He reached the low-roofed cottage and banged on the door. ‘Mrs Cooke? Mrs Weston sent me to make sure you were all right. Can I bring your wood in?’ There was a tidy stack all along the front wall.
The door opened a crack and a wrinkled face peered out. ‘Who be you, then?’
Hugo explained, carried in wood, fetched a pail of water and checked the old lady had enough food in stock before digging on towards the next home, a mere hump in the snow with a trickle of smoke marking the chimney. The boys were on his heels now and set to work clearing old Mr Janes’s front step while Hugo made up his fire, brought in wood and promised to send bread and potatoes.
‘And who might you be, stranger?’ Hugo turned from closing the door to find himself face to face with a red-faced, brawny man. The smith, he guessed, from the size of the man’s shoulders. He carried a shovel in both hands and looked ready and willing to use it on more than snow.
‘Major Hugo Travers, snowbound here last night. And who are you?’
‘Will Cartwright, smith.’ He glanced over at the twins. ‘Morning, boys. How’s your ma?’
‘Fine, thank you, Mr Cartwright. The major cooked breakfast this morning and he’s got a huge horse!’ Nathan confided.
‘Has he now? Friend of Widow Weston, are you, Major?’
‘Never met her before in my life. I found her house in the middle of the storm and she gave me a bed on the taproom floor.’ He wasn’t used to explaining himself to villagers, but the man was genuinely concerned and he could not fault him for that.
‘Happen you’ll have some company this evening, then, because you’ll not be going anywhere for a day or so and that’s a fact. We tried the lane towards the pike road and it’s drifted deep.’
‘Then I’ll have to stay put and do what I can to help out,’ Hugo said amiably. He didn’t miss the reference to company. Every man in the hamlet was going to be in the taproom that evening, sizing him up. It should do Emilia’s income some good, if nothing else. ‘Anyone else need digging out?’
‘No. I reckon we’ve got the old folks and Willie Piggott, who’s a bit simple, all safe and sound. Old Janes all right?’
‘He needs bread and potatoes.’
‘I’ll see to that.’ The smith nodded, but spared the boys a smile. ‘You look after your ma now!’
Hugo trudged back along the deep-cut path. ‘What are your chores now?’
‘We’d be going to Mr Hoskins, the vicar, for our lessons today,’ Nathan explained. ‘But we can’t because of the snow and the flood and the bridge,’ he added smugly.
‘And you have no lessons to finish?’ Two broad grins were enough answer. ‘Well, fetch your books out and I’ll set you some.’ It was starting to snow again and their mother wouldn’t want them racketing about the house, bored with confinement all day.
Hugo bundled them inside, ordered boots and coats off and, when he had them settled in front of the range, chewing their pencils over Caesar’s Gallic wars, he went in search of Emilia.
He had hoped she might have taken the opportunity to rest, but noises from the cellar told him otherwise. When he came down the stairs she was standing in the mash tun, her skirts kirtled up around her knees, scooping wet mash out into buckets.
Hugo went down the rest of the stairs two at a time, strode across the floor and lifted her bodily out of the tun. ‘What the blazes do you think you are doing?’
She turned, a small, damp virago, pink in the face from indignation and bending over. ‘What am I doing? What are you thinking of, Major?’ Her hair was coming out of its net, her bare feet and legs were shedding wet grains all over his shoes and her hands were fisted at her waist. Her small, vulnerable feet. Her shapely calves and ankles, the slim waist and the womanly curves.
‘Thinking?’ Hugo realised that he had not been thinking at all. But he was now. She looked edible, vital, alive. Infinitely desirable. He took her by the waist again, drew her close and buried his face in the luxurious mass of her hair.
Her mouth had been open to protest, but she was pressed against Hugo’s front, inhaling warm man as his hands shifted and he settled her more securely against himself. One hand pushed into her hair, sending pins falling free as he cradled her head, the other hand pressed open against her shoulder blades, moving in slow, devastating circles. Her hands were trapped between her breasts and his chest and his heart was thudding against her palms
All the air in her lungs and the blood in her head had vanished. It was wonderful and terrifying and she felt alive as she had not been for years. And it was wrong to be held like this, it had to be if it was this good. Emilia pulled a hand free, fetching Hugo a blow on the ear by mistake.
He set her back a little, just enough that their bodies were no longer touching. ‘Ouch! I am sorry—’
‘So am I. I didn’t mean to hit you.’ They stared into each other’s faces, their noses almost touching, their breath wreathing white in the cold air. ‘I didn’t mean for you to stop,’ Emilia blurted. She curled her hands around his waist and pulled and Hugo, with a groan that was either desire or despair and was, she thought wildly, possibly both, pulled her to him again.
Kiss me. Somehow she managed to keep the words in her head.
‘Major?’ called a treble voice from upstairs.
‘Hell!’ Hugo set her free so abruptly that she sat down on the edge of the tun. He was across the cellar and standing at the foot of the steps before she could gather her wits and realise where she was, what she was doing. What she had almost done.
‘Yes? I am down here. Are you stuck with that exercise?’ he called up, as calm as though they had been discussing hops and ale recipes.
Both boys came down the steps. ‘No, we’ve finished. Look.’ Joseph was waving a sheet of paper under Hugo’s nose. ‘See, Mama, we’ve translated a whole page! What are you doing?’
Goodness knows! Embracing a totally inappropriate man in the cellar. He is either sorry for me or he thinks I am pitiful and grateful for his attentions. ‘Emptying the used mash,’ Emilia said briskly. She pulled herself together and studied her sons. ‘Has Major Travers been setting you Latin lessons?’ They seemed unusually cheerful about the fact.
‘Yes, and they are all about wars and battles!’
‘How interesting. I just hope you aren’t both going to rush off to the next recruiting sergeant who comes around.’ They grinned back at her, knowing teasing when they heard it. Her feet were freezing now she was out of the slightly warm mash. Emilia slid her feet into her wooden pattens and tried to ignore Hugo, who shot her an unreadable glance, although whether it signified remorse at having embraced her or the strains of teaching small boys their Latin, she could not tell.
Hugo sat beside her on the edge of the tun and heeled off his shoes. ‘Where does this used mash go?’ He rolled off his stockings. Emilia averted her eyes from well-muscled, hairy calves.
‘We’ll show you.’ Nathan seized one of the filled buckets. ‘It all gets dumped over here and then when it is dried we use it for the animals.’
Hugo shed coat and waistcoat and rolled up his sleeves. Emilia kicked off the pattens and swung her legs over to get back into the tun.
‘No. I’ll finish here.’ He put one hand on her arm.
She still could not look at him, or think of anything to say with the boys so close. She was acutely aware of her wet skirts and bare calves, of the blood pounding around her veins,