A Rogue in Winter

by Grace Burrowes

He’d find his way to the manor. Finding his way home would be a more complicated matter.

  “Do you always tuck up your guests as if they were small boys come to study with you and send them off smiling?” Joy Danforth leaned against the doorway to the unused guest parlor.

  She was not smiling. Her hems were damp, she clutched the blanket about her like an oversized shawl, and her coiffure, which should have been a sensible chignon, but had probably started out as an artful creation, had turned into bedraggled masses of damp curls.

  “Mr. Wentworth is a banker. Merriment inspired by a particular date on the calendar unnerves him.”

  “Merriment unnerves a lot of people.” She pushed away from the doorjamb and turned a pensive gaze on the white expanse beyond the window. “I heard what you said about the weather. Hiram and I should be on our way.”

  Yes, they should, though it occurred to Pietr he had no idea where they might be going or why they must hurry off.

  “The inns farther west are humble and few, Miss Danforth, and your brother is unwell. What compels you to travel on?”

  She rested her forehead against the pane of glass. “Utter necessity, of course. I am to spend the holidays with the Bellingham family near Hambleton. Do you know them?”

  Pietr knew of them, as did everybody in the northern counties. “Your coachman missed the turn, if your destination was Hambleton, and in this weather, you’re a good two days of frigid travel from your destination.”

  “Two days?” Her tone suggested he might as well have said two years. “I told Hiram we should have been heading west, not south. He did not listen to me.”

  A vicarage without a housekeeper had loomed like a promised land of solitude, a chance to mentally say farewell to years of good work among good people. A relief beyond description.

  Though a bit lonely, truth be told. A bit tedious.

  “Stay here for now,” Pietr said, though he hadn’t planned on issuing quite that invitation. “You are safe and warm. I am on hand to assist with your brother if his illness worsens, and the Bellingham family seat hasn’t moved for four hundred years. Stay.”

  Miss Danforth stood straight, faint humor touching her gaze. “Four hundred and sixty-seven years. I want to argue with you, but you are right: I am warm and safe. Hiram will listen to you, though he no longer pays any mind to me, and we are not expected on a date certain. I should tell my coachman we’ll bide here for a night.”

  “We will send word with Mrs. Blackwell’s potboy when he comes to retrieve the soup bowls, and Mr. Blackwell will give your coachy a bunk with the grooms and hostlers. Our innkeeper is not as uncharitable as he may appear. We get the occasional fashionable lord passing through on the way to the grouse moors. Such young men can be troublesome even when not inebriated.”

  Miss Danforth muttered something that sounded like can they ever. “I will need my valise.”

  “I am happy to fetch it for you. First, may I presume to lend you a pair of my knitted stockings? My sister makes them. Our mama was Danish, and Clara’s stockings are the equal of any winter chill.”

  This disclosure occasioned a full-on, where-has-that-been-hiding? smile from Miss Danforth. “Your mother is a Dane?”

  “Was. I get my height from her side of the family, I’m told. This amuses you?”

  Her smile softened. “I’m pleased, Mr. Sorenson. I’m pleased.”

  Mr. Danforth called out from the study, and the smile faded like a winter night enveloping a sunset.

  “I’d best go to him,” Miss Danforth said. “Thank you again for your hospitality.”

  “My pleasure. You’ll find my stockings in the top drawer of the bureau in the first bedroom on the right upstairs. I’ll fetch your bags.”

  “My thanks.” Miss Danforth climbed the steps with all the dignity of a monarch in her robes of state, while Pietr bundled up and prepared for a little jaunt over to the inn. Cold air was supposedly good for clearing a man’s head, which was abruptly a muddled place indeed.

  Joy Danforth had fashionable connections and traveled in even more fashionable style. Why, then, was she utterly unconcerned about the state of her hair? Why were her fingers ink-stained, as if she pored over ledgers and correspondence by the hour? Why were the nails of her left hand bitten down, while those of the right were neatly manicured?

  Paying attention to a guest wasn’t the same thing as being nosy, though Pietr did admit to some curiosity. A little curiosity, anyway.

