“Eva!”
She tensed. Was this what it was like to die by freezing, hallucinating the wind called your name? Straining, she listened with every fiber of her body, hoping against hope what she’d heard was something more than wishful thinking.
“Where are you?”
She gasped, the air cold against her raw throat. That was no delusion. “Here!” she shouted. “I’m here!”
Moments later a shadowy figure appeared, and Bram’s strong arm wrapped around her shoulders, gathering her close. “Try not to stumble. We are going to move fast.”
Transferring her sticks to one hand, she flung an arm around his waist. He hadn’t been jesting. He practically dragged her through the snow. They staggered through the door of the old house, and once inside, she pulled away and caught her breath.
“What were you thinking?” A great cloud of steam puffed out his mouth. “You could have died out there!”
“I—” She swallowed. Hearing him confirm her worst fear made it seem all the more real, yet he’d tasked her with finding firewood. “You told me to find kindling.” She shook the paltry sticks in the frigid air, snow powdering off her upraised arm.
“Oh, Eva. I meantinsidethe house.” Hefting a sigh, he once again wrapped his arm about her shoulder and guided her from the room. “Come. Let’s get you settled, and I will make a fire.”
“I doubt this will be enough wood.” The two sticks weighed hardly anything against her gloved palm.
He laughed. “This whole house is made of wood—what is left of it, anyway.” He stopped in front of a barren hearth in the main room. “Here, take a seat on the floor. It is hard and cold, but at least it is dry.”
Exhausted, she sank without complaint. Bram lifted the blanket from her shoulders and shook it out, ridding the fabric of snow before he replaced it. But when he shrugged out of his own coat and began laying that over her as well, she pushed away his thoughtful offering. “Bram, no. You will catch your death. I am fine with just the blanket.”
“A valiant refusal, yet I insist.” He winked and strode into the shadows.
Eva tugged the blanket—and Bram’s coat—closer to her neck, breathing in his mossy scent and the leftover sweetness of tobacco. He’d been nothing but kind, sheltering her as best he could all the way from Cambridge. She’d had the extra layer of a blanket. He’d had nothing but his coat. Surely he must be bone chilled. Though by the sounds of it, he was currently working up a sweat. The kicking in of a wall and cracking of slats being pulled free assaulted the cold air.
He reappeared with an armful of jagged-edged wood, dropped it in front of the hearth, then doubled back for another load. Eva shivered while he worked, torn between wanting to help yet unable to force her trembling body to move.
Methodically, Bram kicked away spent ash from the fireplace, then stacked the smaller sticks and scraps in the middle. When the pile grew to just below knee height, he disappeared once more and returned with a handful of splinters, which he carefully nested at the base. He then pulled out a small box of matches from his waistcoat pocket and struck one to life. Never had she been so glad to see a fire sputter into existence—nor so curious.
She cocked her head. “I am grateful, truly, but why do you just happen to have a box of matches? That seems very convenient.”
“You will not like the reason.” He blew on the tiny flames, coaxing them to life.
Reason, indeed. When had he found the time to purchase a cigar in Cambridge? Unless he’d stopped by his office at Trinity. Or possibly when she’d been looking at books inside Heffer’s, he’d bowed out to the tobacco shop next door.
“Please do not smoke a cigar in here.” She waved away a billowy grey cloud wafting from the hearth. It was hard enough to breathe with the smoke from the fire.
Bram fiddled with the flue handle. A jerk and a tug later, the thing creaked open, luring fumes and flames upward. After tossing a few of the bigger boards onto the fledgling fire, he sank to her side, stretching out his long legs toward the warmth. “If it were not for my bad habit, we would not have this fire now, would we?”
She humphed as she peeled off his coat and handed it over. Staying in a house alone with a fully dressed man was shameful enough. Better he should cover those shirtsleeves, where muscles bulged far too enticingly beneath the fabric. “The man I marry will not partake of such a filthy vice as cigar smoking.”
“I did not realize you were looking for a husband.”
Her cheeks heated as she pulled off her bonnet “I am not. It is just ... Oh, what does it matter, anyway? When word gets out I have spent a night alone with a man, no one will have me.”
“Any man would be a fool to listen to such blathering gossip. I would not.” Resolution deepened his tone.
Of course he wouldn’t give sway to what anyone said. He never had in the past. She set down her bedraggled bonnet on the dirty floor, then began working on shedding her sodden gloves. “You are not like other men.”
He flashed a grin. “I shall take that as a compliment.”
“You take everything as a compliment.”
“Is that such a bad thing?”
She allowed the question to linger unanswered, weary ofbanter. Weary of everything, really. She laid out her wet gloves to dry, then lifted her hands to the fire. As she slowly thawed, her thoughts turned toward her sister. How worried the girl must be. “I hope Penny is all right,” she murmured. “I hope she did not venture out in this weather.”
