‘I did not send the boys to the carpenter’s so I could do that,’ Hugo said abruptly. ‘It has just occurred to me that you might believe I had schemed to get them out of the house.’ He put one hand on the mantel and stood looking down into the fire, then abruptly swung the kettle over the heat.
‘No. It never occurred to me that you would do such a thing.’ Was she being hopelessly naïve and trusting? But did men set on selfish seduction raise such concerns? Perhaps they did if they were very subtle. Emilia gave herself a mental shake. Every instinct had told her to trust Hugo from the moment she set eyes on him. ‘I asked you to kiss me.’ She ought to feel shame at being so bold. She certainly should feel alarm at what she was doing.
‘I am honoured. And flattered. And I think we should stop this right now while there are only kisses between us.’ He began to spoon tea into the pot as though the banal domesticity of the act would somehow disperse the tensions that thickened the air between them.
What is this? she wondered, but did not ask. Hugo was apparently too decent to seduce her and leave her and she was impossible as a mistress—no man, certainly no aristocrat, offered an alehouse keeper with children a carte blanche.
‘That would certainly be sensible,’ she agreed, dredging up remnants of common sense from wherever they had vanished to. ‘It would also be a saving on the housekeeping if you stopped heaping tea into that pot.’
‘Oh, Lord!’ He peered into it and began to spoon tea out again. Emilia laughed and for a minute or two while she fetched mugs and milk it was as though those kisses had never happened. Then Hugo looked up, straight into her eyes and said, ‘I have never met another woman like you, Emilia. I doubt I ever will again.’
What could she say to that? What did it mean? He seemed blurred somehow and then she realised it was not her emotions playing havoc with her eyesight, but the light dimming. ‘Oh, no, here comes the snow again.’
‘I’ll go and get the boys.’ Hugo swept his heavy cloak from the peg, clapped his hat on his head and went out, snowflakes swirling into the room in his wake.
They melted in the warm air and all trace of him was gone, only the two mugs standing on the table left to mark that she had not dreamed the last half-hour.
‘You are going to break my heart, Hugo Travers,’ Emilia said. But hearts had been broken before and no one died of it, not while there were stockings to darn and boys to feed and ale to brew. She swirled her big white apron around her waist and went to survey the larder shelves in search of inspiration for supper.
‘Have you done your Latin exercises?’ Hugo felt the concerted power of two sets of eyes on his back, but he did not look round from grooming Ajax.
‘Yes, Major. And we’ve done our chores and Mama says we are under her feet because she is trying to sweep. Is it ever going to be Christmas?’
‘Today is the twenty-third. Christmas Eve is tomorrow. How are the shelves coming along?’ He sponged Ajax’s muzzle and the big horse sighed gustily, spraying him with water. He was bored, standing in this stall. The deep, narrow paths through the snow were unfit for anything but walking, but he would take him out in a minute.
‘Really well, they are finished almost. Mr Daventry has carved a star on both ends for us and he is going to help us put our initials on it this afternoon.’ There was an anxious pause. ‘Do you think we have enough money to pay him for the wood and carving the stars and helping us?’
‘How much have you got?’
‘Two shillings and four pence halfpenny.’
Hugo had already spoken to the carpenter, agreed a price and promised to make up the difference. ‘Well, that should do it. Do you want to come and help me exercise Ajax?’ He untied the halter rope, slid the bridle on to a chorus of excited agreement and led the horse out into the front yard. ‘Come on, then, up you go.’
He swung Nathan up, then Joseph. They were almost too excited to speak. Hugo put the reins into Nathan’s hands and walked away into one of the pathways through the snow. Ajax plodded behind, the boys’ feet brushing the tops of the snow banks.
It was a relief to get right away from the house. He had been trying to ever since he had yielded to temptation and kissed Emilia and felt the ache of desire sweep through him, felt the pain under his breastbone that he did not understand intensify. He had dug, visited, joined the other men in planning, helped clear the barn and select the beast for the roast. And every time he had gone back to the house the very lack of contact, the control with which Emilia ignored what he had done, scarified his pride.
That would be sensible, she had said when he had summoned up every ounce of his crumbling will-power and said that they should put a stop to it. Whatever it was. She had spoken calmly, dispassionately, as if she had taken all she needed from him. Certainly she was not hurt or desperate to be back in his arms. He had thought she needed him more than he needed her and it seemed he was wrong.
I do not need her. I need a wife.
The ride had been a wild success. After half an hour Hugo swopped them around so Joseph had the reins, by which time they had their voices back.
‘Are you married, Major?’ Nathan asked.
What? For an appalled moment he thought he was being asked his intentions towards their mother, then he realised his own conscience was imposing undertones on a perfectly innocent piece of curiosity.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’ Joseph enquired earnestly. ‘Aren’t you really old not to be married?’
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