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“Why, Mr. Cole, you do flatter me.”

“Mr. Cole, you certainly do know how to make a woman blush.”

All the while, Mr. Bowles appeared utterly put out by the whole affair, and Mrs. Bowles appeared to appease her husband’s obvious disapproval by pointing away in every other direction but their daughter’s flirtatiously fluttering lashes.

After half an hour, Clara was also past her attempts of positivity. Never mind how she loved feeling the cold on her cheeks. She was more than ready to sweep more floors, start more fires, and carry more hot water to bedchambers. At least then she’d be alone.

As they wandered farther away from the house, nearing the frosted trees around the grand estate, they passed by other groups gathering their greenery.

Clara recognized a few of them, including Lady Dalmeer’s nephew who’d arrived with an unexpected bride. Viscount Weymouth and his wife had somehow become entangled in a mass of ivy, their legs kicking helplessly as she landed on top of him.

Everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves, smiles and laughter abounding.

How Clara envied them.

“Just over there, I see a lovely branch of mistletoe on that bare tree,” Miss Bowles was saying to Mr. Cole as they neared seclusion from the other groups. “Mother, Father, it is quite far. Why do you not wait here to gather the hawthorn, and Mr. Cole and I shall gather the mistletoe.”

But her parents were not as dimwitted as their daughter clearly hoped. “Take the maid,” Mr. Bowles said. “We shall keep our eye on you from here—where we have a perfect view.”

He gave a stern look at Mr. Cole, who nodded with a reassuring smile. “I shall ensure no harm comes to your daughter, sir.”

Then he bowed and walked away.

Clara followed after them with a sigh. She was already holding two baskets full of holly, ivy, and hellebore. Of course Miss Bowles wouldn’t hold anything, being the esteemed lady that she was. And Mr. Cole was clearly too intent on making Clara suffer for spilling water on him.

She hated to admit it, but it was the perfect way for him to exact his revenge.

After a few moments, however, she realized the smallest amount of relief when their flirting was interrupted.

“Tabitha? Tabitha, will you come here for a moment, darling?” Mrs. Bowles called out to her daughter from behind. She waved thick, black gloves in her hands, and Clara noted that Miss Bowles’s bare fingers were reddened from the cold.

She must have taken them off as some sort of tactic.

“I don’t need them, Mother,” Miss Bowles called back. “Mr. Cole will keep them warm.”

Ah, there was her reasoning.

She wrapped them around Mr. Cole’s arm, and once again his eyes dropped to Clara’s, but she willfully looked away.

“Tabitha,” Mr. Bowles called out next.

Miss Bowles sighed, then curtsied to Mr. Cole. “Excuse me, will you? My worrisome parents. I’m quite warm enough as it is.”

She continued grumbling but returned to her parents, striding right past Clara without a single glance.

Clara hardly noticed. She was too distracted with the terrible fact that she had just been left alone with Mr. Cole, and the fact that the two of them were perfectly out of earshot from the Bowles’s.

How did this keep happening to her?

“Would you like me to take one of those baskets for you?” Mr. Cole said the moment they were alone. “Or would you like to spill those across my breeches, too?”

She could hear the smile in his voice, but she refused to look at him, taking a few steps away and focusing on the direction of the house with her body half-turned away.

“You were right about the coal by the way,” he continued, clearly undeterred. “It took me two full baths to wash the stain from my leg. I take it you were not responsible for the water?”

“No, sir.”

“I assumed as much. If you had been responsible, the water would have either been as scalding as the sun or as cold as Glaston River.”