By Winter's Light: A Cynster Novel (Cynster Special Book 2) (6 page)

Grinning, Daniel reached for the canvas flap and threw it back. “We have shears or handsaws, ladies. Which will you have?”

Somewhat to his surprise, the girls exchanged a long glance, then Louisa opted for a pair of shears, as did Therese, while Juliet and Annabelle elected to try the handsaws.

Daniel had no idea what they were up to, but that look… He’d dealt with Cynster boys long enough to know what that meant; they were planning something.

Whatever it was, it included collecting the fir and holly boughs they were there to fetch. The four girls set off, tramping into the surrounding forest, pointing to various boughs and comparing their potential usefulness in draping the archways, mantels, and the hall walls.

Daniel turned to Claire. “What implement would you prefer?”

She considered, then said, “I suppose I’d better take a saw, too. I can see myself having to finish off cuts they start.”

Daniel smiled. “No doubt.” He searched through the various tools in the bag. As she approached, he drew out a handsaw with a sturdy grip. “This is a good one.” He held it out.

Claire reached for the saw. Because of the style of grip, it was impossible to take the tool without their fingers touching. Brushing.

Sensation slithered down her spine, delicious, enticing.

She clamped down on the reaction, determined not to let it show…if she could have, she would have stopped reacting altogether, but she didn’t know how. She didn’t even know why she was so sensitive when it came to Daniel Crosbie.

“Thank you.” Lips tightening, she took the saw and turned away.

She pretended to look into the trees, pretended to follow the girls with her eyes; in reality, her every sense had locked on the man standing silent and still beside her.

He was looking at her, studying her face; she could feel his gaze but she was not—absolutely was not—going to meet it.

Daniel saw her resistance quite clearly, carried in her stance, in the rigidity of her spine, in the stoniness of her expression, in the way she stood with her shoulder toward him—supposedly looking into the forest, but that was a sham.

Resistance, yes—but was it truly rejection?

He forced himself to consider that unwelcome possibility…but no. Drawing in a breath, one tighter than he liked, he decided that this wasn’t rejection. If she rejected him, he would know it; she wasn’t one to mince words or be coy. So she hadn’t rejected him, not yet. As for resistance…resistance could be overcome.

For one instant longer, he gazed at her face, let his eyes linger on her profile. The way he saw it, he owed it to her as well as himself to make a push to overcome whatever hurdle she plainly saw standing between them.

If they were to have the future he wanted them to have, he would need to make a push to secure it.

He shifted his attention back to the canvas sling; he reached in and drew out the hatchet. Hefting it, he turned.

The movement drew Claire’s gaze.

Meeting it, he smiled. “We’d better get after them.” Raising the hatchet, he added, “According to Raven, I should trim the branches before we haul them back to the house.”

They worked in a loose group for the next hour, selecting branches and boughs of fir, cutting them down and trimming them, and selecting and cutting bushy sprigs of holly laden with red berries for contrast. Daniel found a fallen tree a little upslope from the sled to serve as a makeshift bench on which to trim the branches. The girls and Claire spread out into the forest around the spot, ferrying the branches they cut down back to him and the hatchet. The time passed swiftly. Daniel was occasionally called to help with this bough or that, while Claire was summoned hither and yon to deal with holly sprigs just out of the girls’ reach, or to examine scratches and pulled threads.

It took Daniel a little time before he realized what the girls’ plan was; he’d been right in thinking they had one, but they were really very good at hiding their purpose. He’d thought it strange when Louisa and Therese had brightly offered to cart the first pile of trimmed fir boughs back to the sled. He’d watched them go, their arms piled with greenery, and had wondered… He’d returned to his task but had glanced over at the sled in time to see a swift whispered exchange, which had ended with both girls stuffing something else green and leafy in among the fir they’d stacked.

Intrigued, he continued to surreptitiously watch Louisa and Therese as they spread out beneath the trees. Eventually, Therese spotted something; she turned and caught Louisa’s eye and beckoned her over.

Louisa reached Therese and, having seen what her cousin had, nodded. With Therese, Louisa moved forward—

“Mr. Crosbie—can you help me split this branch?”

