about me, I have no family and the servants just know that I will be back in time for Christmas.’
‘None at all?’ What an appalling thought. She almost said it out loud. What would she do without the boys? And he had no one. ‘You will pass Christmas with your friends, no doubt.’
He did laugh then, a deep chuckle. ‘With so many of my fellow-officers all back in England together I had invitations aplenty, believe me. I had the choice of family gatherings with, I was promised, a dozen charming little infants all overexcited by the thought of presents, or two house parties well supplied with eligible young ladies on the look-out for husbands. Then there was the lure of a cosy gathering with not one, but three great aunts in attendance. My friends, who I had believed were carefree, sociable bachelors, all turned into devoted family men on arriving back in England and, I confess, I do not understand families.’
‘You do not?’ Her tiredness vanished as she stared at him.
‘I was an orphan from the age of three, brought up by four elderly trustees and a houseful of devoted staff,’ Hugo explained without, to her amazement, the slightest sign of self-pity.
‘But…were you not lonely?’
‘Not at all. Mrs Weston…Emilia, do not look like that! I had tutors and then I went to school and university and later into the army. I made good friends in all of those and when I was at home there was the estate to learn to manage. But I have to confess to not understanding how families work, the intimacy of them. And, frankly, faced with the thought of two weeks of someone else’s family en fête, it was no hardship to travel home,’ he added wryly. ‘Besides, I have much to catch up with and plans to make for the new year.’
She must have made an interrogative noise, for Hugo broke off and the shutters were over his eyes again. ‘It is time I settled down,’ he said abruptly and got to his feet. ‘I have been running the estate at arm’s length for five years while I have been in the army. And I must stop talking and keeping you from your rest.’
Emilia stayed curled in her chair as he took his cup to the stone sink and rinsed it out with, she guessed, the tidy habits of the soldier. Even as weary as he must be, he still moved beautifully with the unthinking grace of a very fit man. She fixed her gaze on the tea leaves in her cup, but there was nothing to be read there. ‘Goodnight, Major. Sleep well.’ She wondered if she would.
‘Goodnight, Mrs Weston. And thank you.’ He paused between the two rooms. ‘You should lock this door, you know.’
‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ she muttered as it closed and she stood up and stretched the stiffness out of her back. Major Hugo Travers was certainly dangerous to women, especially one who had been on her own far too long, but it would be the loss of his company she would feel when he went on his way in the morning that would do the damage, not any improbable assault on her virtue.
Her occupation and humble status cut her off from anything other than the polite exchange of greetings with the vicar, the squire and their families, even though they tacitly recognised that she had been one of them. The villagers treated her amiably, but also with the reserve that showed they thought of her as Quality. She sometimes concluded she was like the governess in a big house, neither family nor servant, stranded somewhere in the middle and lonely as a result of it.
‘On which self-pitying note you can take yourself to bed, Emilia Weston,’ she scolded herself as she bent to bank up the fire safely. The rain had stopped, the night was still. The major would have a muddy ride tomorrow, back to his waiting servants and his big house and his plans to settle down into the peace of an England no longer at war.
The silence woke Emilia into a muffled world and the cold blue light brought her out of bed to stand shivering at the tiny window in the eaves. Snow glowed in the moonlight, heaped up in great drifts and banks, whirling through the air as if some celestial hand was plucking the largest flock of geese in the universe. Silent, deadly beauty.
The light from the lantern in the taproom below cut a golden track into the whiteness and she offered up a quick prayer for any traveller caught out in this. Eerily, the beam of light widened. For a moment she did not understand, then she realised that Hugo must be standing at the window and had pushed back the shutter. The guilty flicker of pleasure took her unawares as she pulled on the heavy robe she had made from a cut-up blanket, found her shoes and tiptoed out to the head of the stairs.
The twins were fast asleep with the utter relaxation that only cats and children seemed to be blessed with. Emilia tucked the covers higher over their shoulders and went downstairs. Why? she asked herself as she crossed the kitchen and lifted the latch on the taproom door. What am I doing down here?
Hugo must have heard the latch. He had already turned, and she saw in the lantern light that he was fully dressed with a blanket slung around his shoulders. ‘What’s wrong?’ His voice was deep and low and sent a shiver of warmth through her.
‘Nothing. The silence woke me and then I saw the light spill out on to the snow when you opened the shutter and wondered if everything was all right.’ That was a lie and she never lied. What had brought her down?
‘It is already deep and it is settling.’ Hugo pushed the shutter almost closed. ‘How close are we to a turnpike road?’
‘Too far and when you get there it will be no better than this. Even the mail will be stopped if it is lying so thick.’
‘The post boys will get through, even if they have to take a horse from the traces and abandon the mail coach.’
‘They will reach the next inn, perhaps. But you are not carrying the mails, so why should you even try?’
Was it really such a prison sentence to be trapped here? But then he had shied away from all his close friends’ invitations because he did not want to be with a horde of children—and hers certainly qualified for the description—and he had been uneasy about her lack of a chaperon. Was that what the matter was? Not the interruption to his journey, not the presence of two lively boys, but her? Did he expect the poor lonely widow to make a pass at him? The idea brought the colour flaming up under her skin.
‘I am an unconscionable nuisance to you and, whatever you say about your supplies, you cannot have expected to be feeding a large man and a considerably larger horse.’
‘When the weather is like this the whole hamlet works together and shares food and fuel with everyone, residents and chance-met strangers alike. It is called neighbourliness, Major. Or perhaps on your big estate you are not familiar with the concept of neighbours and mutual dependence.’ She was fanning her temper as though she could cover her own embarrassment, and, deep down, her guilty pleasure that he had to stay. ‘We will set you to work for your board, Major, never fear. There are several elderly people to dig out and check upon and that will be the first task come morning.’
Even in the poor light she could see him stiffen, presumably with affront at being spoken to like that by an alewife. ‘I have helped dig out villages in the Pyrenees, Mrs Weston, you need have no fear that I do not know one end of a shovel from the other. And it is not that I do not understand and appreciate the hospitality of your community, merely that I have no wish to add to its burdens.’
‘Excellent. Then we understand each other,’ Emilia snapped.
