But oddly, she was smiling.
Together, they ate the cakes as they watched the last of the light die out through the windows.
A mouse scurried past them, startling their peaceful silence. Henry jumped and rose to chase it away.
“Oh, leave him,” Alice said, leaning back contentedly. “I love mice.”
He gaped at her. “You love mice?”
She smiled sweetly at the scurrying rodent. “Yes. They are so small and curious and clever.”
“Until they chew through the walls and leave droppings in the cupboards.”
“You sound like my mother,” she groaned. “When I was a girl, I lured one into a box with cheese and tried to keep it in my room. Mama smacked me so hard I saw stars when she found it. Marched it right outside and fed it to a barn cat, she did.”
She told the story like it was funny, but it struck him as gruesome. “That sounds upsetting for a child.”
She grinned. “Bah. I was fourteen.”
He smiled, picturing a nearly grown girl still whimsical enough in spirit to wish to keep a rodent as a pet. “Shall I catch you one to look after now?”
She laughed. “No, but thank you for the gallant offer. I’m sure the mouse found it none too inspiring living in that box in my closet. Wild creatures are better off free.”
She stood and rummaged in her bag, then came back to their nook in front of the fire holding a pile of rumpled garments. Her teeth were chattering. Perhaps she intended to don extra layers to ward off the cold.
Instead, she spread them out on the floor into a makeshift pallet. “There. We can sleep here. It won’t be comfortable but it will be better than lying on the cold floor.”
We? She could not think he intended to share a bed with her, makeshift or otherwise.
“You rest. I’ll sit by the fire and tend it overnight.”
“It’s warmer here. And there’s room for two.”
Not with any decency between them, there wasn’t. “I’m not yet tired. You sleep. You’ve been working hard, while I’ve just sat here.”
She did not argue, just closed her eyes.
He made himself watch the fire, because it would be very embarrassing if she caught him gazing at her. He wished there was enough light to read, for he had his Bible in his satchel and he could use a bracing dose of scripture. But the fire was too small to illuminate anything beyond the circle by the hearth. So instead, he tended the fire, refusing to look at Alice, who he could hear gently snoring. When the flame became low he looked in the basket of logs and was alarmed to discover that there were only a few left. He prowled around the dark room searching for more wood, but found nothing.
He burnt what little there was left, but with the wind howling through the broken window it put off little heat.
The mill was freezing even with the fire. Without it, it would be unbearable.
Alice stirred. “Henry?” she asked sleepily. “I’m so cold. Build the fire up.”
“We’re out of wood,” he admitted.
“Then come here before it gets any colder. We’ll freeze.”
“I can’t share a bed with you Alice. It’s not right.”
He heard an expulsion of air emerge from her that sounded like a mix of sleep nonsense and curses.
She leaned over and poked his knee. “Henry. Evesham,” she said, through chattering teeth. “I will not freeze to death over some foolish notion of decency.”
“I suspect you will not freeze to death,” he corrected. “You will merely be very, very cold.”
“Henry,” she hissed. “Come. Here.”
He trudged over to the pallet and knelt on it beside her. It was wrong but he was so, so cold and so, so tired.
“Take off your coat and use it as a blanket,” she said. “It’s warmer that way.”
He removed it, shivering at the onslaught of the chill.
Alice lifted up the edge of her own cloak. “Here, come join me for warmth. We’ll share.”
He wanted to weep at how soft and warm her ermine looked, how her body must be just as soft and warm beneath it.
Which meant he must resist.
“I’m sorry, Alice,” he said, drawing his coat over his own body and turning away from her. He turned his back and closed his eyes.
But sleep did not come to him. He was so cold that his fingers and toes ached, so cold that the coldness felt like a pain spread out inside his body. Beside him, Alice’s teeth were chattering noisily. Every time a gust of snowy wind blew in from the window, she shivered violently and swore.
Was she right? Was he allowing decorum to get in the way of the larger Christian duty towards protecting life and health? Perhaps he was, or perhaps he was just too cold to care.
(The latter.)
“God forgive me,” he muttered. “Come here, Alice Hull.”
He lifted up his coat and she scurried under it, lodging herself under his arm.
Such soft, plush, warmth, her body. She curved against him the way a snail fit to its shell, perfectly spooned within the contours of his larger frame. He draped her cloak over the layer of wool, and since they were already long past the point of decency, drew her to him with all his strength to help warm her.
She burrowed herself into him as tightly as she could. “You could have done this an hour ago, you wretched man.”
“Don’t remind me of my failed convictions or I might change my mind.”
(He would not change his mind. Having her in his arms was far, far better than freezing alone on the floor.)
He closed his eyes and she shifted sleepily against him.
But he still did not fall asleep. For now that he was not so cold he was in pain, the pleasure of her next to him did not feel purely comforting.
It felt dangerous.
All he could feel or think or see was her—the rising and falling of her chest as she breathed, the occasional shivers that went through her when the wind picked up through the broken window. The smell of woodsmoke that wafted from her hair.
He was no longer tired.
His exhaustion, he realized with rising dread, had been replaced with a more troublesome sensation: the stirring of his groin.
Cretin.
He tried to edge away from Alice, to put some modicum of distance between them, but she groaned in protest and snuggled back.
With horror, he felt his cock thickening.
You gutter-bred, Devil-cursed wretch, he imagined her saying if she noticed.
How could he produce such a state amidst this bitter cold?
He edged away again, praying she was too lost to slumber to feel the hardness that exposed his shame. But every time he moved away, she grumbled and shivered and restored the distance.
The fourth or fifth time he tried to move aside, she reached behind her and clamped his leg down over her haunches with her bony little fingers. Surprising strength she had, for such a tiny person.
“Henry,” she said wearily. “I know you have a cockstand. I don’t care. It’s the natural reaction when a young man lies with a woman, particularly a young man who perhaps is not accustomed to such practice. I am very cold, and I would much rather feel your cock poking me than freeze to death.”
He did not know what to say.
Some part of him was relieved that she had simply addressed the problem. Some other part of him wanted to climb out of the nest they’d made and run into the cold and freeze to death in a snowdrift.