Susanna Fraser by A Dream Defiant Page B

she could while seated, setting a board on her lap and cutting up the onions and a clove of garlic with a speed and deftness that must have taken her years to acquire.
    He wouldn’t let her come near the fire, much to her frustration. “I would’ve thought fire would make you nervous now.”
    She shook her head with an exasperated sigh. “If you’d almost drowned crossing a river, would you be afraid to walk in the rain or take a drink from a well?”
    “Still. Until you’re steady on two feet again, I don’t think you should come near enough to a fire that you might stumble into it.”
    She lowered her gaze with unusual meekness. “Yes, husband.”
    He chuckled, but shook his head. “Don’t take such a tone with me. It makes me feel odd. Besides, I can’t do any of this unless you tell me how.”
    She proceeded to do so, and by nightfall he managed to produce a roasted hare with crisp skin and tender flesh, along with a sauce of onions fried down till they were limp, brown and sweet-smelling, then mixed with wine and a little flour to make a thick sauce. The dried apples, meanwhile, gave savor to a pudding with cornmeal, milk, sugar and suet that the little boys loved and even the adults attacked with enthusiasm.
    “I’m a lucky man,” Elijah pronounced that night as they settled down for sleep.
    Rose glanced at him from under her eyelashes. “I wonder if you married me for my cooking. Sam said he did.”
    “Did he?”
    “He said it was one of his reasons.”
    “It’s one of mine, too. Who wouldn’t want the chance to eat at your fire every night?”
    She smiled, taking this as her due, and why shouldn’t she? It wasn’t as though she could suppose herself a bad cook.
    “But what I like best about your cooking,” he continued, “is how much you care about it. I like how much it matters to you.”
    “Really? I didn’t drive you mad tonight?” She grinned, then put on an exaggerated version of her anxious expression from earlier that evening. “ No , no , don’t add more wood now, you’ll only burn it. Wait , not a three-finger pinch of salt—your hands are bigger than mine. Make it two. ”
    “Not at all,” he assured her.
    She smiled, leaned across the space between their blankets and kissed him. It was a leisurely kiss, and he settled in, taking his time to enjoy it. She slid her hands up his arms to his shoulders and made a sort of pleased hum that reminded him of the sound he made when he ate her cooking.
    He broke the kiss but stayed close, his forehead pressed to hers. “Hm?” he asked.
    “I like your shoulders,” she said, squeezing them for emphasis. “You’re so strong and solid. ”
    He brushed his lips against hers and threaded his fingers into her hair, undoing the long braid she’d put it in for the night. “Well, I like your hair.” He spread it over her shoulders, then brought a lock of it up to his face, drew it across his skin and pressed his lips against it. “So soft and thick.”
    She ran light fingertips up his neck and along his jawline to his mouth. “Well, I like your smile, but you already know that.”
    He considered his next compliment. “I like your eyes. As gray as the rain.”
    Her eyebrows drew together in a slight frown. “As the rain? That’s a good thing?”
    “Of course it is. If it weren’t for rain, we’d dwell in a desert.”
    “Oh.” She smiled, leaned back a little, and looked him over from head to toe. “I like to watch you move,” she said. “Most big men I’ve known are clumsy with it, but you never are.”
    He shook his head. “You should’ve seen me at eleven or so. My feet were the first thing that grew, and I must’ve spent a year tripping over them.”
    She laughed a little. “Well, you’ve grown into them nicely.”
    “I like to watch you cook,” he confessed. “Because you’re so absorbed in it, but also because when you bend over the fire I get such a good look at this...” He palmed one of her lovely, full