Read By Winter's Light: A Cynster Novel (Cynster Special Book 2) for Free Online

coxcomb as to refuse their help.
    He was waiting at the head of the first flight of stairs when Claire reappeared. A cherry-red pelisse was buttoned to her throat, and a warm knitted scarf much like his dangled about her neck. Looking down, she pulled on a pair of fine leather gloves as she walked briskly to join him.
    Halting beside him, she glanced at the door of the room the girls were occupying. “Still no sign?”
    As if the words had conjured them, the door opened, and the four girls spilled out in a rainbow of colors. Louisa’s coat was a stylish dark green, Therese’s a rich brown, Annabelle’s a pale blue, and Juliet’s a soft mauve-pink.
    Claire held up a hand as the four filled the corridor. “Inspection first.”
    Annabelle and Therese mock-groaned, but all four lined up happily enough and allowed Claire to check their boots and gloves.
    Daniel appreciated the necessity; frostbite wasn’t something either of them wished to risk, much less have their charges risk.
    “Very well.” From the end of the line, Claire waved the girls forward. “If you would lead the way, Mr. Crosbie?”
    Lips curving wryly, Daniel turned and did, going down the stairs and on toward the side door. That Claire wished to keep her distance from him hadn’t escaped him, but he assumed that had more to do with their audience than any rejection…or, at least, he hoped it did. As he hauled open the heavy side door, the notion that she might not be as interested in him—in pursuing a future with him—as he was with her surfaced in his mind; he considered it for only an instant before pushing it aside.
    The connection—the right sort of sensibility, the awareness and consciousness of the other, the inescapable reality of being attuned to the other—was there between them; he knew that.
    And having been married before, she must have recognized that, too.
    Stepping outside, he descended the single step onto the roughly graveled path. As promised, the manor’s staff had left a sled for them to ferry the boughs back to the house. It hadn’t been there when he and Claire had stood on the stoop earlier, yet now it sat ready and waiting, a sturdy and strong workman’s sled with a canvas sling strung between the handles.
    The girls poured through the door and joined him on the path. While they exclaimed at the day, at the snow and the crunchy hoar frost, and at how their breaths fogged in the air, Daniel took stock of the implements nestling in the canvas sling. A collection of handsaws, light enough for the girls to use, plus three pairs of strong shears and a lightweight hatchet, presumably for trimming the ends of larger branches.
    He looked up as Claire arrived on the path alongside him. She subjected the sled to a serious, evaluating survey, then raised her gaze to his face. “Will you be able to manage that on your own?”
    He arched his brows in faint hauteur. Positioning himself behind the handles, he gripped them, kicked off the brake and pushed; the sled ran easily on its runners, even over the path. Slowing it, he gave Claire an openly cocky look. “Lead on, Macduff, and I’ll follow.”
    Her lips twitched; she tried to straighten them, but failed. She inclined her head, attempting to hide her grin. “Very well.” Looking ahead, she called, “Girls!” She waved them from the snow-covered mounds of the raised beds in the herb garden. “Off to the wood. We only have an hour, two at the most, and we need to get enough greenery to decorate the whole hall.”
    The girls ran ahead, Annabelle in the lead with Juliet beside her, and Louisa and Therese close behind.
    Pushing the sled in their wake, keeping to a steady pace with Claire walking just ahead of the sled’s front board, Daniel realized his pride had led him to make a tactical error. The pushing bar between the handles of the sled was wide enough to accommodate two people pushing together; he should have claimed he needed her help.
    His gaze on her back, on her