He quickly crossed the room, removed the book from her hands and placed it back on the shelf. ‘Unfortunately, I think that was one of my better compositions.’
‘You must have been a very sweet young man,’ she said, looking towards the book.
‘I think that’s a contradiction in terms. Fifteen-year-old boys are seldom sweet. Now that you’ve seen the cottage and I’ve been completely humiliated, perhaps we should walk through more of the garden.’
He pushed open the door. Still smiling at his expense, she moved past him and stepped outside, then quickly stepped back in. ‘Oh, it’s starting to rain.’
He poked his head out of the door. ‘It’s probably just a passing shower, but it would be best if we shelter here.’
‘Oh, good, we can pass the time with a poetry reading.’
‘I didn’t realise you had such a cruel streak.’
‘And I didn’t know you had a poetical nature. It seemed my father was right. We are getting to know things about each other.’
‘Things we’d rather keep to ourselves’ he said, taking her arm and leading her away from the bookshelf. ‘There’s something else about me you don’t know and I’ll show you if you promise to leave the poetry books alone.’
She looked at him, as if assessing which would provide her with the most amusement. ‘All right, what?’
‘I am a dab hand at making a fire.’
‘Really? No, I don’t believe it. You have a house full of servants who do everything for you.’
‘I’m not quite the useless aristocrat you seem to think me. When I was a youth hiding out in this cottage, I didn’t spend all my time writing bad poetry. The estate manager taught me all sorts of ways to fend for myself.’
Along with the other servants, the estate manager had taken pity on him and knew he often needed to escape from his father’s wrath. The hermit’s cottage had provided a refuge and the estate manager had taught him not just how to light a fire, but how to prepare the game he caught and how to cook it. If necessary, Jacob could have almost lived out here and become the hermit the cottage had been built for.
‘Watch and be amazed,’ he said as she sent him an incredulous look.
He piled up some dry leaves in the bottom of the grate, broke up some of the branches piled beside the fireplace into smaller pieces and arranged them on top of the leaves so air would circulate. Then he looked to Margaret for approval.
‘Very good,’ she said, still with that delightful teasing smile. ‘You know how to lay a fire, but how are you going to light it?’
‘Well, Robinson Crusoe, who, along with Lord Byron, was a boyhood hero of mine, used to rub two sticks together.’
‘Off you go then,’ she said, sitting down on the cot as if expecting this to take a long time.
‘Or I could do this.’ He crossed the room to the small cupboard in the corner, opened one of the drawers and was pleased to see a box of matches still stored where the gamekeeper had always left them. He struck a match on the side of the fireplace, put the light to the tinder-dry leaves and twigs, then watched as the flame caught the smaller branches and flared to catch the larger pieces. Once it was burning, he turned to Margaret.
‘Voilà,’ he said and made a bow.
‘That’s cheating,’ she said with a laugh.
‘All I said was that I could make a fire, and that’s what I did. I didn’t say I was going to do it in the style of a caveman or shipwrecked sailor.’
She stood up and placed her hands in front of the fire as if to check it was a real fire providing real heat.
To make things slightly more comfortable, he picked up the straw mattress and placed it in front of the fire. ‘A seat for you, Your Grace.’
With exaggerated elegance, she lowered herself to the ground. He sat beside her and mirrored her action, holding his hands out to the now crackling fire as if in need of the warmth.
‘It’s rather cosy, isn’t it? she said. ‘I can see why a child would enjoy playing here.’
He added another piece of wood to the fire. ‘It wasn’t a playhouse. It was somewhere I felt I could breathe. Somewhere I didn’t feel like I was constantly tiptoeing through a minefield.’
She sent him a consoling look. ‘I’m sorry you had such a terrible childhood.’
‘Well, I made up for all that misery later in life,’ he said, trying to return the conversation to the playful mood it had moments ago.
