Page 32 of To Swoon and to Spar
All of this did give her pause; she didn’t want him to become so suspicious that he let go a member of the staff. She’d never forgive herself if someone lost a position because of her. It was therefore imperative that he be made to believe that there trulywasa ghost, immediately.
And then, conveniently, it began to snow.
It was late for snow, which itself was something of a rarity in Cornwall, and rarer still now that they were past the first week of March. It had been a cold winter, and one that was apparently determined to keep them in its grip, so what started as a few flakes soon turned into a steady snowfall. Jane was in the sitting room attached to her bedroom, making her way through a pot of tea, wrapped in her oldest and rattiest shawl as she perused a weeks-old newspaper that had been sent down from London. She glanced out the window and caught sight of the falling snow and paused, letting her newspaper fall to her lap. She loved snow—there was, as far as Jane was concerned, nothing more pleasant than the feeling of sitting down with a cup of tea beneath a cozy blanket to watch the snow fall gently and quietly outside.
“Snow,” came Penvale’s voice from behind her; he muttered it more like a curse, and Jane jerked her head up, not having heard him enter the room.
“Where did you come from?” she demanded, clutching her shawl to her chest for reasons that escaped her, considering the gown shewas wearing beneath it was so modest that it likely would have made a maiden aunt’s wardrobe look daring by comparison.
“I knocked,” her husband replied. “Three times. When you didn’t respond, I became concerned and opened the door.”
“Oh,” Jane said, a bit flustered. “I was distracted by the snow.”
“As am I,” he said, irritation evident in his voice, and Jane realized that his hair was slightly damp, as was the wool of his coat.
“Were you outdoors?”
He gave a short nod. “I beat a hasty retreat once the weather turned, but I wasn’t quick enough.” He glared out the window at the softly falling snow as if it had caused him personal offense.
“Penvale. It’s just snow.”
“Ihatesnow.”
“It’s just water,” she pointed out.
“No.” He shook his head vehemently. “It’sfrozenwater. That’s an entirely different thing. Not to be trusted.”
“Are you angry because you’ll need to fix your hair?” she asked innocently, and was rewarded by his appalled look. Unable to help herself, she added, “Perhaps you would have been able to tell it was about to snow if you had spectacles.”
“Jane,” he said warningly, taking a step toward her.
“I’d heard London gentlemen were fussy,” she continued, “but I always try to be generous of spirit and therefore assumed it was simply an unfair stereotype.”
“Jane, so help me God—”
She rose from her chair and darted behind it, using it as a sort of shield. “Are you worried that your coat will be ruined, too? Is there a bit of mud on your boots causing you concern?”
He reached the opposite side of the chair and leaned forward verydeliberately, bracing his hands on the arms of the chair, his face quite close to her own. Jane’s breath caught in her throat; the air between them seemed thick and alive. This close, she could make out more of the green flecks in his eyes, smell the sandalwood scent that clung to his skin, mingled with the smell of cold air and snow and woodsmoke that he had brought indoors with him.
She leaned back, shaking her head slightly as if to dispel a bit of fogginess, and said very deliberately, “Did you need me to find some lavender oil for your bath? To ensure your skin remains soft and smelling of… of…”
“Of lavender?” he supplied, a laugh escaping him before he could contain it. Jane felt almost giddy with her own power and the heady rush that came from making someone—or at leastthisparticular someone—laugh. He said, “No, thank you,” so dryly that Jane could not prevent an answering smile from flitting across her face, and then he added, “But Iamgoing to take a bath now.”
As the afternoon progressed, the snow began to accumulate in great mounds. Jane couldn’t recall a snowfall like this in the three years she’d lived here, and she wandered from room to room, admiring the views of the snowdrifts accumulating on the hills to the east of Trethwick Abbey, and of the fat, heavy flakes falling over the gray sea to the west.
In the ballroom, she found Penvale. This was not a room that Jane frequented—it had never been used for its intended purpose in the entire time she had lived at Trethwick Abbey, standing empty and, in the winter, quite cold, thanks to the enormous windows that lined one wall. A couple of sets of French doors led onto a terrace that, in fine weather, offered dramatic views of the ocean and cliffs but today would undoubtedly be a windswept misery. It was bitterly cold in the room,the imposing stone fireplace that occupied much of the southern wall lying empty.
Penvale was standing before one of the windows with his back to her, one arm braced against the glass. This stance caused his shirt to stretch tightly across his shoulders—his jacket was nowhere in sight, and he was wearing a gray waistcoat over his shirt that did nothing to hide the shift in muscles each time he moved his arm. He must have been freezing, but he gave no sign of discomfort, standing utterly still as he stared out at the falling snow.
“The roads will be in bad shape after this,” he said, startling Jane; she hadn’t realized he’d heard her approach. “It might be a few days before we’re able to make it off the estate.”
“Perhaps it will rain and melt it all away,” she said as she drew closer to him, crossing her arms over her chest against the chill. She came to a halt next to him; he glanced sideways at her, then moved a step closer, until she could feel the warmth of his body even without touching him.
“Perhaps,” he said, his tone indicating deep skepticism. “We may be trapped, though. I bloodyhatesnow,” he muttered.
His aversion to snow was beginning to strike Jane as rather odd. “Why are you so bothered?” she asked curiously. “It’s not as though we’ve anywhere we desperately need to go.”
Absurdly, she found herself feeling almost…defensive,as though he were criticizing this place that she loved so much, and she felt wounded at the slight despite the fact that—as she sternly reminded herself now—anything that made him regard Trethwick Abbey with even a slightly reduced degree of affection was certainly to her advantage.
