life had I imagined such things.
He loosened his grip. I tried to jump gracefully from the swing. Instead, I fell into the snow face-first. Sputtering, I shook the snow from my head and face. Fiona bounded toward me, laughing. She launched herself into my arms and we both fell backward in the snow. We giggled as we tried to untangle from each other and the snow. Lord Barnes set his pipe on the abandoned swing and dropped down next to us. With one hand he lifted Fiona to her feet. He offered both his hands and helped me upright.
Josephine and Fiona were now lying on the snow and fluttering their arms and legs, making angels.
He kept hold of my hands and looked into my eyes. “Do you know how to make a snow angel?”
“I know exactly how to make a snow angel,” I said, sassy.
His gaze shifted downward and seemed to fix on my mouth. “Shall we have a competition?” he asked, low and husky.
“What’s the prize?” I asked, matching his tone.
He blinked three times, clearly surprised at my flirtatiousness. “You’re a lady. Which means you get to decide. If it were up to me, I’d ask for a kiss.”
“A kiss?” I whispered. “In front of the children?”
“I’d wait until later if you wanted me to.” His eyes glittered under the sunshine as he leaned close to my ear. “I’d wait a lifetime if I knew at the end, I could have a taste of your mouth.”
I stared at him, mesmerized by his proximity and boldness, and whispered into his ear. “Lord Barnes, I thought you were a gentleman.”
“You make me lose my head. I’m powerless when I’m near you and unapologetic for my adoration.”
This, after two weeks? Oh well, I thought to myself. If he refused to be unapologetic, why couldn’t I?
Without another word, I shuffled through the snow next to the girls. Lord Barnes followed me into the snow and like the children, we moved the snow with our arms and legs into a pattern of an angel.
“I’m making another one,” Fiona said, shouting as she flung herself backward into the snow next to me.
I turned my head to look at Lord Barnes and caught him watching me, his eyes startling green in all that white. “I guess you do know how, Miss Cooper. But mine’s still better.”
I laughed. “Let’s ask Josephine to judge.”
Lord Barnes got to his feet first and lent a hand to me, pulling me up, then brushing the snow from my jacket and cap.
“Which is better, Josephine?” he asked.
She looked from his to mine. “Well, Papa’s wins for size but Miss Quinn’s is more even. See there, Papa, one of your angel’s wings is bigger than the other.”
“Jojo, look,” Fiona said. “Do you see the bird?”
A winter sparrow hopped from one bare branch of an aspen to the next. The girls headed that direction, temporarily distracted from their father and me.
He drew close. “I’m devastated to lose. I had my heart set on that prize.”
I blushed, laughing. “I’ll have to think about what I want, then.”
He gave me a wolfish grin. “Don’t think too long or I might forget all about it.”
“You could forget me so easily?” I asked, teasing.
“A thousand years could pass and you’d still be on my mind, Miss Cooper.”
“You’re much too charming for your own good,” I said.
“Let’s go, Papa. Chase me, Papa,” Fiona shouted as she ran toward us.
“Saved by the baby,” he yelled back to me as he set out after Fiona. “Or I might have gotten a prize after all.”