  A man with a wife would have offered Joy the loan of a pair of stockings belonging to the lady of the house. That realization struck as Joy entered the first bedroom on the right at the top of the steps. She went to the window, which had a view of the green and of the undulating hills beyond the village.

  The vicar made his way across the open space at the brisk pace of a man made fit by regular exertion. He respected the elements, and Joy had the fanciful notion that they—the wind, sky, and hills—respected him too.

  Why no wife for such an estimable gentleman? Not that it was any of Joy’s business.

  Mr. Sorenson disappeared into the inn, and rather than stand watch until he reemerged, Joy surveyed his private quarters. Her first impression was of tidiness. The hearth was swept, the four-poster bed neatly made. No vanity, but the top of the bureau held a folding mirror, and the comb, brush, scent bottle, and stack of handkerchiefs were precisely arranged before it.

  She peeked behind the privacy screen to find more order and organization. A shaving kit, basin, and pitcher occupied a washstand. A stitched sampler hung from the privacy screen. Joy expected to find the Twenty-third Psalm, but instead, somebody had memorialized Ephesians 4:26. Be ye angry, and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.

  Interesting choice.

  The bedside table told another interesting tale. Mr. Sorenson read poetry, as well as both a York and a London newspaper. One bound book was clearly in a Scandinavian tongue, another—Tales of an Unhappy Wife—in French. One of Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels was tucked between them.

  A restless and voracious mind lurked amid all this tidiness. A Viking mind, roaming the literary world in search of intellectual plunder.

  Joy was tempted to inspect the dressing closet and look under the bed, but Hiram called out again from below. Besides, the vicar had given her permission to peek into his bedroom, not pry into his life.

  The bureau was another testament to organization, the stockings rolled and tucked neatly in rows in the top drawer, which was nearly at Joy’s eye level. The drawers were cedar lined, a small extravagance, but probably necessary when a wardrobe depended so heavily on wool.

  “Joy! Are you coming?”

  She hurried off, taking care to leave the door open so some of the warmth from the lower floor would reach the bedroom.

  “What on earth is amiss, Hiram?” she asked, descending the steps.

  “I need a headache powder.”

  He was slightly flushed, and his eyes had a sheen to them that Joy associated with genuine illness. Even so, Hiram was a grown man, having officially reached his majority. This rudeness was tiresome.

  “When Mr. Sorenson comes back with our valises, I will ask him to prepare you a powder. He said the vicarage is well stocked with medicinals.”

  Hiram made a face. “D’you suppose there’s a chamber pot somewhere nearby?”

  “Hiram Danforth, I am not your nanny. It’s as if you grew younger at university instead of more mature.”

  “You are no help.”

  “Try a guest bedroom upstairs. Look for a room with a fresh fire.”

  Hiram disappeared up the steps, his tread heavy. When had he become so uncharming? Half of Mama’s argument for a match between Joy and Lord Apollo was to ensure that Hiram made the right connections and enjoyed the right opportunities.

  The other half… Joy did not want to think about the other half.

  She returned to the cozy study and swapped her sodden stockings for the luxurious comfort of the vicar’s
wool. A lady did not go about unshod, but so substantial were Mr. Sorenson’s knitted stockings that Joy hardly needed slippers.

  She was folding up the blanket Hiram had discarded on the sofa, idly watching the birds at the feeder, when she caught sight of her reflection in the window.

  “Heaven defend me.” A Medusa stared back at her, hair spiraling madly, curls bouncing halfway down her back, wisps and ringlets framing her face. “I look like a startled hedgehog.”

  “So you do,” Hiram said, coming through the doorway, “but at least you ain’t sick. I feel more wretched by the hour.”

  “Hiram, why didn’t you tell me my coiffure was in want of repair?” The vicar had seen her thus. Mr. Wentworth had seen her… Thank heavens she hadn’t arrived at the Bellingham estate in such a condition.

  “Your coiffure often wants repair. I’d lend you my comb, except that would be like aiming a peashooter at the French army. Other girls wear fashionably short curls, but my sister must resemble the Renaissance saints in their spiritual agonies. God, I feel miserable.” He sank onto the couch. “I don’t think that soup agreed with me.”

