By Winter's Light: A Cynster Novel (Cynster Special Book 2) (7 page)

After meeting her eyes, humor still very evident in his, he examined the jammed saw. He gripped the handle and tried to shift it, but it moved less than an inch before jamming again. He humphed, then glanced at Claire. “I’ll cut the branch using the hatchet, but first I’ll need to free the saw.” He looked at her gloved hands, still loosely gripping the branch. “When I say, can you bend the branch down?”

When he glanced at her face, she nodded.

He nodded back. “Use all your weight if you have to.”

He turned back to the saw, examined it again, then twisted his head and called, “Hand me the hatchet.”

Annabelle was the smallest; she wriggled as close as she could and threaded the hatchet, handle first, through the branches. Daniel reached back, grasped the handle, then, after glancing at Claire as if to reassure himself that she was all right, he focused on the jammed saw blade; he lined up the edge of the hatchet blade and eased it into the same groove. “All right. Pull down now.”

Gripping more tightly, Claire dragged the branch down.

Daniel forced the hatchet blade deeper and at the same time wrenched the saw blade free. “Good! Ease up.”

Claire did as he bid and watched him twist and hand the saw out to Juliet.

Turning back to the branch, he met her eyes. “Turn your head away. I’m going to hack through the branch, and I don’t want any flying splinters cutting you.”

It was good advice. The only problem she had in following it was that to turn her head away from him, she had to shift her body, her shoulders… She ended with her shoulder lightly brushing his back.

“Ready?” he asked.

She swallowed. “Yes.” Really, this unlooked-for sensitivity was beyond ridiculous, yet her lungs had still seized, and her senses still waltzed.

The sound of the hatchet biting into wood reached her; the branch jarred in her hands, and she tightened her grip, bracing the limb.

“Thank you,” he murmured between
thwacks
.

She could feel steely muscles shift fluidly in his back and upper arm as he hacked at the branch; the sensation riveted her senses.

The branch cracked, then, on one last stroke of the hatchet, it came free in her hands. She had to shift to balance the weight, then she glanced at him—they were now standing shoulder to shoulder, their backs to the way out of the thicket, dozens of thorny branches blocking the route to freedom.

She met his eyes; he looked into hers. “How are we going to get out?” she asked.

The laughter in his eyes, just curling his mobile lips, invited her to laugh at their predicament with him.

Somewhat to her amazement, she felt her lips lift in a reluctant smile.

He glanced back, then to either side. “Girls—I want you to stand to either side of the spot Mrs. Meadows and I used to get in here, and then pull back all the branches you can reach and hold, but I don’t want you to step into the thicket, all right?”

“Yes, Mr. Crosbie,” chorused four voices.

Behind her, Claire heard the girls murmuring to each other; as usual, Louisa was directing. Claire couldn’t even turn around far enough to glance back at them. She looked at Daniel. Although his shoulder was still pressed to hers, he’d craned his neck to check on the girls. “Now what?” she asked.

Her question drew his gaze back to her face—and, quite suddenly, it was as if they were alone, private…and if she hadn’t been sure, earlier, what he was thinking, what he intended regarding her, she knew now. It was there in his face, in his hazel eyes, in his direct and open gaze.

Instead of the resistance—the refusal, the denial—she expected to rise up…her lungs constricted and her heart beat more heavily, and for one instant, she wondered…

He glanced at the branch. “Is that heavy or can you hold it?”

She blinked and had to think for a second before replying, “No—meaning yes, I can hold it. It’s not that heavy.”

“Good. In that case”—he glanced again over his shoulder—“we’ll need to move slowly and together, or we’ll both end up stuck.” He met her gaze briefly, then leaned back a trifle to look along her back and past her, then he nodded. “All right. You’re going to have to turn toward me. We’ll have to juggle the branch—probably lifting it as high as you can and pushing it past me will be the best way. Then just keep turning slowly until you’re facing the way out, and I’ll keep the branches back and follow close behind you.”

Claire nodded. She wasn’t going to think about this; if she did, her thoughts would end in a horrendous knot and paralyze her. Instead, she focused on doing as he said, on following his murmured directions as he and she adjusted and shifted, moving in slow motion together.

