As it was, Lady Molenor, who had early designated herself judge and jury and had thus avoided having to be a participant, declared after ten minutes or so of vigorous action that the fight was a draw.
It was a verdict that was popular with neither side, though all of them were breathless and laughing as they hurled insults this time instead of snowballs. All of them were snow caked.
And then young Sarah Cunningham put an end to the altercation by coming back outside, wrapped to the eyeballs in warm clothing. Immediately ten people coaxed her down the steps by demonstrating to her how to make a snow angel. She came down and toddled among them, shrieking merrily at this new game and showering them with mittenfuls of snow. She made no angels herself, Colin observed. Not even a snow cherub.
It was the turn of the hill and the sleds then, and they trekked out there to find that Alexander, together with the Marquess of Dorchester and the Reverend Kingsley, had smoothed out a wide run. There were five sleds, all looking a bit ancient but still serviceable with their newly honed runners and brand-new ropes. Soon there were sledders zooming down the hill in ones or twos or—in one case—threes. But Molenor’s boys came to grief during that particular run, the sled shedding the middle boy during its descent and then the other two while their father closed his eyes, shook his head, and refrained from bellowing.
Colin was having the best time he had had for a long while—well, perhaps ever. If he had been half serious about spending the afternoon quietly in the drawing room, toasting himself before the fire, nibbling upon more rich Christmas baked goods, and even dozing, he was no longer even thinking about it. Snow of this depth and consistency was too rare a phenomenon in England to be wasted. And by tomorrow it would probably be turning to slush.
He took Lady Jessica Archer down the slope and then Lady Estelle Lamarr after trying it once alone to be sure he could control the sled without making a thorough ass of himself. He relinquished the sled to someone else for a while and then offered to take Lady Molenor down, though she protested that she was far too elderly for such frolics.
“And there is definite danger,” she said with all the air of resignation one might expect of the mother of three rambunctious boys. “Just look at that, Lord Hodges.”
Thatwas Camille Cunningham riding down with Winifred while her husband zoomed down behind them with a screaming Sarah and avoided crashing into them only after some fancy maneuvering and much laughter and shrieking from both sleds.
But Lady Molenor climbed on the sled anyway and laughed all the way down.
“I hope,” Colin said later when he was standing at the bottom of the run watching the action and Elizabeth had just come down with the Reverend Kingsley, “I did not offend you with the snowball in the face?”
“Oh, let me see,” she said. “Was that the first one or the fourth?”
“Numbers two, three, and four were part of a fair fight,” he said. “The first one was not. I hope I did not offend you. Actually I meant to hit you on the shoulder.”
“What?” she said. “You are not such a star bowler after all, then?”
“As for numbers two, three, and four,” he said, ignoring the jibe, “you really need to learn how to duck, Elizabeth.”
“The third time Ididduck,” she said, “and got it in the face anyway.”
Her cheeks were bright red and glowing. So was her nose. Her hair beneath the red-brimmed bonnet was wet and pulling free of its pins. Her eyes were sparkling, her lips curved into a smile. She looked really quite beautiful with animation to add to the usual smiling serenity. She appeared young and vibrant. But she ought to be offended. He had concentrated most of his attack during the fight upon her, perhaps because she was concentrating most of hers upon him and had been so very obviously enjoying herself. She had missed by a mile with every snowball but one, and that had shattered harmlessly against his elbow.
“Yes. Thank you,” he said when Dorchester offered him the sled he had just ridden down with his wife. The two of them wandered off together, hand in hand. Colin turned to Elizabeth. “Shall we?”
“But can I trust you?” she asked.
“Always.” He clapped one gloved hand over his heart and they trudged up the hill side by side.
They did two runs together. The first was flawless. Colin’s only regret was that the slope was not longer, but this was the highest hill in the park and it really was not bad. The second run was not so successful. Bertrand Lamarr, on his way down with Abigail, swerved to avoid colliding with his twin and Boris, Molenor’s eldest boy, and Colin had to swerve to miss them both. He was on the outer edge of the run and hit soft snow before reaching the bottom. He tried to correct their course, but the sled had other ideas and went plowing farther in, veering wildly from side to side before upending its occupants into deep snow close to the bottom.
There were shouts from outside their cocoon of snow, though none sounded deeply concerned. Elizabeth was laughing and sputtering—from beneath Colin. He was laughing too as he raised his head and brushed foolishly and ineffectually at the snow covering her bonnet and shoulders.
“I will never live that one down,” he said.
“I forgot to ask in what ways I might trust you,” she said. “Foolish of me.”
“With your life, ma’am,” he said, grinning at her. “Behold yourself unharmed and only snow caked. At least, Ihopeyou are unharmed.” It occurred to him that his weight might be squashing her.
And then the most ghastly thing happened.
He thought about it afterward—he could not stop thinking, in fact—and squirmed with intense discomfort every time. What the devil had possessed him? And what the devil must she think even though she had assured him that she would not think about it at all.
He kissed her.
Which would not, perhaps, have been quite so bad if it had been a brief, brotherly smack on the lips—or, preferably, the cheek—to apologize for spilling her into the snow. Though even then…even then it would have been disrespectful to the point of…He could not think of a suitable word with which to complete the thought.
But this was not a brief kiss, or at least not very brief. And there was nothing brotherly about it. It was indeed on the lips, or, rather, it was all heat and moisture and mouths more than just lips, and for a fraction of a moment—or forever, he was not sure which—he felt as though someone had wrapped him in a large blanket that had been heated before a roaring fire. Except that the heat was inside him as well as all about him. And for that fraction of a moment—or that eternity, he was not sure which—he wanted her.
Elizabeth. The widowed Lady Overfield. A woman in her mid-thirties. Poised and mature and serene and inhabiting a universe so far beyond his own inferior world of uncertainty and immaturity that…