  “How much have you had to drink, Hiram?” He’d begun the journey from York up on the box with the coachman, and Joy suspected he’d refilled his flasks at the inn.

  “Not enough, clearly. Give me back my blanket. I’ve a mind to catch a few winks.” He unceremoniously stretched out on the couch, jammed a pillow behind his head, and rolled to face the wall. “Blighted Yorkshire. This is all your fault.”

  Joy draped the blanket over him. “Go to sleep. Rest can only help.”

  A note to Mama was required if they were to spend the night at the vicarage, but first Joy would do something about her hair. She took the seat near the hearth, tucked her feet up under her, and began fishing pins from the wreckage.

  She’d have to manage without a comb or brush, though she still knew how to fashion a braid and secure it with pins into a coronet.

  When I am Lady Apollo Bellingham, I will wear my hair in braids if I wish. I will have warm stockings. I will read whatever I please to read. She had embellished considerably on that comforting mental litany by the time her hair was completely undone.

  Hiram snored on the couch, the birds had left the feeder, and the only sound was the crackling of the fire. Joy should thus have heard the front door open, but she was too engrossed in the speculative pleasures of marriage to Lord Apollo.

  She was taken completely unaware when the study door opened to reveal the vicar, hair damp, cheeks ruddy, standing in the doorway and frankly staring at her.

  “I look a fright,” Miss Danforth said. “I do apologize.”

  Pietr moved into the study and closed the door behind him. “Then I must look a fright as well, for I, too, have been at winter’s mercy.”

  Miss Danforth blushed, and never had a fright looked so… so… fetching. So arrestingly feminine. Of all the possibilities Pietr could have conjured when he’d opened his study door, a dark-haired pixie perched in his reading chair had not been among them.

  And behind that purely male reaction was a widower’s appreciation for the female in her domestic state. Watching a woman take down her hair was a husband’s intimate privilege—or a lover’s—and one Pietr had failed to appreciate when it had been his. Unbound hair was a metaphor for relaxation of both moral and emotional guard, something a lady would allow only if she felt safe.

  “I’ve brought your valises,” Pietr said. “You doubtless have a comb and brush among your effects, and you must not stand on ceremony. This is the only truly warm room in the house, other than the kitchen, and I was frequently tasked with brushing out my wife’s hair of an evening.”

  Miss Danforth let a half-finished braid unravel. “You were married?”

  “Briefly. Long ago.” Shockingly long ago, upon reflection. “Mr. Danforth is asleep?”

  “I suspect in addition to illness, he is suffering the results of excessive attempts to medicate himself.”

  “Or,” Pietr said, regarding the prone form on his sofa, “did the medication induce the illness? Brandy doesn’t create real warmth, only disregard for the cold. A couple of years back, a post coach got stranded on the moor in a winter storm. The horses froze to death, as did the coachy and guard. The men had no less than six empty flasks between them, and there’s no telling how often those flasks had been refilled throughout the day.”

  “And had they been sober, would those men have chanced the moor?” Miss Danforth murmured. “A cautionary tale indeed.” She twiddled the end of a dark ringlet around her finger. “I know why you didn’t say anything about my hair. You are a gentleman, and if a lady is in complete disarray, you will pretend to ignore the problem.”

  “You were not in complete disarray, Miss Danforth. You were merely a trifle discommoded by travel.”

  She sent him a peevish look that he found utterly enchanting. Nobody was peevish with the vicar, though they had ample reason to be.

  “You need not flatter me, sir. You were being considerate. Hiram should have said something, but Hiram no longer sees me as… He doesn’t see me at all.”

  “Hiram is your brother.” Pietr crossed the room to toss another square of peat onto the fire. “In his way, he is doubtless endearing—also exquisitely vexatious. I have a sister, you will recall, and Clara is determined that I take my place in the world. I thought here was my place, but siblings have the ear of God, according to Clara. Thus I am off to become assistant dean of a cathedral forty miles distant. From there, to dean, and—Clara is short for clairvoyant—I will have my own episcopal see before I’m fifty, as if the Church is a cricket team, and I can aspire to captain’s honors.”

