Chapter 10
"I should probably..." Marianne gestured vaguely toward the stairs.
"Of course. I'll be fine here."
"I'll get you blankets first. And pillows. You can't sleep on the floor without pillows."
She busied herself gathering bedding, creating a makeshift bed near the largest oven where the warmth would last through the night. Alaric helped, trying not to think about the domesticity of making up a bed with her.
"There," she said finally. "That should be comfortable enough."
"It's perfectly adequate."
"That word again."
"It's a useful word."
"It's a safe word. Noncommittal, as I believe."
"Perhaps I prefer safety."
"Do you? Because you're here, in a stranger's bakery, in the middle of a blizzard, rather than safely at the inn."
"The inn had mistletoe-related threats."
"Ah yes, the dangerous mistletoe. Much more threatening than being alone with a widow in her bakery."
The words hung between them for a moment, loaded with possibilities neither seemed ready to acknowledge.
"I should... there's bread that needs checking," Marianne said quickly, moving toward the ovens.
"At this hour?"
"Bread keeps its own schedule."
She busied herself with entirely unnecessary tasks while Alaric watched, both of them aware they were avoiding something but neither quite sure what.
Finally, Marianne stopped pretending to work and turned to face him. "There's brandy. Good brandy, not the poor quality they serve at the inn. My husband laid it down before he died. I've been saving it for... I don't know what. But a blizzard seems as good an occasion as any."
"You don't have to..."
"I want to. Unless you'd prefer to go to sleep?"
"I rarely sleep before midnight."
"Never?"
"Almost never. The habit of a lifetime."
"What do you do instead?"
"Read. Think. Review ledgers."
"That sounds thrilling."
"It's productive."
"But is it enjoyable?"
"I don't require enjoyment, merely occupation."
"That's the saddest thing you've said yet, and you've said some remarkably sad things."
She fetched the brandy and two glasses, settling into a chair by the fire she'd built up in the small fireplace. Alaric joined her, accepting the generous pour she offered.
"To blizzards," she said, raising her glass.
"To unexpected shelter."
They drank, and the brandy was indeed excellent—smooth and warm with just enough bite to remind you it was there.
"This has good bones," Alaric said without thinking, then caught himself. "I mean..."
"Good bones?" Marianne laughed. "It's brandy, not architecture."
"It's an expression. About the underlying quality."
"I know what it means. I'm just surprised you do. That's the kind of thing someone says when they know about wine and spirits. Really know, not just drink."
"I've had some education in wines." True enough—his wine cellar was worth more than most people's houses.
"At the great house where your father worked?"
"Yes."
"This house sounds more and more interesting. Noble, was it?"
"The owner was... elevated, yes."
"How elevated?"
"Does it matter?"
"I suppose not. I'm just curious about you, Mr. Fletcher. You're something of a puzzle."
"In what way?"
"You speak like a gentleman, move like someone trained to it from birth, have opinions about food pairings and brandy quality, yet you're working as a steward for an absent duke."
"Perhaps I'm a gentleman fallen on hard times."
"Are you?"
He took another sip of brandy to avoid answering directly. "We all fall in different ways."
"That's cryptic."
"That's all you're getting."
"Fair enough. We all have our secrets."
They sat in companionable silence for a while, listening to the storm and the crack of the fire. The brandy was doing its work, making everything softer around the edges, lowering the careful guards they both maintained.
"Can I ask you something?" Marianne said eventually.
"You've been asking me things all evening."
"Something serious."
"As opposed to the lighthearted discussion of my dining posture?"
"Mr. Fletcher." Her voice had changed and had become softer. "Why do you really hate Christmas?"
"I don't hate..."
"Please. Don't deflect. Not tonight. There's something about a blizzard that makes honesty seem more important than politeness."
Alaric stared into his brandy, watching the firelight play through the amber liquid. "My mother loved Christmas. Desperately, determinedly loved it, even when there was nothing to love."
"What do you mean?"
"My father would leave every December. Business, he said, though everyone knew it was his mistress.
Mother would pretend everything was fine, decorate the entire house, organize celebrations, sing carols while.
.." he paused, the brandy making him more honest than was safe, "while crying.
She thought I couldn't see, but I could.
She'd sing 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen' with tears streaming down her face. "
"Oh, Mr. Fletcher."
"Edmund," he said without thinking, then caught himself. His middle name, safer than Alaric. "My name is Edmund."
"Edmund." She tested the name. "How old were you?"
"Eight when I really understood what was happening. Nine when she died."
"And Christmas became associated with that pain."
"Christmas became a reminder that people pretend. That they perform happiness while suffering, that they create elaborate facades to hide unbearable truths."
"That's one way to see it."
"What other way is there?"
Marianne was quiet for a moment, swirling her brandy.
"My first Christmas after William died was the worst day of my life.
Worse than his funeral, somehow. Because at the funeral, everyone expected grief.
