She set a generous plateful of food before him and a more modest one at her place. She removed the apron and took her seat.
“I suppose,” he said, getting up again to pour the coffee, “you made the fire in here yourself.”
“I did,” she said. “Is this not a strange adventure?”
He laughed, and she looked sharply at him before dipping her head to look down at her plate again.
“Have you ever been in charge of an inn kitchen before?” he asked her. “And the appetites of four grown men?”
“Never,” she said. “Have you ever shoveled snow away from a country inn?”
“Good Lord! Never.”
This time they both laughed.
“A strange adventure indeed,” he agreed. “You told me yesterday that all over Christmas you longed for snow. What would you have done with it if it had come?”
“I would have gazed out on it in wonder and awe,” she said. “Snow for Christmas is so very rare. And I pictured myself wading about the neighborhood through it with the village carolers—but there
“A poor-spirited village if ever I heard of one,” he said. “Everyone stayed at home and stuffed themselves with goose and pudding, I suppose?”
“I suppose so,” she said. “And my great-aunts refused the invitations they received in favor of remaining home in order to enjoy the company of their great-niece.”
“Who would have far preferred to be kicking up her heels at a village dance,” he said. “A grim Christmas you had of it, ma’am. You have my heartfelt sympathies.”
“Poor me,” she agreed, though her eyes were now dancing with merriment.
“Those are the only uses you would have put the snow to?” he asked her. “It was hardly worth longing for, was it?”
“Well, you see,” she said, setting one elbow on the table and resting her chin in her hand, against all the rules of etiquette, “my great-aunts would not have enjoyed engaging in a snowball fight and one can hardly fight with oneself. I probably would have built a snowman. When it snowed two winters ago, Miss Martin canceled afternoon classes and we took the girls out into the meadows beyond the school and had a snowman-building contest. It was great fun.”
“Did you win?” he asked.
“I ought to have,” she said, picking up her knife and fork again. “My snowman was far and away the best. But the teachers were declared ineligible for prizes. It was grossly unfair. I almost resigned on the spot. But when I threatened to do so, I was rolled in the snow by a dozen or more girls, and Miss Martin studiously looked the other way and made no attempt to exert her authority and come to my rescue.”
It sounded, he thought, like a happy school. He could not somehow imagine rolling any of his own former teachers in the snow, especially with the headmaster looking on.
Miss Frances Allard was certainly not the bad-tempered, prunish woman he had taken her for yesterday. And he must admit that if their positions had been reversed, he would have been in an even more cantankerous mood than he had been anyway and would have been entertaining gruesome dreams of boiling someone in oil too. Not that either he or Peters would tolerate someone’s overtaking them on any road under any circumstances, of course.
“Teachers are not ineligible for this morning’s prizes,” he said.
“Oh?” She looked at him with raised eyebrows.
“Out beside the inn,” he said, pointing in the direction of the side facing away from the village. “As soon as I have helped you do the dishes. One problem, though. Do you have proper boots?”
“Yes, of course I do,” she said. “Would I have longed for snow for Christmas if I did not? Am I being challenged to a snowman-building contest? You will lose.”
“We will see,” he said. “What did you put in these potatoes to make them so delicious?”
“My own secret combination of herbs,” she said.
He finished his meal and gathered the dishes together to wash while she set about mixing a fresh batch of bread—it could rise while she was outside winning the competition, she told him.
Fresh bread! His mouth watered even though his stomach was full.
He even—horror of horrors!—
If it had not snowed, he would now be on the final leg of his journey. He could have been home by this afternoon—to the quiet, familiar peace of Cleve Abbey and the prospect of an early return to London and its myriad pleasures—though only until the Season began, by Jove. But here he was instead, planning to alleviate the boredom of a useless day by building a snowman.
Except that he was no longer bored—had not been since he rose from his bed actually.
He tried to remember the last time he had built a snowman or otherwise frolicked in the snow, and failed.
He was making the mistake, Frances noticed with a furtive glance in his direction, of building his snowman too tall and thin—an error often made by novices. It looked much larger than hers, but he was going to have problems with the head. Even if he could lift a suitable one that high, it would not remain in place but would roll off and ruin all his efforts. She would be the undisputed winner.
Her snowman, on the other hand, was solid and squat. He was broader than he was tall. He was—