  “You have no wish to become a bishop.”

  “What makes you say that?” Pietr was supposed to have those aspirations, just as he’d been supposed to remarry the perfect wife of Clara’s choosing. Of course, he’d also been supposed to aspire to a diplomatic post, but—given the state of matters on the Continent until recently—Papa had permitted ordination instead.

  A fallback measure, he’d said, until the armies go home, which British armies never seemed to do for long.

  “I perceive nothing about you that smacks of worldly ambition,” Miss Danforth said. “You feed the birds. You grasp why the Blackwells are leery of inebriated young men in London finery. You tuck Mr. Wentworth’s scarf about his ears.”

  What was she going on about? “One tries to be useful.”

  The finger twiddling the lock of hair stilled. “Has your bishop been useful to you?”

  What a peculiar question. “I make an annual sojourn into York to confer with him. I used to go quarterly, then semiannually. Now I drop a regular note and take tea with him once a year. He does not meddle with me, and that is a significant form of usefulness.”

  “He does not see you,” Miss Danforth said, rising. “Hiram does not see me, but, Mr. Sorenson, I did appropriate a pair of your stockings, and marvelous stockings they are too.” She took one of the chairs at the chess table and arranged her blanket about her legs.

  She had taken off her boots and wore only the thick, cream wool stockings Clara sent yearly by the dozen. Those stockings would come well past Miss Danforth’s knees, an image Pietr ought not to be imagining.

  “You have a mirror over your vanity,” Miss Danforth went on. “I noticed this, and I noticed how tidily your effects are maintained. I noticed the simplicity of that room—no art on the walls, no fussy little curios, and no theological tomes displayed for vanity’s sake. You like your comforts—fluffy pillows, thick quilts and rugs, plenty to read—but you are no hedonist.”

  “Are we to have a game of chess, Miss Danforth?”

  “I feel compelled to keep an eye on Hiram, and I haven’t had a good game in ages.”

  “Nor have I. My best partner became preoccupied with wedded bliss. Lord Nathaniel’s infrequent games haven’t been the same since.” Pietr took the second chair. “What else did you n
otice about my living quarters?”

  He turned the board, giving his guest white, so she had the tactical advantage of the first move. “It’s what I did not notice that matters. I was frankly curious about mine host’s private quarters, but, Mr. Sorenson, I stood directly in front of your bureau, and I did not see my own reflection in your folding mirror. I look like I’ve survived a North Sea gale, and I did not see myself.”

  While Miss Danforth studied the board, Pietr studied her. He could make some pious little observation about humility being a virtue and vanity unattractive, but Miss Danforth was probing a troubling issue.

  “You’ve lapsed into taking tea with yourself annually?”

  She nodded. “If that. When and why did I lose sight of myself? I must think on this. When do you leave for your deanship?”

  “Too soon, though I haven’t said anything to the parishioners yet. They will all want to have me to dinner, when I prefer to slip quietly into a passing coach.” The more pressing question was not when he’d leave for a deanship, but why. Clara had conveniently supplied him with the answer in many a letter: to better serve the Church, which was how Clara alluded to escaping the Dales.

  “Your move, Miss Danforth, and I warn you, I will allow no gentlemanly sensibilities to spare you defeat.”

  “Nor will ladylike sensibilities on my part preserve you from an ignominious fate, Mr. Sorenson. Prepare to defend yourself.”

  The words rang with layered meanings, though Miss Danforth could not know that, and still, Pietr lost the first game.

  Chapter Three

  The vicar’s chess was refreshingly ruthless.

  Joy had lost two pawns to his one before she got into the spirit of the contest, old skills creaking and stretching to life as if coming out of hibernation. He was a think-once-think-twice-and-move sort of player, given to direct attacks and plenty of them.

  “We are an interesting contrast in styles,” she said when his king lay prone on the board. “You dispatch your strategies with single-minded purpose, while I dither and look for a way through the postern gate.”