Daniel turned to see Annabelle dragging a bifurcated branch of holly toward him.

She hauled it around so that he could see and pointed. “Quite aside from it being too big, that part is less pretty. We don’t want that bit.” Annabelle fixed her dark blue eyes on his face.

The urge to look around and check what Louisa and Therese were doing warred with the instinct to respond to Annabelle, to the clear expectation of his immediate attention shining in her eyes.

Instinct—and Annabelle’s eyes—won out. Gripping the hatchet, he went to examine the branch.

By the time he had dealt with that, had helped Annabelle to add the neatly trimmed “pretty branch” to the growing pile of holly, and finally looked up, it was to see Juliet and Claire in animated discussion over a particular fir tree that was slightly different from the rest. Annabelle was now trudging back toward them. Straightening and scanning the surrounding forest, Daniel eventually located Louisa and Therese. Instead of being where they’d been when he’d stopped to deal with Annabelle—been distracted by Annabelle? He had to wonder—the pair were now heading toward him with several boughs of fir in their arms.

He knew he could simply ask what they were about, and if he insisted they would probably tell him, but…he remembered what it was like, as a youth, to have plans one kept secret from the adults. That was part of leaving childhood, of growing up. He eyed both girls as they neared, but as he’d yet to see the slightest sign that whatever they were up to posed any danger, either to themselves or to others, he decided he should wait and observe.

Laying down the fresh boughs for trimming, Therese asked, “Are there any boughs ready to go back to the sled?”

Daniel pointed at the mound to his right. “Those are ready for loading.” He glanced at the pair in time to see the brief exchange of an eager glance.

Louisa brightly said, “We’ll take them down and stack them.”

Daniel watched as the two girls divided the good-sized pile between them, then, balancing the unwieldy branches in their arms, headed back down the slight slope to the sled.

He hesitated, then, after setting down the hatchet, he moved silently away from the fallen tree and set off after them.

When the girls reached the sled and halted, Daniel halted, too. From ten yards away, he watched them dump the boughs they’d carried on the ground before the sled. Then they reached over the sled and drew up a pile of softer-leafed greenery…mistletoe.

They were gathering mistletoe.

Daniel stared. Had they guessed? Had he been that obvious?

Were they intending the mistletoe for him and Claire—playing matchmaker? He certainly wouldn’t put it past them.

Or were they simply doing this by way of making the most of the spirit of the season?

As he watched, Louisa and Therese spread the mistletoe in a layer on the boughs already on the sled, then proceeded to cover and conceal the finer-leafed greenery with the boughs of fir they’d just carried down.

They were probably right in thinking that Claire, at least, would not encourage them to hang mistletoe, but what should he do? What should his stance be?

Regardless of whether they were trying to specifically help him or not, he could use all the help he could get.

“How much have we collected?” Claire said from behind him. “Do we need any more?”

Daniel turned; from the corner of his eye, he saw Louisa and Therese shoot startled looks at him and Claire. Hands rising to his hips, he stood squarely between Claire and the sled, blocking her view of the sudden flurry of activity there. “We have plenty of fir, but I suspect we need more holly.”

Claire glanced toward the sled, but he didn’t move.

Instead, he pointed upslope to the pile of holly he’d trimmed and stacked beside the fallen tree. “That’s all the holly we have so far—at a guess, I would think you might need twice that much.”

Boots crunched on pine needles as Louisa and Therese—both rather breathless—came up. “We’ve been gathering fir up to now,” Louisa said, pale green eyes innocently wide. “If we switch to gathering just holly, it shouldn’t take long to finish collecting what we need.”

“I can’t wait to get back to the hall and hang everything up.” Therese’s anticipation was very real.

It didn’t escape Daniel that nothing but the truth had passed their lips. Looking at Claire, he arched his brows. “That sounds like a viable plan.”

Claire tipped her head in agreement. Louisa and Therese went ahead, moving swiftly up the slight slope to join Annabelle and Juliet, who had trailed behind Claire when she’d headed down to the sled. Claire turned and followed the girls, acutely aware of Daniel when he fell to pacing beside her.

