Page 89 of Valour

“As long as there are no other secrets between us.”

Hester blinked, her lips parting. But she couldn’t tell Fliss about Septimus. Couldn’t tell her how she couldn’t stop thinking of him stroking her hair.

“No other secrets,” she said, crossing her toes in her boots.

Just in case.

29

IN WHICH CONDITIONS ARE FAVOURABLE AND FLAMES ATTRACT MOTHS

22nd December 1915, Ocean Camp, Weddell Sea

“The conditions are finally favourable!” Rufus said, licking his plate of beans, anchovies and jugged hare clean, huddled up in his sleeping bag in the tent. “That was delicious. Weird, but delicious. I actually feel full for once.”

As an early Christmas celebration, they had eaten the stores that wouldn’t fit on the sledges.

Winston lay back, a hand on his stomach and his eyes closed. “Finally. We can make a move for open water and get off this wretched ice.”

“Indeed. We’ll set out later on. Now—” But Hester did not get to finish her sentence. The tent flaps ripped open, and Septimus filled the space.

He pointed at her. “You took my spoon. Give it back now. I cannot eat my Christmas dinner.”

Hester let her jaw drop in mock surprise. “I did no such thing.”

Septimus’s eyes dropped to the spoon in her hand.

His spoon.

Well, if he was going to just leave it lying about, she could hardly help taking it.

He snarled and leapt towards her, and she held her plate high and shuffled backwards into Winston. She’d be damned if he spilt a drop of her bizarre concoction of foodstuffs. She passed the plate into her bosun’s waiting hands and threw Winston a glare that promised a painful death if he were to eat it.

Hester rolled as Septimus reached for her and then sped out of the tent with him at her heels. The ice sparkled in the noon sun, blinding her. She slipped on a rough patch of ice and skidded, her arms flailing. Septimus barrelled into her, and they both hit the ground.

Hester flipped from her back onto her hands and knees, but he grabbed hold of her by the ankle and dragged her back. She lay on her belly on the ice, the spoon clutched in her outstretched hand.

“Why?” he demanded. “Why do you delight in rankling me?”

“It’s fun,” she panted, kicking her leg in an attempt to get free. The cold crept into her belly. “Perhaps if you weren’t such a serious bore you’d think it was fun too.”

“You are vexing to the highest degree.” He dragged her closer and pinned her wrist down, plucking the spoon from her grip. And he did not let her go, but placed a palm in the centre of her back, pressing her into the ice, lowering his face next to hers.

Despite the cold, heat curled in her stomach. “It is you who is vexing, my lord.”

“Is that so? Then explain to me why your pulse races when I have you helpless,” he growled into her ear. Hester wriggled on the ice, trying to quell the desire that flooded her body. His breath on her ear and the scratch of his beard sent shivers down her spine.

“Merely because I was just running from you. Running increases the heart rate. Didn’t you learn anything in your fancy school?”

He pressed her more firmly to the floe. “I don’t think that’s the only reason. You know it, and I know it. Why can’t you just be honest with yourself?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The lie tasted sweet on her tongue.

“Why do you deny the truth?”

Hester gritted her teeth, her cheek pressing uncomfortably into the ice.

His sapphire eyes bored into hers, assessing her, reading her. “I think you’re afraid.”