A Rogue in Winter by Grace Burrowes

Author:Grace Burrowes [Burrowes, Grace]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781952443589
Publisher: Grace Burrowes

Chapter Five

Pietr slept badly.

He’d taken his frustrated desire in hand, so to speak, before rejoining Joy and Hiram in the study. She had read to them from the offerings of the Lake poets, her voice a soothing rivulet of verse. Spring lambs, daffodils, clouds… symbols of new life and hope, though Pietr heard them as proof of that inevitability she’d mentioned.

New life was all well and good for spring lambs, but what was wrong with the old life for Rothton’s vicar? Precisely nothing, and yet, Pietr was taking up his Bible and his kitten—neither one much comfort of late—and leaving the village for a lot of glorified clerking. But then, what was glorious about judging pie contests or listening to Mrs. Peabody’s endless fretting?

Kissing Joy Danforth was glorious.

“You have morning callers.” The lady herself had stuck her head into the study. “They would not come into the house.”

The vicarage was redolent of cinnamon, for Joy was of a mind to try one of Mrs. Baker’s recipes. The result was warmth throughout the vicarage such as Pietr did not usually enjoy in his housekeeper’s absence. Hiram dozed away the morning in his bedroom, while Pietr had tried to work on a sermon.

The weather had eased up, though low clouds hung in a sullen overcast, and more than a foot of new snow had fallen.

“Guests?” Pietr did not want to contend with guests, or not guests come to spy.

“They said they are reporting for duty.”

“Ah, not guests, then. My angels.” He rose, happy to leave the wisdom of the prophets for the wisdom of the snow shovel. “The village boys and girls with more high spirits than their parents can endure. We have a system, the parents and I.”

“There are a good dozen of them,” Joy said. “They appear to be in very high spirits. I hope your system involves building snow forts on the green or something equally industrious.”

She wore a full-length apron, and her hair was gathered up in a chignon. A streak of flour crossed one cheek, and her cuffs had been turned back. Pietr could easily imagine that the kitchen where she’d spent half the morning conjuring sweets was hers, and that he was hers too. He could not for the life of him keep this week’s scriptural passage in his head.

Something about the blind receiving sight and the lame walking. Not a word for a randy vicar smitten with a woman who played chess almost as well as she kissed.

“My system involves selfless acts of charity,” he said. “The greater good and children surviving until Christmas.”

He went to the front door, grabbed his coat, and stepped outside. “Children, good morning.”

A chorus of “good morning, Vicar” greeted him.

“We have much work to do. Thomas and Bartholomew, you will handle the church steps and walkways. Beatrice and Alexander, Mrs. Peabody’s walkway awaits you. Haley and Buford, you will tend to the Wiles’s household.” He went on handing out assignments, until only two stalwarts remained, the smallest of the lot.

“What about us, Vicar?” Mary Ellen Lumley asked.

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