But neither felt moved to speak; after reclaiming their tools, they separated, following the girls under the trees. As Juliet was her true charge, Claire tended to gravitate instinctively to watching over her. Luckily, in this section of the wood, the bushes with the best holly—with the greenest of dark leaves and most amply supplied with the reddest of red berries—grew in a single large clump; even though she was watching Juliet, Claire could hear the other girls and could see them as they moved around the bushes.

Somewhat less helpfully, Daniel took up station opposite her, keeping an eye on Louisa and Therese, and also Annabelle when she hove into his sight. Although his gaze wasn’t constantly on her, Claire knew he was there; it was disconcerting and somewhat irritating to discover just how much of a lodestone for her unruly senses he had become.

But as they gathered in the holly, paying due attention to the thorny prickles, and nothing occurred to exacerbate her awareness, she gradually relaxed and found herself sharing genuine smiles with Juliet and, all in all, enjoying the moment.

While listening and occasionally responding to Juliet’s artless chatter, Claire found her attention repeatedly caught by comments Daniel and the other girls exchanged. She found herself smiling at several; he was really very good with them.

“Watch out!” he called.

Claire shifted; boots scuffed, and she saw Daniel shoot out an arm—a bent-back holly branch, released, slapped against the thick sleeve of his overcoat.

“Oh!” Louisa had been the one in line to get slapped—thorns and all. She looked up at Daniel and smiled, sincerely grateful. “Thank you—I forgot I’d hooked it back.”

Disentangling the spiky leaves from his sleeve, Daniel asked, “Do you really need to burrow so far into the bush?”

“That’s where the best berries are,” Therese pointed out.

“Might I remind you that we will not be
eating
holly berries?” Daniel’s tone and the look he bent on the girls were resigned.

When Therese and Louisa just blinked at him, then returned to ferreting past the outer branches to get to the branches with the best berries, Daniel sighed. “You do realize,” he said, to no one in particular, “that that would have worked if you’d been boys?”

Several rude sounds were swallowed by girlish laughter.

Softly laughing herself, Claire returned to helping Juliet gather the holly they’d collected.

Juliet considered the pile. “More,” she said. She surveyed the bush they’d been plundering, eyes narrowing. “We have plenty of smaller pieces to weave into the fir. Perhaps we should take a larger branch—a signature piece for the main fireplace, perhaps.” She walked about the bush, peering this way and that, then she stopped and pointed. “How about that branch?”

Claire looked. It was certainly a larger branch than they’d thus far attempted. “We can try.”

Between them, using their coated backs, they managed to press back the outer branches sufficiently to get access to the longer, arching branch Juliet had identified. It was, indeed, a handsome specimen of its kind and would do very well stretched along the mantelpiece over the hall’s main fireplace. Claire nodded at Juliet. “I’ll hold it—you saw.”

Juliet’s face lit with eagerness. She set her handsaw in position and started sawing.

The branch was several inches thick. Less than halfway through, Juliet’s saw blade stuck.

Frowning in concentration, she tried to push it, then tried to pull it free, but it didn’t shift. Juliet released the saw handle along with a sound of frustration.

Claire opened her mouth to suggest they trade places.

Before she could speak, Juliet whirled around. “I’ll get Mr. Crosbie.”

No!
Claire stifled her instinctive response—and Juliet darted out and the branches held back by her body sprang forward.

Trapping Claire where she stood.

She couldn’t even move her arms from the branch she was supporting without risking tangling herself even more inextricably…she was trapped in the thicket of holly.

She didn’t have time to even start to panic; Daniel, summoned by Juliet and followed by all the girls, arrived on the scene.

He looked at her, assessing her situation—and she saw his lips firm as he struggled to hold in his laughter.

His gaze collided with hers, and she narrowed her eyes in warning.

Lips twisting, he looked down, then he handed his hatchet to Louisa. “Hold that—I’ll probably need it once I get in there.”

Luckily, they were all wearing thick gloves. But Daniel had to pick aside each thorny branch barricading his way into the area in which she stood, insinuating his body into place as he did, so that the branches slid and snagged along his back.

He was a great deal larger than Juliet; by the time he was standing where Juliet had been, Claire felt as if she daren’t take a breath. Not a deep one, anyway.