But at Christmas, I was supposed to be grateful, joyful, celebratory.
I burned everything I baked for three weeks.
Literally charcoal. Mother had to take over the bakery because I couldn't stop crying long enough to measure flour. "
"But you seem to love Christmas now."
"I chose to. Not because I felt it, but because the alternative was letting grief win. I decided that creating joy, even when I didn't feel it, was an act of defiance against despair."
"That seems like another form of pretending."
"No. Pretending is lying about what you feel. What I'm talking about is creating something despite what you feel. Your mother wasn't pretending to love Christmas—she really did love it. The fact that she could love it even through her pain makes it more real, not less."
"I never thought of it that way."
"You were nine. Nine-year-old children don't have much experience with complex emotions."
"I suppose not."
"But you're not nine now."
"No," he agreed. "Though sometimes I feel like I stopped growing emotionally at that age. Like I decided feelings were too dangerous and simply... opted out."
"Until now?"
He looked at her sharply. "What makes you think anything's changed?"
"You're here, aren't you? Helping with the fair, dancing on platforms, fighting geese. That's not opting out."
"That's being conscripted by a very determined widow with a list."
"You could have said no."
"Could I? You're very persuasive."
"I'm moderately persuasive at best. You wanted to say yes."
"That's presumptuous."
"That's accurate."
They were sitting closer now, whether from the brandy or the warmth of the fire or simply the magnetic pull of honest conversation in a storm.
"Tell me about William," Alaric said, partly to deflect from his own revelations and partly from genuine curiosity.
"He was... kind. That sounds bland, but his kindness was radical. He saw the best in everyone, believed in second chances and third chances and fourth chances. He made me laugh every day, even when things were difficult. Especially then."
"How did he die?"
"He caught a cold working in the rain, insisted he was fine, and by the time he admitted he was ill, it was too late. Three days from diagnosis to death."
"I'm sorry."
"So am I. But I had him for five years, and they were good years. Better than many people get."
"Do you miss him?"
"Every day. But it's different now. Less sharp. More like missing a friend who moved away; sad but survivable."
"And you never thought about remarrying?"
"The village seems to think about nothing else. But I haven't met anyone who made me want to risk that kind of loss again."
"Until?" The word slipped out, loaded with implications he hadn't meant to voice.
Marianne looked at him, her eyes reflecting the firelight. "That's a dangerous question, Edmund."
The use of his name, well, the name he'd given her, made something tighten in his chest.
"I seem to be full of dangerous questions tonight."
"Must be the brandy."
"Must be."
But they both knew it wasn't the brandy, not really. It was the storm and the isolation and the way honesty seemed easier in the firelight than in daylight.
"You have flour in your hair," Alaric said suddenly, needing to break the tension.
"Still? From earlier?"
"Just here." He reached out without thinking, brushing the powder from a strand near her face. His fingers lingered perhaps a moment longer than necessary, and he felt her breath catch.
"Edmund..."
"I should...we should..."
A log shifted in the fire with a loud crack, making them both jump. Marianne stood abruptly, nearly knocking over her brandy.
"It's late. I should go to bed. Early morning, bread to bake, you know how it is. Or you don't, but you're learning, and I'm rambling, which means I've had too much brandy and should definitely go to bed now."
"Marianne..."
"Goodnight, Mr. Fletcher. Edmund. Mr. Edmund? No, that sounds wrong. Just... goodnight."
She fled upstairs before he could respond, leaving him alone with the dying fire and the dregs of excellent brandy and the echo of possibilities that couldn't be pursued.
He sat there for a long time, listening to the storm rage outside and the occasional creak of floorboards above as Marianne moved about her room.
The smart thing would be to go to sleep, to pretend this evening hadn't happened, to maintain the careful boundaries that kept him safe from feeling too much.
But safety, he was beginning to realize, might be another word for cowardice.
Eventually, he made up his bed by the ovens, the warmth seeping into blankets that smelled faintly of bread and Marianne's lavender soap. He lay awake for hours, staring at the ceiling and listening to the storm gradually exhaust itself against the windows.
Somewhere above, Marianne was probably also lying awake, probably also thinking about moments that had almost happened and words that had almost been said.
Tomorrow, he would go back to being Mr. Fletcher, the duke's steward. Tomorrow, she would go back to being the efficient widow who organized Christmas fairs. Tomorrow, they would pretend tonight had been nothing more than shelter from a storm.
But tonight, in the warm darkness that smelled of bread and brandy, they had been Edmund and Marianne, two people who had found something unexpected in the midst of winter.
And that, Alaric thought as he finally drifted toward sleep, was perhaps its own kind of Christmas miracle.
Not that he believed in miracles, of course.
But listening to the wind die down and thinking of Marianne's laughter and the way she'd said "Edmund" like she was trying it on for size, he could almost understand why other people did.