Page 21 of Mail-Order Viscountess

Boots scraped against stone, and she spun toward the entrance. Thomas ducked into the hollow, his arms laden with snow-crusted branches. His hat and shoulders wore a thick layer of white, and even the dim light didn’t hide the way his jaw clenched against the cold.

Relief flooded through her—sharp and unwelcome. She tamped it down.

He dumped the wood onto the cave floor, then lowered to his knees beside the pile. His movements were careful and deliberate, but that didn’t hide the slight hitch in his breathing. His ribs. The ones he kept pretending weren’t injured.

He picked up a branch and brushed at the snow coating the bark, his gloved fingers clumsy. The white powder clung stubbornly to the bark, packed there by wind and moisture.

The pile was substantial—enough to keep a fire going for an hour or two if they could get it lit. But the wood glistened with moisture where the snow had begun to melt.

She moved forward before she could second-guess the impulse. Her knees met the stone beside him, the cold seeping through her skirt immediately. She reached for one of the larger branches and began working the snow off with stiff fingers.

“You don’t have to—” Thomas started.

“The fire won’t light if the wood’s wet.” She kept her attention on the branch, scraping away the packed snow. Her fingers ached with the cold even through her gloves, but the work gave her something to do besides pace and worry.

He didn’t argue again. Just picked up another log and worked in silence beside her.

The rhythm of it steadied something in her chest. Brush. Scrape. Set aside. Reach for another piece. Simple tasks with clear purpose—the kind of work that didn’t require thinking or feeling or acknowledging the fear still churning in her gut.

Thomas set aside the branch he’d been clearing and turned to the pile of kindling and the tinderbox he’d left in the center of the cave floor. “I’ll get the flame going while you finish those.”

She nodded and reached for another branch while he crouched over the small sticks.

The scrape of metal on stone echoed through the hollow—once, twice. A spark flared orange in the dimness, caught on the char cloth, then died.

Thomas struck the flint again. Another spark. This one held longer, a tiny ember glowing against the blackened fabric.

He bent low, his breath forming white clouds as he blew on the ember. The char cloth began to smoke, a thin gray thread rising in the still air.

He breathed on it again, and a tiny flame lit, an orange glow of warmth in the cold.

He fed it the thinnest twigs. The orange spread to the wood, tentative at first, then with more confidence. The small flame doubled in size.

She forced her focus back on her work.

In another minute, Thomas had a bed of fire rising from the kindling and had begun to pull the snow-free logs close to circle the fire. He snapped some of the smaller branches and placed them with the dryer kindling.

The bark hissed as moisture met heat, but the wood caught. Orange light pushed back the blue-white glow from the ice, casting dancing shadows across the stone walls.

She finished clearing the last branch and moved closer to the fire. Her fingers tingled as warmth began to seep through the wet leather and fur lining. “How long do you think the fire will last?”

“I’ll go out again for more wood.” He sat back on his heels, finally lifting his gaze to hers. The firelight caught the bruise on his cheek and the gash that had only just begun to scab over. “I think I can find enough to last till morning.”

Till morning.

The words settled in her chest with a weight she’d rather not examine. Morning meant an entire night trapped here with him. Hours of forced closeness while Clara remained on the other side of that river, probably imagining the worst.

She pulled her hands back from the fire and tucked them under her arms instead. The warmth had begun to seep through her gloves, but her core still felt frozen solid. “Your brother.” She kept her voice level, businesslike. “He’ll take care of Clara?”

“He will.” Something in Thomas’s tone softened. “James has always been the steady one. The responsible one. He’ll get them safe and warm. There’s a farm a few minutes up the trail where they’ll likely take shelter.”

The emphasis on those words—steady, responsible—carried an edge she couldn’t quite read. As though he were drawing a comparison that didn’t favor himself.

“And you?” The question slipped out before she could stop it. “What are you?”

He laughed, though the sound held little humor. “The youngest. The spare. The one they don’t quite know what to do with.”

“That’s not an answer.”