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‘Though I do believe Mr Darcy would have encouraged Miss Bennet to bake, if he could sense the pastime bewitched her,’ Shay continued, in his best English aristocrat voice. ‘When she wasn’t too busy with her bracing walks and witty banter.’

Noémi shot a look at him. ‘You do read!’ That was surely too much detail for a passing interest in what his sisters once watched on TV.

He gasped in feigned horror. ‘I do not. Charming novels give you unrealistic expectations of jolly endings. Real life isn’t often like that, is it?’ He looked at her earnestly.

She blew out a long breath. ‘No. But trust me, fiction is simpler.’

He nodded, something passing in the chilly air between them.

‘Though when would a thrill-seeking, danger-defying man like me have time to sit and read? People would call me lazy.’

He twisted his arm to check his fitness tracker, before realizing it wasn’t there. He shrugged and they shuffled onwards.

‘You don’t need a watch to tell you you’re moving,’ Noémi joked, navigating a tricky slope of snow and trying not to wobble.

‘Baking cookies.’ He waggled one of his poles towards her. ‘You’re trying to change the subject. You’re clearly still interested as I’ve seen you fight goats for them, and you were making a batch when the fire interrupted you. Why is it such a touchy subject, and why did you stop in the first place?’

Noémi wedged a shoe in the snow to prevent herself from slipping and looked at him. She rarely talked about it. If she was honest, it barely made sense. Sometimes there weren’t the words unless you were one of the Brontës. Daniel’s husband dying so suddenly wasn’t her story to tell, and she didn’t want to share her weird sense of guilt or her dubious, lofty ideas. So she tried to blink away the tears that were building.

‘Hey.’ Shay snowshoed sideways to get nearer, without invading her space. ‘What would Mr Darcy do?’ he pondered quietly. ‘Probably not console single ladies with inappropriate back stroking, am I right? We’d be morally bound to marry for such audacious overfamiliarity.’

She couldn’t help the genuine laugh that escaped her. His humour was sometimes exactly the thing she needed. And there was something about his big, honest eyes that made her want to share a little.

‘I incinerated those Christmas cookies,’ she said quickly. ‘And I could have burnt down half of the street while I was messing about with them. If that’s not a clear sign I was making a mistake with my dumb ideas, I don’t know what is.’

Noémi freed her feet from the snow, wobbling but not caring, and began ploughing forwards. Shay followed.

‘I hate to break it to you, but life isn’t literature. Things that happen don’t have to be ominous signs. Nobody so much as sneezes in a book unless it’s a warning they’ll die of consumption on page two hundred and two.’

‘I think you’ll find consumption is signposted by a persistent cough,’ she said weakly – though annoyingly, he had a point.

‘What if real life isn’t neatly woven, like a well-plotted story? What if a sneeze is just a sneeze? And a fire is just a fire? An accident caused by a random flying ember hitting a rug, rather that some dreadful omen that the bookshop owner should never bake again. Wild theory, hey?’ His voice was jokey, but kind. ‘Or if you’re desperate to find a meaning, what if the message is that shit happens, but you can deal with it?’

She stopped in her tracks. Damn it. He had such a way of getting to the core of things, for someone who claimed not to read.

‘Have I got you thinking?’

‘No.’ She waved a nonchalant hand and dropped a pole. Gah. She bent to grab it.

He arrived at her side, looking adorably inoffensive with his slightly smudged heart nose and white ski suit with a tail. Ski suits were OTT for the Cotswolds, but you couldn’t tell that to a man who often dressed as an elf.

‘Sometimes we search for signs that aren’t even there,’ he said softly, his eyes directed at the view. ‘I had a health scare once. At first, I took it as a sign that I was just one of those people who wouldn’t last the course. That I should stay in, be cautious, and accept my sad fate. But honestly? I was making excuses, because I was scared. And when we’re afraid, we’ll cling to anything that might back up our theory – even if it makes no sense.’

‘Wow. I’m so sorry about your health scare.’ She shuffled a little closer despite the snow.

He looked at her and smiled gently, just one side of his mouth quirking upwards. ‘Ahh, no. I didn’t tell you for the sympathy vote. I’m alive and kicking, aren’t I? I just wanted you to know it’s normal to clutch at unlikely clues when we fear something. When our dreams feel too big, we have an uncanny way of talking ourselves out of them. But sometimes, a sneeze is just a sneeze.’

Could that be true?

‘I’m glad you’re OK,’ she said earnestly. They kept walking, the snow starting to fall in soft flakes around them.

Normally she’d be rushing back home if she got caught in inconvenient weather. But for once, she was allowing herself to feel something. To let the snowflakes land on her cheeks and settle there, before slowly melting. And soon enough, they were at the bottom of the hill. She might usually have groaned and looked for a bus stop or yearned for a quiet café to sit and read in. Though right then, a better thought came to her.

‘The only way is up,’ she said, surprised by her own words. ‘Oh, and the last one to the top has to make the Christmas cookies. And eat them. And for the record, avocado is not allowed.’

‘Apologies to Mr Darcy, but chivalry is about to go out of the window. This is one bet I cannot lose.’ There was a glint in his eye as he began his snowy stomp. ‘Though I’m not sure you’d rush if you knew what I had waiting at the top.’

Chapter 30