Joanna Maitland - Regency Mistletoe & Marriages - A Countess by Christmas / The Earl's Mistletoe Bride

She rubbed a small patch of frost from the inside of the windowpane with the corner of her towel to see a still star-spangled sky. Not a cloud was in sight. It would be bitterly cold outside. Not that even a blizzard would have doused the excitement that was welling up inside her. Lord Bridgemere had asked her to go for a walk with him. Her! When he so famously shunned others. She simply added several flannel petticoats beneath her gown, as well as a knitted jacket under her coat, and a woollen shawl over her bonnet.

And left the room with a smile on her face and a spring in her step.

Lord Bridgemere was waiting for her in the mud room, similarly bundled up against the cold.

‘I would prefer not to take a lantern,’ he informed her. ‘The sun is only just rising, but I believe we can make our way where we are going quite safely without one.’

‘Oh. Very well.’ She smiled at him, quite content to go along with whatever he suggested.

He opened the door for her, and with a slight dip of the head extended his arm to indicate she should precede him.

She wanted to laugh out loud. She had expected nothing but slights and insults in her new life as a humble, hardworking governess, but here was a belted earl opening a door for her! Sharing his morning walk with her simply for the pleasure of her company. Well, wouldn’t this be something to look back upon when she eventually moved to the Harcourts’ home?

She smiled happily up at him as she passed him in the doorway. And breathed in the sharply fresh air with a sense of relish. She had always loved this time of day. It was like having a blank sheet of paper upon which she could write anything.

She darted a surreptitious glance at him as he closed the door behind them. Then averted her gaze demurely when he took her arm to steady her as they set off across the slippery cobbles of the kitchen court. He did not look at her. He kept his eyes fixed ahead, on where they were going. Once they left the cluster of buildings at the back of the main house he led her away from the formal gardens, where she had walked before, and up a sloping lawn towards a belt of trees.

After a while she took the risk of studying his face through a series of glances as they walked along. Most particularly her eyes were drawn to the mouth that had been haunting her imagination from the very first moment she had seen him. When she had thought he was a footman. Now she knew he was an earl, he was no longer beneath her socially, and so…

Guiltily, she tore her eyes from his mouth and cast them to the ground. He was as far from her socially as ever! She ought not to be thinking about kisses—especially not where he was concerned. For it could only end badly for her. Aunt Bella had already told her the man was not the marrying kind. And she had too much pride to become any man’s plaything.

No matter how tempting he was, she thought, darting another longing glance at his handsome profile.

No, far better to have some innocent, pleasurable memories from this outing to keep her warm in the bleak years ahead.

And she did feel warm, just being with him arm in arm like this. Her heart was racing, and her blood was zinging through her veins in a most remarkable way. She heaved a sigh of contentment, making her breath puff out in a great cloud on the still winter air.

‘Am I setting too fast a pace for you, Miss Forrest?’ Lord Bridgemere enquired politely.

‘Oh, no,’ she replied. ‘Not at all.’

‘But you are becoming breathless,’ he said with a frown. ‘Forgive me. I am not used to measuring my pace to suit that of another.’

‘I suppose Esau has no problem keeping up with you, though?’ she observed.

He frowned, as though turning her remark over in his mind, before replying rather seriously, ‘No, he does not. He is an ideal companion when I ride, since he eats up the miles with those great long legs of his. It is, in fact, when he has not had sufficient exercise that he becomes…exuberant.’

Some of her pleasure dimmed. He was having to deliberately slow the pace he would have preferred to set because she was with him. And the way he was smiling now, after talking about his dog, made her feel as if he would be enjoying himself far more if it was the dog out here with him!

It was some minutes before either of them spoke again. Lord Bridgemere seemed preoccupied, and Helen, even though he had slowed down considerably, had little breath left to spare for speech.

It had been getting steadily lighter, and just as they reached the trees the sun’s rays struck at an angle that made the entire copse glisten diamond-bright. Since the frosted branches almost met overhead, they looked like the arches of some great outdoor cathedral.

‘Oh!’ she gasped, stopping completely just to gaze in awe at the magical sight. ‘I feel as if, I am in some…church,’ she whispered. ‘Or a temple. Not made by human hands, but by…’

‘Yes,’ he said in a low, almost reverent tone. ‘That is exactly how I feel sometimes out here, at sunrise.’

She twirled round, her head arched back, to admire the spectacle from every angle. It made it all the more wonderful that through various gaps in the branches she could make out the moon against the pearly dawn sky, and just one or two of the last and brightest of the stars.

‘Oh, thank you,’ she breathed. ‘Thank you for bringing me here to see this.’

‘I knew you would appreciate it,’ he said, his eyes gleaming with what she thought looked like approval. ‘You are the one person I know who would not grumble about the necessity of rising early to witness this,’ he said. ‘Most of my other visitors prefer staying up all night drinking and gaming, then sleeping half the day away. It does not last long, this rare moment of utter perfection. But just now, as the sun strikes the frosted branches, it makes everything so…’ He frowned, shaking his head as though the right words eluded him. ‘One can almost embrace winter. For only in this season can one experience this.’ He turned around, just as she had done, only far more slowly, as though drinking in the frozen splendour of their surroundings.

Then, without warning, his face turned hard and cynical. ‘Nature has a remarkable way of compensating for absence of life. None of this would be possible without bitter cold. And long, dark nights. You can only see this when the branches are stark and dead.’

He turned to her with a twisted sort of smile on his lips. ‘Of course before long the very sunshine that creates this glorious spectacle will melt it all away. You can already see the mist beginning to rise. In another hour all that will be left of your mystical temple to nature will be dripping wet branches, blackened with mould, and pools of mire underfoot. Come,’ he said brusquely, ‘there is something else I wish you to see.’

Puzzled by his abrupt change of mood, Helen plunged through the copse after him. He did not seem to care if she could keep up or not now, and she was soon quite out of breath.

‘There,’ he said, as he emerged from the trees into a small clearing.

She saw an ancient ruin with a tower at one end, half overgrown with ivy, and at its foot, a sheet of ice almost the size of the front garden of their cottage in Middleton.

‘We nearly always get some ice forming up here over winter,’ he said. ‘The position of the trees keeps the sun from melting it away each morning. This year I have had the staff deliberately extend it. The lake here is too deep to freeze, except a little around the edges, so proper skating is out of the question, but I thought the children would enjoy sliding about on this. What do you think?’

‘Me?’

‘Yes. You are going to be a governess. You know children. They always seem to love to skate. Don’t they? I know I did as a boy.’