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Audrey sat back happily in her chair at the kitchen table and sipped her tea. Saturday morning elevenses, and peace and quiet reigned. Siegfried was opposite her, half hidden behind his newspaper. James was scratching away at a dutiful letter to his parents. Tristan – Tristan was absent. That explained the peace and quiet.
“Where’s Tristan?” she asked.
There was a shake of the newspaper, and Siegfried’s hand emerged to snag another shortbread from the plate.
“He went out,” James said absently.
“Well, I hope he’s having fun.” Audrey loved the boy dearly, but life was noisier when he was around. She picked up her book, took a shortbread for herself, and sighed contentedly.
Tristan’s return to the house was heralded by a distant jingling.
Siegfried’s paper smashed to the table. “No!” he declared. “Absolutely not!”
“Not… what? What’s wrong?” James looked at him and then turned his worried face to Audrey.
She grinned. “You’ll see.”
“James!” Tristan burst through the back door and into the kitchen, jingling merrily. “Siegfried!”
James gaped at him, and Audrey couldn’t blame him. The first time she’d seen Tris all dressed up like this, she’d nearly cried from laughing.
He wore a white shirt and breeches, with bright red socks up to his knees. Matching stripes of red cloth – the baldric, she remembered – crossed over his white shirt, front and back. The jingling was because of the tiny bells around his wrists and just below his knees. He also carried a large stick, and a bag.
Siegfried stood up from the table abruptly. “No!”
Tristan ignored him and threw the bag at him. “There you go, one set for you and one for James.”
“I’m sorry,” James said, “what’s going on?”
Siegfried flung the bag at him and James fished in it to draw out several sets of bells and some red socks.
“Get dressed, Jim lad!” Tristan said, “we’ve got a performance to do.”
Audrey took pity on the poor boy. “It’s morris dancing,” she explained.
“We’re down two men, and we’ve got to put up a decent showing. You know how the fellows over at Stoughton get when they have more men than us.”
“Morris… dancing?”
“You know, waving sticks and hankies.” Tristan pranced a few noisy steps around the kitchen. “You do know, don’t you?” He frowned at James’s confused face. “Well, you’ve got a lot of learning to do before this afternoon then. We’re meeting at the pub in Stoughton. It’s their festival. We always put up a side, they try to beat us, we beat them. It’s a thing.”
“It is,” Audrey confirmed. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted stealthy movement. “Don’t you sneak away, Mr Farnon. The honour of the village depends on you!”
Siegfried looked at her sheepishly. “You remember last year, don’t you?”
“It only took a few days for your knuckles to recover,” she said bracingly.
“You moved your hand!” Tristan said. “If you’d just-”
Audrey had heard it before. This argument had been replayed for weeks, while Siegfried exaggerated the injury that Tristan’s stick had caused to his hand.
“Enough!” she said. “Mr Farnon, James, you’d better get some practice in.”
Siegfried sighed. “Does it have to be with the outfit on?”
After an intense negotiation, Siegfried and James adorned themselves with bells. The rest of the outfit would be left for the afternoon. They congregated in the garden for a very thorough lesson.
“And TURN and hit and HIT,” Tristan shouted, as he tried to teach them the steps. Finally, he declared that it had all come back to Siegfried, and he let him go while he continued to work on James.
Audrey moved over in the doorway, where she had been leaning to watch the fun, to allow Siegfried to join her. He looked tired, and wiped his hand wearily over his forehead.
“I’m not as fit as I used to be,” he said.
She grinned at him. “Maybe you should go along to the practice every week, keep in shape.”
“Mrs Hall! What a suggestion!”
They gazed out into the garden. Siegfried had moved very slightly and now his shoulder was brushing against Audrey’s, every tiny bit of contact sending sparks through her.
“I don’t know what Tristan sees in it,” he sighed.
“Spending his summer dancing and drinking his way around pubs, that’s what he sees in it.” Audrey meant to sound reproachful, but she couldn’t. She loved Tris like her own son, and she loved to see him happy. And if that meant spending an afternoon a year hitting Siegfried with a stick, well, never mind. “You know this one means a lot to them all. They wouldn’t be asking you and James to make up numbers if they weren’t desperate.”
“Thank you!” Siegfried said with a glare. “If it comes to that, I don’t know why I always say yes.”
“Because you love him,” she pointed out. Then she laughed. “Let’s leave them to it. Come and help me get lunch on.”
The pub in Stoughton had a very large garden. It was the perfect venue for the yearly festival-not-competition-but-actually-definitely-a-competition between the Morris Men of Darrowby and Stoughton.
Audrey chose a table in the dappled shade of a large tree. Siegfried was buying drinks and Tristan was talking James through a dance, again.
“You’re a bright lad, Jim,” Tristan said encouragingly. “It’s only Morris. You’ll be fine.”
Siegfried arrived carrying a tray laden with three and a half pints. He was resplendent in white shirt and trousers, red socks and baldric. Audrey let her eyes wander over him. He really could carry off any sort of outfit.
James’s pint was half gone before Siegfried sat down.
“Steady there,” Tristan said, and Audrey smothered a smile.
Siegfried squeezed onto the bench beside Audrey, and once again they were close enough that they were brushing shoulders. Audrey smiled at him, and told herself off sternly for the fluttering in her heart. Here they were, enjoying a rare afternoon out and she wasn’t going to spoil her afternoon by making something more of it.
Soon, the drinks were gone and the dancers were called to the centre of the garden, where there was a large space clear of tables.
