said.
‘Me too. Lucky we finally tracked one another down.’
Jay seemed transfixed by her. ‘Is it shallow of me to say you look lovely?’
Lottie flushed with pleasure. ‘I don’t mind …’ She wondered if she dare pay him a similar compliment, but ‘you look like Kit Harington and I’m going weak at the knees’ was absolutely not a good idea. ‘You decided not to wear the uniform then?’ she said as lightly as she could.
‘Yeah. I bought this jacket specially. Trevor didn’t seem too impressed.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘I’ll probably never wear it again.’
‘Welcome to my world,’ said Lottie. ‘And Trevor may love you but I don’t think he’s the best judge of fashion.’
‘Maybe not, though I did catch him lying on it the other day.’
She laughed, thinking she wouldn’t mind being Trevor, cosying up to Jay in his cottage.
‘My Christmas tree is beautiful, by the way,’ she said. ‘Thanks for bringing it. You must come and have a look, though it’s not as grand as the one in here.’
He smiled. ‘I’d like that a lot. We’ve both been so busy over the past few days.’
‘Yes. We have.’
She was aware they were dancing around each other, but not actually doing the real thing. Should she ask him? Why did she need to wait for him to make the move?
She went for it. ‘Do you want to—’
‘Dance?’
They burst out laughing that they’d both asked the question simultaneously.
‘I think that settles it,’ he said.
A moment later, they were on the dance floor and Jay’s hands were resting at her waist. His touch was so light …
It felt natural and also extraordinary at the same time, though Lottie couldn’t have explained the feeling in words. The two of them barely moved, in fact it was more of a shuffle on the spot. She didn’t know if anyone was looking. All she knew was that he smelled gorgeous and when the velvet of his jacket brushed her wrists, her skin tingled.
‘This is retro,’ he murmured, and Lottie noticed he’d moving a little closer to her and she had no objections. ‘It’s been a very long time since I went to a do where people danced together – as couples,’ he added with a soft emphasis that thrilled her.
She didn’t need to reply, simply gave herself to the pleasure of being so close to the warmth of Jay’s body. They danced slowly, saying nothing but moving closer all the time, until her face was almost touching his shoulder. She pressed her hands against his back, the velvet smooth beneath her fingertips. She heard his sigh, felt it, even, and wondered if he could sense her heart beating.
A cool current of air made her shiver.
‘Are you cold?’ he asked, searching her face.
‘No. The opposite.’
They were near the French doors, which were open a little to let some air into the overheated ballroom. The curtains rippled softly in the wind.
‘Want to get some air? It might be chilly, but we could stand in the shelter of the doorway.’
She smiled. ‘I don’t mind about the cold.’
They slipped behind the curtains and the chill embraced her, though it felt exhilarating. An inch of snow coated the terrace but in the immediate shelter of the house, the flagstones were still bare. Light spilled out from the windows, and the full moon shone through a gap in the clouds, revealing the silvery lake and the hunched black fells above it.
It was beautiful and she didn’t want to go back inside, but she shivered again and had to wrap her arms around herself.
‘Here.’ Jay took off his jacket.
‘I’m fine.’
‘And I’m happy for an excuse to take it off.’
She laughed. ‘OK, then, as a favour to you.’ Eyes sparkling with amusement, he slipped it around her shoulders, and cocooned her with the warmth of his body.
‘Thank you.’ They gazed in silence for a few moments before Lottie murmured, ‘I’ve lived in the Lakes all my life but I still have to pinch myself to believe I work at Firholme.’
‘Would you ever move away?’ he asked.
‘I thought of it once. I almost did but – life got in the way,’ she said. ‘What about you?’
Jay gazed out at the lake. ‘I thought of it too, after last Christmas. I started searching for jobs in Canada, checking if I could make a go of it over there. I wanted to get as far away from all the crap here as possible.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Every time I began to fill in the