Chapter One
Wales 1757
Drystan Powston hadloved Elizabeth Galoncryf for longer than he could remember. No, that wasn’t true. He remembered exactly the day. She had five years on her, and he, a worldly eight. Christmas dessert was being served; there must have been thirty people gathered around the table in the dining hall. His father, the steward, along with the butler and housekeeper, had ensured every dish from the soup to the boiled pig’s head had been served flawlessly.
Not that Drystan saw any of the grand table whilst the main courses were presented; he was only a boy, and being a nuisance in the kitchens. Which meant he mostly heard the relieved chatter of the servants, and Galoncryf ordering the presence of his steward and housekeeper to join in the presentation of the Christmas pudding. Without hesitation, Drystan stood behind his father’s trousered legs and stole the chance to glimpse the lavish affair.
The dining hall was darkened because many of the candles were snuffed for the guests to enjoy the pudding’s bright flames. Jewels and silks, lively laughter, clapping, and delight lit the room instead, but Drystan only had eyes for the smallest member around the table: Elizabeth, with spun gold for hair. She was brighter than any of the pudding’s dying flames.
The guests who were preoccupied by wishing each other a merry Christmas paid no regard to the small boy whose eyes were widening with some magical wonder. Nor did they notice the young girl who crept toward the cooling pudding, reached two tiny hands right at the very center, and shoved all fingers in before he could even gasp in amazement at her daring.
That was thirteen years ago now, and nothing had changed. Oh, the room they were in presently may be the kitchen and not that fine room, but no one paid him or Elizabeth any attention. They wouldn’t dare whilst the young mistress of the house was conducting her annual dessert desecration.
“What are you doing?” he hissed, looking around the bustling kitchen. Pots and pans were precariously stacked for cleaning, and off to the side, three servants dried the soup bowls and goblets. All the other servants wisely looked away. He was the only one who never could look anywhere else when it came to Elizabeth; no matter what mischief she waged, she fascinated him.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” Elizabeth eyed the pudding as if it was a mountain to be climbed, a treasure to be plundered, a dessert to soon be enjoyed.
He wanted, just once, for her to look at him like that.
“This is the last course to be served,” Drystan said. “If it’s not on the table in the next five minutes, we’re certain to have your father seeing what’s what.”
Having circled the dessert, she crossed her arms. Her indecision was unusual. By now, she would have already taken that first bite for him to set right again.
He stared at the perfectly intact pudding, then at the woman Elizabeth had become. Her golden hair was artfully powdered, her gown an exquisite silvery blue. She was as lovely as ever, but there was a troubling strain around her eyes that concerned him.
“What are you thinking?” he said.
“Nothing untoward,” she tsked. “Truly, Drystan, you’d think you hadn’t been through this before.”
He’d never been through her hesitancy, but her absconding with dessert had happened every year since that first time when he fell in love with her. When she stuck her chubby hands in that pudding, Elizabeth had screamed with delight, but the adults hadn’t.
Chaos had ensued in that glittering room. Her hands and wrists had turned a little red, the adults in the room fussing, and Elizabeth had taken a giant handful of almost scalding pudding and plopped the whole lot of it in her mouth.
Her mother cried out again, and it must have been hot because Elizabeth opened her mouth wide, but she didn’t lose one drop of that dessert as her eyes widened with joy.
The delight on her face was intoxicating, and he didn’t know what caused him to do what he did next. Perhaps it was the dismay of the housekeeper, his father’s low groan at the meal ruined, or maybe it was the franticness of the finely dressed guests, or the worry of her mother, who took her hands and blew on them.
Maybe, perhaps, it was because, for the first time, Elizabeth Galoncryf was looking directly at him. So shocked at being noticed, something warm and inexplicable burgeoned in his chest.
He simply lost his head and his heart in that one moment. So, he winked. He winked though he had never done it before. And with hands tarred with pudding and mouth absolutely full, Elizabeth clapped and crooned with delight.
Many years since then, and he wouldn’t change any of the other stolen moments with her either. As the son of a steward, and now the steward himself, those stolen moments were all he’d ever have with her. Still, it was more than he could hope for, and he wouldn’t change it for all the fine houses in all the land.
Drystan would change the look in her eyes, however. Elizabeth’s wariness was weighing on him. Something was wrong. The kitchen and staff were still ignoring them, so he leaned a bit closer. “What is it?”
A hitch to her breath, her eyes fluttering to his. He could drown in them, but right now, all he wanted to know was what was in that look she gave him. It was as if she wanted to say something, and everything in him wanted her to say it.
No, it wasn’t words she was telling him, not when her eyes went to his, down to his lips, then back up. They stood so close he could see the freckles under the powder, and if he dared to breathe a bit deeper, he’d smell the vanilla she put to her wrists at the beginning of the dinner.
She swallowed. “It should be nothing.”
Drystan looked to the doorway which led to the outside. It was still empty, but it was only a short walk under the eaves to the dining hall from here, and it wouldn’t stay empty for long. Elizabeth couldn’t stay in this part of the kitchens forever. “What do you mean by should be?”
“I made certain there was more wine to be poured,” she said.
He balked. “Did I not order sufficient quantities at the ready?”
“You ordered more than last year, but I wanted a wee bit more than that,” she said. “In case anyone wanted to make speeches or declarations.”
