The room looked cozy and a bit masculine. There was a pile of cushions on a chair in the corner. They had once been arranged decoratively over the rest of the furniture in the room. The small table beside the chair next to the hearth was covered with a stack of books, which looked as though it might topple over at any moment, an untidy pile of papers, and even an ink bottle and a quill pen balanced precariously close to the edge on one side. The rest of the room was tidy.
Elizabeth examined Colin and her feelings on this first meeting since Christmas. He looked relaxed and cheerful. He had hugged her without any apparent self-consciousness. He had not avoided her eyes. He had forgotten both the kiss and the awkwardness at the party, then. That was a relief.
“Do sit down,” he directed them all. “Mrs. Westcott, come and sit by the fire. Here, let me move this stuff. I intended to do it before you arrived and forgot.” And he swooped books and papers, pen and ink off the side table and deposited them, after a look around, on the floor in the corner beside the cushion-piled chair. “Now where did I put the doily that belongs on that table?”
Tea was brought in soon after. It was a veritable feast of sandwiches and jellies and cakes, though they did not go to the dining room to partake of it.
“I hope you do not mind,” he said by way of explanation. “It is far cozier in here, especially on such a gloomy day.”
“I am quite happy to have tea by the fire here, Lord Hodges,” Elizabeth’s mother said. “I am sure we all are.”
Wren poured the tea while Colin served the food and insisted that they sample some of everything. “My cook will be offended if we send back anything more than a few crumbs,” he said. “She is a tyrant. Is she not, Roe?”
“And an excellent cook,” she said, “whether of savories or sweets “
“Why is it that a cold winter day seems less cold when the sun shines?” Elizabeth’s mother complained later. “Alas, that rarely seems to happen in January or February. Certainly not today.”
“But there are the spring flowers and the budding trees to look forward to in March,” Wren said. “Sometimes even sooner for the snowdrops and primroses.”
“You showed me the daffodils the second time I came when you were living here, Wren,” Alexander said. “You called them yellow trumpets of hope.”
“You will never let me live down that particular flight of fancy, will you?” she said, wincing.
“I have not yet seen the daffodils,” Colin said, “but I look forward to it. That corner of the park is lovely, though, even without them. There are the woods and the stream and bridge and then the long slope down to the fence at the outer border of the park.”
“Aunt Megan preferred her rose garden,” Wren said. “But I always loved the daffodils more than anything else.”
“Would you like to take a walk there?” Colin asked, setting down his empty cup and saucer on top of his plate and getting to his feet.
Alexander groaned. “Another day, perhaps?” he suggested. “When the daffodils are in bloom and there is some warmth in the sun?”
“The wind makes today a particularly raw day,” Wren said. “And you have just had the fire built up again, Colin. Why waste it?”
“Cowards,” he said, grinning.
“Guilty,” Alexander said.
“I must confess that I am enjoying this cozy corner you have given me,” his mother said. “The journey home in the carriage will be chilly enough.”
“Elizabeth?” Colin turned to her with laughing eyes. “Are you a coward too?”
The question could have more than one meaning. She had no wish whatsoever to go tramping about the park in this weather merely to look at a daffodil patch without daffodils. And she had no real wish to be alone with Colin. Not yet. Not this close to the Christmas blunders. She had merely to repeat what everyone else had said. He doubtless would not even be offended or disappointed. He surely could not really want to go out walking. But…she had missed him and their private conversations.
“I am not,” she said. “Lead the way.”
“You will catch your death, Lizzie,” her mother protested.
“No, she will not,” Alexander said. “She has always liked to tramp about in the outdoors in all weathers, Mama, and she has always remained stubbornly healthy.”
“I raised a monster,” she said. “A healthy monster.”
“I hope I am not going to be held responsible for your death by icicles,” Colin said a few minutes later while Elizabeth was fastening her cloak in the hall and tying the ribbons of her bonnet beneath her chin and winding the heavy wool muffler he had lent her about her neck—the bright red one she had given him for Christmas. “How would I live down the shame?”
“Perhaps you will share my fate,” she said, “and neither of us will have to feel shame or anything else.”
“A distinct possibility,” he agreed, opening the front door while she drew on her kid gloves and then slid her hands into her warm muff.
The presence of her muff prevented her from taking his arm. They walked side by side across the lawn to the west, past the house and the trellises beside it that were part of the rose garden in the summer, past the stables and carriage house and onward in the direction of the trees. It was not a large park, though it definitely earned its title. It was bigger than a garden.
