“We are not drinking the whole bottle,” she protested.
“Not if you go upstairs. You must help. Simple.” He poured her a glass and tipped his own back, then refilling it.
“This must be the last one,” she said, feeling the brandy swish to one side of her lips as she sipped. She licked at it with her tongue, and she noticed him watching her very carefully. As an experiment, she did it again, and he watched, going utterly still. Justine wondered if he would try to kiss her. She certainly wouldn’t mind, nor would she stop him. Maybe being a ghost wasn’t a bad thing.
He cleared his throat. “Why must this be the last glass?”
“Because alcohol affects me very strongly. I’m not as big as you are, after all.”
“No,” he agreed, his voice suddenly quiet and serious. The joking edge that he’d had earlier was gone, and he stared into the open grate of fire, not at her.
The atmosphere of the small dining room shifted, and she wondered if she’d done something wrong. The feeling had never happened to her before. Men—and honestly, some women—kept pursuing until they finally realized that Justine was serious when she said their suits were pointless. Justine was incapable of feeling that way towards someone.
Until now, anyway. When she wanted this Swiss tree trunk of a man to turn to her and beg to kiss her, beseech her for her name, give her trinkets and favors until he ran out of money or time. Instead he stared into the fire. Somehow that camaraderie was lost, leaving her a bit put out.
But there was nothing she could do about it, she decided, ghost as she was. In order to escape all the sooner, she tossed back the last of the brandy and stood, holding her glass outstretched for him to take. “Thank you,” she said as he accepted it. “That was most—”
Then the world swayed, and she felt as if the room was being turned on its side, the way a child might turn a picture book. Even in that smallest increment of time, she dreaded her head hitting the floor, knowing she was unable to stop it.
Instead, there was warmth. Too much heat. She was sweating so much, so hard, so fast. And her stomach did not feel right at all. And this lovely, warm tree cupped her face in his giant hands and said something she didn’t understand at all.
*
“Scheiss,” Karl said, swearing. She was but a little thing, small enough to bind up like an infant and haul on his back. He’d caught her as she fell, trying very hard to forget abouther softness as he accidentally—accidentally!—brushed his hand along her bodice. But she had gone pale very quickly, and if there was one thing Karl knew very well, it was the signs of a novice drinker being sick.
He had just mopped this floor, one of his many tasks at the inn. He mopped, chopped wood, penned animals, milked the cows and the goats. And now, he needed to find a pail for his ghost.
He started to explain his plan, but he couldn’t think of the English words, so he just ran behind the long bar that attached to the dining room and found the snow bucket. Easy enough to clean out, anyway. If he’d had his socks on, he could have slid across the waxed floor, but as it was, his bare feet squeaked and quaked across the new wood. He arrived in time, her mass of dark hair coming out of the pins she’d no doubt used in haste, not thinking she’d come upon anyone in the middle of the night.
She lifted her head. “I do apologize,” she said and then began retching. He held her hair back, marveling at the silky tresses, knowing this would be the only time he’d get a chance to feel them in his hands. Was it an ideal moment? No. Was this as close as he’d been to a woman in almost a year? Yes. His world was not built for women to inhabit it. So the pleasure of running his hand through such silky and well-maintained curls was a rare one.
Given Karl’s profession, he was more than capable of understanding pain and suffering while simultaneously wondering at the grandeur of the view and accomplishment. There was a dichotomy in life, one of profound beauty, and one of profound pain, and they often occurred at the same time.
Like this girl, beautiful and delightful, and also vomiting and not always keeping it confined to the bucket. He would need to mop again before breakfast.
“I’m too hot,” she panted.
Karl took a closer look and saw she was wearing wool, head to toe. He tore off the woolen shawl tucked around her shoulders, revealing a tiny waist and an exquisitely ample bosom.
She retched. “Still too hot.”
He scooped her up, hooking the pail with a spare finger, and took her to the back door of the dining room.
The massive wooden door didn’t so much as creak as he yanked it open by its heavy iron ring. There was plenty of snow to cool down this English miss. He put her down, and she sank to all fours, her palms firmly planted in the ice. He pulled her hair off of her neck, taking the initiative to try to re-pin some of her tresses. Her nape was sticky with sweat, so he scooped some snow in his hands and placed it there. She sighed in pleasure.
It was a sound he could not have accurately imagined. And now that he’d heard it, it would never go away. He knew that sigh would echo in his mind for years to come. Every lonely night, he would hear that sigh and remember his hands in those dark tresses, and his self-ministrations would move swiftly.
She scooped some of the crusted snow into her mouth, her body relaxing. Karl did his best to not look. For she was ill, and he still harbored very unprofessional images that flipped through his mind at the speed with which one might shuffle a deck of cards.
“I’m better,” she said, still panting.
No doubt her heart pounded too quickly, and her stomach was still convulsing.
“Will you put more snow on my neck?” she asked, as if it were too much trouble.
It was no trouble at all. He very much liked holding his hand across the nape of her neck. She shifted, sitting back on her haunches, her hair a mass of unruly strands, tumbling looseabout her shoulders. He had not done a good job pinning up her hair, but he did not care.
“This is perhaps the most embarrassing thing I have ever done.” She slapped her hands on her knees, then winced. “And that is saying something.”