“Good luck,” she said as her three stood up. James looked green, Tristan as jaunty as ever. Siegfried’s hand dropped to hers and squeezed briefly. “Thank you,” he murmured.
Audrey clapped hard as the Darrowby side took their positions. Tris had positioned James opposite himself so he could prod him in the right direction. Siegfried was next to him. He glanced over at her as they raised their sticks and his smile warmed her heart.
The fiddles started, there was a clash of sticks, a jingle of bells and they were off.
Audrey’s knowledge of morris dancing had been gleaned almost entirely from Tristan. Though she’d seen it often enough as a child, it wasn’t until Tristan had turned up, her first summer in Darrowby, fully decked out, that she’d learned about all the traditions.
She enjoyed watching, but one year, maybe Darrowby would allow women in the side. Then she could be opposite Siegfried, clashing her stick against his…
The men danced on.
She spotted James making a few missteps, but nothing too awful. Tristan kept him in the right direction most of the time. Even though Siegfried had loudly protested his dislike of the entire thing throughout lunch and the journey to Stoughton, there was a smile on his face as he danced. Audrey tried to watch the patterns but her eyes kept coming back to him. He’d rolled his shirt sleeves up – a concession to the heat – and his arms were strong and tanned from the hours on farms. He really was a handsome man.
The lines turned, and Siegfried smiled at her as he moved into a new position. Their eyes held for a moment. Siegfried’s movements faltered… James’s stick came down with a crash on his knuckles.
Audrey winced.
“Every year,” Siegfried grumbled. The dancing was over. Tristan had gone to get more drinks, James was stumbling over apologies, and Audrey sat with Siegfried’s hand in hers, inspecting the damaged knuckles.
“It’s not that bad,” Audrey said bracingly. His hand was soft in hers and she so badly wanted to stroke them, to let their fingers twist together. She kept her eyes on his hands to avoid meeting his eyes, in case he read her thoughts on her face. She dabbed the knuckles with a damp hanky. “You’ll be fine in no time. Maybe let the boys take the harder cases this week.”
“Are you implying I’m not up to the job?” Siegfried asked.
Audrey looked up, startled, to find a grin on his face.
“Well you are getting on a bit now,” she said, “you’ll need some time to recover from your exertions, let your injuries heal.”
“And what treatment would you prescribe, dear nurse of mine?”
“Bathe your knuckles to keep the swelling down, and… bed rest, for the exertion.” She flushed over the word bed, and his hand was still in hers, and his eyes were on her face, gentle and searing and searching all at the same time.
His fingers tightened around hers.
“Drinks!”
Tristan’s voice made them jump apart, and he shot Audrey a curious look as he put his tray down.
“Thanks,” James said, and Audrey flushed again. She’d forgotten he was there, had forgotten everything apart from Siegfried’s hand in hers…
The remainder of the afternoon passed pleasantly with the usual banter from the boys. It really was lovely to be out of the house, enjoying themselves for occasion. And sometimes Audrey glanced at Siegfried to find him already looking at her, and her heart jumped.
They were late back to Darrowby. The boys immediately left to the Drovers, Audrey went to put together a cold dinner and Siegfried disappeared to divest himself of his morris outfit.
Audrey was just cutting up a cold ham, when Siegfried called out, “Mrs Hall!”
He appeared in the kitchen a moment later, still decked in all his morris finery. He looked rather dishevelled. “It’s this damn… baldric,” he said, struggling to grasp the crossover at the back. “I think Tristan has pinned it to my shirt. I can’t undo it.”
Audrey dropped her knife and wiped her hands. “Turn around then,” she gestured. He turned obediently. Slowly, she stepped closer, put her hands carefully to his back. He was right – Tris had made a thorough job of pinning it all together. “Hold still,” she murmured. She traced along the fabric, trying to see where it was attached. He was warm and solid to touch. She could feel his back through his thin shirt and she wanted to rip it off him and feel his skin directly. She swallowed. Finally, she found the pins holding it all together. Carefully, she unpinned it. She’d had to get so close to him to sort it all out and now her breath was almost stirring those little curls at the nape of his neck and he was so, so still.
“All done,” she said, and her voice was husky. She didn’t want to move her hands, but she managed it, letting them trail slowly down his back before dropping them.
Slowly, he turned to face her. He didn’t step backwards and neither did she, and they were so close, face to face.
“Thank you,” he murmured. Still, he didn’t move. “Audrey,” he said quietly. His hand cupped her chin and her heart beat so fast she thought she might die from it.
She leant into his touch and her hands moved without conscious thought to rest on his shoulders.
“Audrey, I ...” words seemed to fail him as his eyes burned into hers. She could barely breathe as his thumb stroked her cheek.
“Siegfried,” she whispered.
They closed the last inches between them simultaneously. His lips were gentle over hers and he clasped her firmly to him as he kissed her.
It was everything she’d dreamed of and more, and she wanted it to go on forever. The way he held her so firmly yet carefully, the way their mouths seemed made for each other, the glorious taste of him and the way his beard felt against her skin…
She didn’t know how long they had been kissing when the sound of jingling bells drew them reluctantly apart. He didn’t let her go far though, as his hands stayed around her waist.
“If morris dancing brings me moments like this, maybe I should go more regularly,” he joked.
She smiled at him. “If you want my help undressing, Siegfried, you only have to ask.”
“In that case my dear, may I request your help this evening?”
They grinned at each other. Audrey’s heart was full, and when Tris and James jingled into the kitchen, demanding dinner, and Siegfried’s hand stayed possessively around her waist, and the boys smiled like they’d been expecting it, she thought she’d never been happier.