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‘This.’ Decima took a few running steps, then slid elegantly across the ice slick, arms out for seemingly effortless balance. He froze, terrified that she would fall. She turned and slid back, laughing at his expression. ‘Can’t you skate?’
‘No, I’ve never tried. Stop it, you’ll fall and break something.’
Decima came to a controlled halt a few feet away. ‘I will not! I am an excellent skater, watch.’ And to his horror she took a gliding step and spun round, full circle. ‘See?’
‘Come off the ice. Now.’ Adam felt his voice catch in his throat. He did not know what it was: the sudden vision of her lying injured on the treacherous surface or the reality of her, her hair flying out behind her, her cheeks pink, her bosom rising and falling with her breathing.
Something must have shown in his face because she stopped and slid carefully towards him. ‘Very well, if you insist.’ Her voice was meek, but rebellion flared in her eyes and Adam realised he didn’t trust her an inch not to pirouette away at the last moment. As she came within reach he seized her arm and spun her off the ice onto the trodden snow. ‘I don’t believe you,’ he stated harshly.
Decima gasped as she was jerked against Adam, her arm held in a grip that left her in no doubt that it could close like a vice around her wrist if he so chose. ‘Let me go.’ There was heat in those grey-green eyes, a spark as though flint had struck iron. ‘Don’t be so dictatorial, Adam—you are as bad as Charlton.’
But that was not true; being reproved by her half-brother felt nothing like this. That provoked resentment and embarrassment, but not a flare of temper to match his, not a pounding of her heart as though she had been running. And she would not be racked with the shameful desire that he would drag her closer, fix those hard arms round her until she could not struggle and could only yield to him.
Adam’s anger—if that was what it was—flickered and was gone, replaced by rueful amusement. ‘To be compared to Charlton is an insult indeed. Just promise me you will not slide on the ice again. I don’t want to have to set your broken leg.’
‘I promise.’ She looked up at him, struck yet again by the novelty of a man she could look in the face without having to stoop. ‘I am a very good skater, though.’
‘I am sure you are, and if you had proper skates and a doctor within five miles I would not turn a hair. And don’t pout at me.’ He let her go abruptly and walked away towards a wide stretch of virgin snow.
‘I wasn’t,’ Decima protested, stamping after him through the crunching whiteness. ‘And if I was, why shouldn’t I?’
Adam turned, his eyes on her mouth. ‘Because it makes me want to nibble your lower lip, if you must know.’ He carried on walking.
‘Oh!’ Decima stared at his retreating back. Nibble? He did not sound very pleased at the prospect, more like someone warning a child that if they did not stop doing something naughty they would have to be spanked. There didn’t seem to be anything to say to that, or anything to do, other than to retreat inside, all injured dignity, or pretend she had not heard him. Nibble? Would that be pleasant? Was it even normal? Now what was he doing? Adam had stopped and, crouching, began to roll a snowball in the snow. It got bigger and bigger, leaving a clear track of muddy green where it had passed. At last, apparently satisfied, he stopped and began the whole process over again.
‘What are you doing?’ Decima approached cautiously.
‘Building a snowman. You do a smaller ball for his head.’
‘But I haven’t built a snowman since I was—’ She broke off, racking her brains. ‘Eight. I must have been eight.’
‘I don’t think I have, either.’ Adam lifted the snowman’s torso up with a grunt and settled it on the base. ‘But as we do not have any eight-year-olds to hand, and all this good snow is going to waste, it seems a pity not to take advantage.’
Decima looked from the half-built snow figure to Adam and then hastily back again. The sudden dark mood by the ice patch had vanished; he was quite obviously intending to play. His eyes sparkled, his grin was infectious—but there was nothing in the least childlike about the breadth of his shoulders or the length of leg where the muscles rippled as he bent and lifted.
Decima had always considered that she and Augusta had enjoyed themselves quite light-heartedly whenever the mood took them. Skating in the winter, picnics in the summer, riding and shopping and socialising with neighbours all the year round. But it had never occurred to her to do something so spontaneous, so undignified, so unladylike, as to play in the snow.
She bent and gathered up a handful of snow, shaped it into a ball and began to pu
sh it along, patting and shaping as it grew. When it seemed big enough she lifted it and set it in place, only to find Adam had vanished. The snowman appeared well built, but somewhat lacking in features. Decima went and picked up broken branches from under a tree and set them in as arms, then had another idea and ran to the coal shed, returning with enough small pieces for eyes, buttons and a row of black teeth.
She was just standing back to view the effect when Adam reappeared from the stables, his arms full.
‘There.’ He set a battered tricorne on the figure’s head, fashioned a scarf out of sacking and added one of the bruised carrots that were used in the horses’ feed for a nose.
They backed off to admire their work. Decima found she was taking the most ridiculous amount of pleasure from the crude figure and turned, laughing, to look at Adam. He was regarding it with an expression of smug satisfaction that struck her as so typically male that she gathered up a handful of snow and threw it, hitting him neatly in mid chest.
‘Why, you little…’
Decima took to her heels, but not before a snowball broke against her backside with a resounding thump. She whirled round, convinced that was no random shot, and saw from the wicked grin that he had struck her exactly where he had intended.
Grabbing snow, she retaliated with a throw that hit Adam in the top vee of his coat. ‘This is cheating,’ he said, frantically shaking snow out before it melted. ‘Girls are not supposed to be able to throw, let alone hit anything.’
Laughing, Decima began shaping another missile, only to back away hastily as Adam scooped up a double handful of loose snow and began to run towards her. ‘No! You wouldn’t! You beast…’
Breathless and gasping with laughter, she found herself backed up against the stables wall with no escape. ‘No, Adam, you wouldn’t…please…’
With a teasing grin he lifted his hands, then opened them, letting the snow shower harmlessly down between their bodies. Suddenly they were very close indeed, their breath mingling as steam on the cold air.