The maneuver was a lot easier described than accomplished, and performing it inevitably and unavoidably led to their bodies touching, brushing, almost as if they were engaged in a dance, one that placed the partners as close as if not closer than a waltz.

By the time she stepped free of the thicket into the space the girls had created, the prize branch of holly gripped like a staff in her hands, a blush had taken up permanent residence in her cheeks, and a wholly unexpected sense of triumph and exhilaration coursed through her veins.

Smiling, unable to stop herself, she stepped forward so that Daniel could follow, untangling the last of the incommoding branches from the thick weave of his overcoat. At last, he, too, stepped free—and crowing with success, the girls could release the branches they’d been holding back.

That done, the girls literally danced, their spirits high and effervescently infectious.

Claire steeled herself and met Daniel’s eyes.

His gaze was warm, reassuring, and conspiratorial. “It looks like we’ve made their day.”

Looking at the girls, she laughed. “Indeed.” She glanced at the branch, then called, “Juliet. Annabelle. Come bear away this bough we’ve wrested from the holly thicket.”

“Yes!” All four girls raced up. The branch was long enough for all four to spread themselves along it and carry it off.

Releasing it, Claire felt a sharp sting on the inside of her wrist and sucked in a breath.

“What is it?”

She glanced up and found Daniel at her shoulder, frowning down at her.

He met her gaze, concern in his eyes. “Are you hurt?”

She blinked, then shook her head. She glanced at the girls, but they were already on their way back to the sled, triumphantly bearing away their prize. Raising her left hand, Claire peeled back the edge of her glove. “A thorn.” One long sliver had angled beneath the fine skin on her wrist and broken off. She tried to pull it free, but the instant she released the edge of her glove, it flipped down and covered the spot.

“Here—let me.” Daniel was already tugging off his gloves.

Before she could stop him—before she could think—he took her gloved hand, almost reverently cradling it in one large palm, the back of her hand resting securely within his larger one.

She was wearing gloves, but they were fine leather gloves and didn’t mute the warmth of his palm.

“Hold back the flap.”

She obeyed, and he bent his head. Slowly, he closed his neatly trimmed nails on the protruding sliver. He had the hands of a pianist, his touch strong and firm. She watched his fingers move, felt the caress of his fingertips on the sensitive skin of her inner wrist—and the touch seared her to her bones.

She sucked in a breath, held it—and prayed he thought the reaction was on account of the hurt. A hurt she couldn’t even feel—her senses were distracted, awash with him.

Then she felt the slide of the thorn, and the sliver left her flesh.

She exhaled quietly and waited. She couldn’t dash away, couldn’t run away—and to her surprise, she didn’t want to.

He’d been inspecting the damage; she felt his fingers soothe the skin—a caress that tightened her nerves again and sent sensation streaking through her. Then he released her hand and straightened.

He looked into her eyes, and she met his gaze.

The moment—filled with a nascent emotion she couldn’t name—hovered between them.

Impulses, urges, flashed through her mind, but the girls were just down the slope, in sight, and…

She dragged in a breath, smiled and inclined her head, and managed a creditable, “Thank you.”

Head tilting, he held her gaze, then his lips eased into a wholly masculine smile. “It was my pleasure.”

Keeping her own smile within bounds required effort; looking away, she waved toward the sled and started in that direction. “I believe we’ve done our share—our helpers can fetch the rest of the holly.”

Bending to retrieve the hatchet and two saws the girls had left behind, Daniel glanced at the piles of smaller branches. “As you say.” As it appeared that persuading Claire to accept him was going to be a case of one step at a time, he was already planning his next advance.

Straightening, he set off after her, lengthening his stride to catch up with her. They were halfway back to the sled when the girls passed them, of their own volition returning to pick up the rest of the holly.

Upon reaching the sled, Daniel busied himself with checking and stowing the tools. After a second of indecision, Claire went to the front of the sled. She leaned down and poked and prodded under the branches; Daniel hoped Louisa and Therese had hidden their secret foliage deeper in the sled. “What are you looking for?”

