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“Have they?” Ellen murmured, her heart skipping a beat before beginning to pound.
“Come play,” Sarah called, but Ellen just smiled and slipped from the room. She didn’t think she could bear their jolly company at this moment.
She heard a sound from the kitchen, and thought it must be Pat, whining to be let out. She hurried into the kitchen and saw her dog scratching at the door. Smiling, she opened the latch, bracing herself for the blast of icy air, only to have her heart seem to stop right in her chest for the porch was already occupied. Dressed in their winter coats and scarves, their faces reddened with cold, Jed was helping Louisa up the icy steps. Neither of them saw Ellen as Louisa came to the last stair and smiled coquettishly at Jed who, to Ellen’s numb disbelief, drew her into his arms and lowered his head to kiss her.
It wasn’t, Ellen acknowledged even as she stood frozen to the spot, a simple chaste kiss. Jed did not pull away, and neither did Louisa. His arms came around her and pulled her even closer as the kiss deepened and went on and on. Ellen stumbled backwards, leaving the door open, the icy air pouring in as she fled from the kitchen.
THREE
The day Ellen was to return to Kingston was clear and still, with a sharp coldness that stole the breath right from her lungs.
She was grateful for the cloak and scarf that kept her warm, and more importantly, hid her features from worried eyes. Although on the surface Ellen had maintained a pleasant if abstracted air these last few days, inside she felt as frozen as the lake stretching out under a blanket of snow; a hard and brittle layer of ice which covered the churning emotions underneath.
Louisa stood next to her, waiting to get on the sleigh. Ellen sensed rather than saw Louisa’s tension; it was palpable between them. The friends had not spoken to one another beyond stiff pleasantries for several days. Ellen would not easily forget the conversation they’d had on Christmas morning.
After seeing Jed and Louisa Ellen had stumbled out of the kitchen, but not before she saw Jed spring guiltily away, and she knew she’d been seen.
She hurried upstairs, breathing as fast as if she’d run all the way down Jasper Lane. She didn’t want to examine her reaction—its terrible force or the feelings which had caused it—and so she sat numbly staring out the window as twilight fell softly over the barren winter landscape.
She’d hoped to avoid Jed and Louisa for the rest of the holidays, since the Lymans would be having Christmas celebrations at their own house, but of course it proved impossible.
There was church on Christmas morning, and as everyone exchanged greetings in the frosty air after the service, Louisa walked determinedly up to Ellen.
“Ellen, you must talk to me.”
“I think I’ve said Happy Christmas, Louisa,” Ellen replied with a small, tight smile.
“Don’t speak such nonsense. Ever since you saw Jed and me together you’ve been strung tighter than a bow. I can only wonder at the reason why.” There was a hard glint in Louisa’s eye that Ellen did not like at all. She lifted her chin.
“You surprised me, that’s all. Admittedly, it was a bit uncomfortable to witness such a—a display of impropriety, but I dare say I shall recover in time.” As a joke, it fell flat.
“If you had set your cap at Jed,” Louisa answered in a hard voice, “you should have made your feelings known. I told you how I felt about him all those years ago.”
“You told me you could make him fall in love with you!”
“And I did, didn’t I?”
Ellen swallowed the bitterness churning through her and turned her face away from Louisa. She did not want to ask if Louisa was in love with Jed. She did not want to have this conversation at all.
“Are you jealous?” Louisa asked, this time without spite. “Do you want him for yourself or do you just want no one to have him?”
“Want him for myself!” Ellen sputtered indignantly. Her cheeks were flushed with cold and humiliation that she should be having such a discussion with Louisa, especially when it was obvious where Jed’s affections lay. “I should think not! He’s had nothing but mockery or scorn for me from the day I met him. I’d never fall in love with Jed Lyman, never.” She spoke vehemently, perhaps too vehemently, for she knew she was lying.
“You almost talk as if you don’t like him.”
“I don’t!”
“Yet you’ve been friends these last three years—”
“You can have him, Louisa,” Ellen said, a ragged edge to her voice. She added, hurt and humiliation spiking her words, “if you think your parents will be best pleased! Do they want you courted by an ignorant farm boy who hasn’t even been to high school?”
Louisa’s mouth opened soundlessly, but it wasn’t her friend’s reaction that drained the color from Ellen’s face. It was Jed’s.
He’d approached them without either woman seeing, and he stood in the snow, his hands shoved into the pockets of his overcoat, his face quite expressionless.
Ellen struggled to form a coherent thought or word, but her mind was numb. Her scornful words seemed to still reverberate in the air, a terrible echo, impossible to forget or erase.
Louisa shut her mouth and swept towards Jed, linking arms with him, her eyes blazing.
