A Mischief in the Snow - By Margaret Miles Page 0,63

edge for a lover. Had there been such a man, long ago?

“Magdalene, what was his name?”

“She won't allow it! I can never speak of him. When he looked at me, when he touched me, then, how his eyes would dance! But I know… I'll see him no more. His eyes—his eyes are now my son's.”

“You have a son!”

Magdalene turned, her own eyes wide. “He has come back to me,” she insisted. “But please, you mustn't say. She would send him away.”

“Magdalene, you do know… that Catherine Knowles is dead?”

“But now that I am here, how will he know where to find me?”

Magdalene sank back. She shook her head slowly, as if she felt the return of a familiar, coursing pain.

Charlotte became aware of a drop in the wind's savage roar. Now it almost sobbed along the eaves. Enticingly, it began to whisper…

Some time later, she looked up to see Magdalene watching the flicker of the fire, her eyes staring, her hands folded in her lap. Loss, thought Charlotte, was something about which she herself knew a great deal. And yet, her own had been nothing like this.

Nothing at all

Chapter 22

TO THE RELIEF of all but the youngest in the village,.by the next morning the storm had blown itself out, leaving behind only a west wind to cut through the sharp sunlight. Drifts of snow had made a sort of white washboard across much of the village, including its lanes and the two main roads.

As the villagers emerged from their burdened houses, they found a world fresh and clean, through which teams of oxen pulled heavy sledges to compact the snow. Everyone, it seemed, was eager to be out, wishing to trade stories, and suspicions that had been born in the night. To this end not a few bundled themselves up and headed for the Blue Boar across the village bridge. Others took a different direction, stomping uphill and then through the welcoming door of the Bracebridge Inn, proceeding to the taproom to find an audience that was more civilized than the one found in the rival tavern.

Still others, mostly women and girls, made their way to nearby houses where they found chattering companions; together, they then ventured further afield, frequently stopping at the shop of Emily Bowers.

A lone woman and her dog had the best view of the dazzling new blanket that lay over the broad marshes and the town, below a wind-whipped sky. All of this she admired, as her skirts plowed a path from her farmhouse down to the lower abode of Richard Longfellow.

Though covered from head to toe, Charlotte shied at a gust that raised crystals of ice in a fierce flurry, then spawned smaller devils that skittered off across the buried herb beds. While the air was exhilarating, she began to wish she'd taken the road after all, as she encountered a drift that came up to her waist. She might have led one of the cows out of the barn after milking, and walked behind with a switch—but that had seemed less than kind. She smiled, too, at the thought of reaching Richard Longfellow's door with an unexpected guest, its bell clanging to warn of their arrival.

Even Orpheus, who'd started by frolicking at her side, had now decided to follow her, easing his steps and avoiding the biting wind. Somehow she hadn't felt comfortable with the thought of leaving him with Magdalene, though she doubted her guest would rise before her return. More than once, she'd awakened in the long night to hear the other woman pacing the floorboards above. Magdalene might well need extra sleep, after the frightful day she'd endured.

Reaching Longfellow's back door, Charlotte opened it to step into a cool kitchen. No one was there. She wondered if she could be too early for the household. But the fire had been stirred. She removed her outer wrappings, and left them at the hearth. Then she walked through the hall to Longfellow's study.

This, too, was empty, and as yet had no fire. She supposed he could have decided to take his coffee in the sunny front parlor. As she walked on to the front hall, she heard low voices, and her nose informed her that coffee was nearby.

“Good morning,” she said boldly at the parlor door, intending to make her presence known before she overheard what seemed to be a close conversation. She saw two men holding china cups, leaning forward in their chairs so that their heads nearly touched. They turned at