia felt her eyelids drooping.
‘We are out of time, suspended like angels over the sleeping vale beneath us,’ Giles murmured. ‘Have you read the poem by James Montgomery? He’s a Scot, I think. Someone should set it to music. “Angels from the realms of glory, Wing your flight o’er all the earth; Ye who sang creation’s story, Now proclaim Messiah’s birth...”’
‘Lovely. You can almost see them, all silver and gold feathers, descending through glory to earth. Imagine being able to fly.’ She lost the words in a yawn.
‘You can imagine it in your sleep,’ Giles said. ‘And with warm toes. We have gazed down like the angels too long, you are getting chilled. Up with you, Julia, go to your bed.’
She shrugged off the quilt, put her feet on the floor and, somehow, pushed away from the warmth of his body. ‘Goodnight, Giles.’
‘Goodnight, Julia. Sweet dreams,’ he said as her slippers tangled in the hem of the cover and she toppled back into his arms.
‘Oof!’
He half-stood, caught her as she flailed, and their noses bumped, then their lips, an accidental, sliding, hot fragment of a kiss as fleeting as a shooting star.
It was over in a second as Giles set her on her feet and she fled for the bedchamber.
How awkward is this going to be, I wonder? Giles kept his back to the kitchen door, kept working on riddling the spent ash from the range and building up the fire again as the brisk click of feminine heels came down the stairs, across the hall and hesitated for a heartbeat on the threshold.
He did not have much experience with awkward mornings-after. None, in fact. If a lady invited him to her bed, he made sure to be out of it well before dawn. Not that he had been anywhere near Julia’s bed, but she had been under his quilt and in his arms and then there had been that kiss. No, not a kiss, an accidental touch, that was all it was, he reassured himself.
An accident that left him with the tantalising memory of her taste, of the scent of warm female and the prim, sweet fragrance of lavender from her nightgown. An accident, so why was he feeling awkward about it this morning? It wasn’t as though he had taken advantage of it, had hauled her back into his arms and kissed her until she was too dizzy to think what she was doing—which was what his body had been suggesting with some emphasis.
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?’