And this adventure, as Frances Allard had called it, would soon be over. Already the sun had broken through the clouds, and water was dripping off the eaves outside the taproom window. There was only the rest of today to live through.

And tonight . . .

Tonight he would sleep in the taproom. He would not set even one toe beyond it in the direction of the stairs and the chambers above. When he died, his virtue would take him straight into heaven, where he could bore himself silly by playing on a harp for all eternity.

Damnation! Why could she not have continued to be the prunish shrew he had taken her for yesterday—less than twenty-four hours ago? Or else the laughing, eager woman she had been outside until his lips had touched hers? Why did she have to be such a frustrating mix?

He ordered Wally and Thomas to do the dishes—Peters was still busy with the carriage, though that fact did not stop Thomas from muttering something about favoritism as Peters disappeared through the back door. Lucius pulled his boots and his greatcoat back on and spent most of the afternoon outside, first in the carriage house feeling useless, and then chopping wood, since the pile that was already chopped looked seriously diminished. He could have hauled Wally outside to do the job, of course, and would have done so under normal circumstances. But he was glad of the excuse to remain outside. He was doubly glad of the chance to use up more energy. He chopped far more than would be needed tonight and tomorrow morning. This wood would be warming the toes of the Parkers for the next week or more.

She had tea ready when he went back inside—fresh bread with more of the cheese and pickles, and some currant cakes that were still warm from the oven. Who was it who had said that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach? Not that it was exactly his heart that was the affected organ, but she was certainly a good cook.

“I have decided,” he said when they had finished eating, “not to offer you employment as my cook. I am large enough as I am—or as I was yesterday.”

She smiled but did not say anything. And when he got to his feet to help her into the kitchen with the tray, she told him to stay where he was, that he had been busy enough all afternoon.

She had been reading, he could see. Her book was resting open and facedown on the settle beside the hearth. It was Voltaire’s Candide, of all things. She was reading it in French, he saw when he picked it up. She had said that she taught French, had she not? French and music and writing.

She was a prim, staid schoolteacher. No doubt she was a dashed intelligent one too. If he repeated those facts to himself often enough, perhaps he would eventually accept them as hard reality and the knowledge would cool his blood.

Who the devil would want to bed an intelligent woman?

Wally came to make up the fire, and Lucius nodded off in his chair soon after. Frances Allard did not rejoin him until dinnertime, when she appeared with a roasted duckling and roast potatoes and other vegetables she had found in the root cellar.

“I did not even help with the potatoes tonight,” he said. “I am surprised you will allow me to eat.”

“I did not help chop the wood,” she said, “but here I am sitting in front of the fire.”

Lord, they could not even have a satisfactory quarrel any longer.

“Candide,” he said, nodding his head in the direction of the book. “Do you always read in French?”

“I like to when the original was written in that language,” she said. “So much is lost in translation even when the translator is earnest and well educated. Something of the author’s voice is lost.”

Yes, there was no doubt about it. She was intelligent. He tried to feel his attraction to her wane as a result. He was attracted only because he was stranded here and she was the only woman within sight, he told himself. Under normal circumstances he would not afford her so much as a second glance.

They conversed without too much awkwardness or too many silences for the rest of the meal, but he found as it progressed and then as they washed and dried the dishes together that a certain melancholy had descended upon his spirits. It was not the black mood that had assailed him all over Christmas and even yesterday but a definite . . . melancholy nevertheless. Tomorrow they would part and never see each other again. By this time next week she would be simply a memory. By this time next month he would have forgotten all about her.

Good Lord! Next he would be growing his hair and wearing brightly colored cravats and spouting sentimental verse and sinking into a decline.

He set down a heavy pot he had just dried and cleared his throat. But when she looked up with raised eyebrows—and slightly flushed cheeks—he had nothing to say.

She led the way back into the taproom and sat on her usual chair. He stood before the fire, gazing into it, his hands clasped at his back. And he gave in to temptation. Not that he put up much of a fight, it was true. Perhaps he would do that later.

And perhaps not.

“And so,” he said, “you never did get to dance over Christmas?”

“Alas, no.” She chuckled softly. “And I was all prepared to impress the villagers with my prowess in the waltz. Mr. Huckerby, the dancing master at school, insisted upon teaching the steps to the girls, as he says it will almost certainly be all the rage within a few years. And he chose me with whom to demonstrate. As if my days were not busy enough without that. But I stopped grumbling once I had learned the steps. It is a divine dance. However, I was given no chance to dazzle anyone with my performance of it over Christmas. How sad!”

Her voice was light with humor. And yet in her words, and in what she had said during the morning, he gathered an impression of a Christmas that had been dreary and disappointing. A lonely Christmas, with only two elderly ladies for company.

But he had already given in to temptation and could not now deny himself the pleasure of pressing onward.

He looked over his shoulder at her.

“Dazzle me.”

“I beg your pardon?” She looked blankly up at him, though some color had crept into her cheeks.

“Dazzle me,” he repeated. “Waltz with me. You do not even have to wade through snow to reach the Assembly Room. It awaits you abovestairs.”

“What?” She laughed.

“Come and waltz with me,” he said. “We can have the luxury of the room and the floor to ourselves.”

“But there is no music,” she protested.

“I thought you were a music teacher.”

“I did not see either a pianoforte or a spinet up there,” she said. “But even if there were either, I would not be able to play and dance at the same time, would I?”

“Do you not have a voice?” he asked her. “Can you not sing? Or hum?”

She laughed. “How absurd!” she said. “Besides, it is cold up there. There is no fire.”

“Do you feel cold, then?” he asked her.

He suddenly felt as if the taproom fire were scorching him through to the marrow of his bones. And with his eyes intently holding hers, he knew that she felt the same way.

“No.” The word came out on a breath of sound. She cleared her throat. “No.”

“Well, then.” He turned fully, made her an elegant leg, and reached out one hand, palm up. “May I have the pleasure of this set, ma’am?”

“How absurd!” she said again, but the color was high in both cheeks now, and her eyes were huge and bright, and he knew that she was his.

She set her hand in his, and his fingers closed about it.

Yes, they would waltz together at the very least.

At the very least!

And perhaps he would remember her even this time next year.

He carried two candles in tall holders up the stairs while she carried one, which she took into her room in order to find a shawl in her portmanteau. She wrapped it about her shoulders before going into the Assembly Room, taking her candle with her.

He had placed his at either end of the room, which was not really very large at all. He took hers from her hand and strode across to the fireplace opposite the door to set it on the mantel. He must have made a quick visit to his room too. He was wearing shoes in place of his Hessian boots.

This was terribly foolish, she thought. They were actually going to dance together? Without company, without music, without heat?

No, there was heat aplenty. And foolishness could sometimes feel marvelously exhilarating. She held the ends of her shawl and tried to steady her heartbeat as he came back across the room, his eyes intent on hers, looking distinctly dangerous. He repeated the elegant, marvelously theatrical bow he had made her downstairs, and cocked one eyebrow.

“Ma’am?” he said. “This is my dance, I believe.”

“I believe it is, sir.” She dipped into a low curtsy, set her hand in his, and felt the warmth of his fingers close strongly about hers again.