Claire glanced up at him, then she straightened, drawing a long loop of rope free. “This is a workman’s sled, so I thought there should be a rope for pulling as well—and there is.”

The girls returned, their arms full of holly. They dumped the branches on top. Daniel loosened the side ropes and looped them over the piled load; with a few quick knots, he secured it. “Girls,” he said, still busy with the last knot, “why don’t you take the lead position with the rope, and Mrs. Meadows and I will push?”

“Yes!” Juliet rushed to Claire and reached for the rope.

Knot tightened, Daniel straightened and saw that Claire was reluctant to give up the rope, but the girls swarmed, and she had no real choice.

Designed to allow the sled to be dragged, the rope at the front was a loop secured at the junctions of the front axle with the two runners. The girls busily lined up inside the loop, holding it at their waists and shuffling forward to tension it.

A frown in her eyes, Claire walked to join him as he moved to the bar that ran between the rear handles. “You don’t really need my help pushing this along—not with the four of them pulling, as well.”

“We might not need your help pushing,” he said, taking up position to one side of the bar and grasping one handle, then inviting her with a wave to take her place alongside him, “but we will almost certainly need your assistance to ensure this doesn’t run them down, and also stays on the path.” Facing forward, he nodded at the four girls, all eager to be off. “There’s enough of a gradient that if they pull too hard, the sled might start sliding on its own. And if two of them pull harder than the other two, the sled will slide sideways and might well end up off the path.”

“Oh.” Her frown deepened a fraction, but then she nodded and, taking a slightly deeper breath, stepped into position alongside him; mimicking his stance, she gripped the back bar with one gloved hand and the handle with her other.

Their shoulders just touched.

He was waiting to catch her gaze when she glanced up. He smiled as reassuringly as he could. “Ready?”

For an instant, she searched his eyes, then she looked forward and nodded. “Indeed.”

Quelling a smile, he looked at the girls and found them all staring expectantly at him. “All right, girls—off we go!”

To a chorus of cheers that quickly devolved into soft laughter, punctuated by the occasional feminine shriek, the sled started sliding over the woodland path in the direction of the house.

Daniel kept the pace at a gentle walk, reproving the girls if they tried to go too fast. Claire walked beside him and found herself mesmerized by her awareness of him—of the warmth of his large body pacing so fluidly beside her, of the muscular strength he deployed in correcting the sled’s trajectory, of the way her shoulder brushed his steely bicep with every second step.

She told herself she was being unforgivably silly, that such indulgence of her senses was something she would come to regret—the exercise had no purpose and, at best, would only leave her yearning for something she knew she could never have.

Pointless.

She should cease enjoying the moment immediately.

Instead, some reckless piece of her soul she’d thought long dead kept a firm grip on her reins, and she walked on by Daniel’s side and, regardless of what she knew should be, found herself smiling.

* * *

By their standards, the riding party hadn’t ridden hard, but they’d made good time into the hills, through the forests mantling the lower slopes, and had climbed to a bridle path that snaked along above the forests below the bald spine of the Rhinns of Kells.

Turning their horses’ heads north, they’d ridden a little way, then had halted at a spot where a collection of larger rocks provided a flattish space sufficiently large to accommodate them all. Leaving the horses grazing in the rough stubble between the rocks and the upper edge of the forest, the boys lugged the saddlebags to the rock, and their company spread out for what was a rather early lunch.

“More like late elevenses,” Prudence said, then bit into the chicken leg she held in one hand.

“Pointless to try to keep them from food,” Lucilla dryly observed.

“Hmm,” was all Prudence offered in reply.

Sebastian had settled on Lucilla’s other side, with Marcus, Michael, and Christopher beyond him. With a wave, Sebastian indicated the land spread before them. “If the manor lands end where the forests begin, who owns the land we’re riding through?”

“The Crown,” Marcus replied around a mouthful of ham. “We have logging rights in the forest, and hunting rights, too, but the land itself is the Crown’s—which hereabouts means it’s no-man’s-land.”

“So by our English standards, it’s common land.” Michael glanced at the crest towering above them. “How far does it extend?”