Chapter Text
Dwight was throwing a bean ball for Horace to fetch in the snow when he was hit on the side of his head with a snowball knocking his tricorn hat off his head. He whirled around to find his wife, in her teal hooded cloak, trying to hide her laughter. Feigning displeasure, he called out, “I’m going to get you back!”
Yesterday, they had been traveling to Tuffley Hall, outside of Gloucester, to celebrate Caroline’s twenty-second birthday with her good friend from school, Lady Withern, when their journey had been halted by a snowstorm in the afternoon. When it eventually became impossible for their coachman to see much, he had pulled into the Magnolia Inn in Newport just before dusk. When they had awaken the following morning, the storm had been near its end, but the roads had remained impassable in the carriage. To give Horace some exercise, Dwight had taken him out after dinner for a game of fetch in the field beside the inn. They had been out for about twenty minutes when his wife pelted him.
Quickly picking up his hat, Dwight replaced it upon his head. He then grabbed some snow to form a snowball and threw it at his wife. “Take that!”
Caroline stood open mouthed in surprise for a moment when the snowball hit the front of her cloak. She had not expected her husband to retaliate with a snowball of his own. Horace raced to his mistress, barking merrily. She then gathered some snow into a ball and threw another one at Dwight. “Dodge that!” She shouted in his general direction before running off to avoid retaliation.
This time the snowball hit him on his coat by his hip. “You’ll regret this, Mrs. Enys!” A mischievous look crossed his face before he picked up the bean ball from Horace and slipped it into his pocket. He then scooped up more snow, forming a ball, before he raced after her.
“Only if you catch me,” she giggled, running toward the stable at the back of the inn.
“You can count on that!” He threw the snowball at her retreating figure, just hitting the bottom of the back of her cloak.
When Caroline entered the stable with Horace hard on her heel, she picked him up quickly, carried him into one of the empty stalls and crouched down to hide. “Shhhh, Horace,” she whispered to quiet him down and then waited to listen to the sounds of her husband, her heart racing in the excitement.
Dwight entered the stables no more than ten seconds after Caroline with a gloved hand full of snow, but he could not discern where she was immediately. After his eyes adjusted to the darker environs, he moved quietly but purposefully into it, trying to determine where his wife could have hidden with the dog. A quick glance around and he could see that she must be hiding in one of the empty stalls, it was the only place large enough to hide them both. With five horses and twelve stalls, there were only seven to search.
“I know you’re in here,” said Dwight in a sing-song voice.
A horse snorted in one of the stalls. Caroline tried to make herself even smaller, willing her breathing into a much quieter pattern. Horace whined quietly, wanting to play more of the fetch game.
Dwight looked first at the set of stalls which contained three horses, none of which were theirs. Looking over the stall doors, he could see nothing but clean straw in the first one. The second one yielded clean straw and a straw fork; the third, an entirely clean stall. Turning around since the stalls faced one another, he considered and revised his strategy. He felt that it was likely that his wife was hidden in the stall next to a horse to hide any noises Horace made, or the one furthest from the horses to take him longer to find her.
The more Caroline thought of it, the less she liked her options, so she decided that if her husband did not go to her stall next, she would run back outside and so she prepared herself to bolt. Thinking in her head that if she put Horace down once they were outside that she could move faster, she loosened her grip on him.
In the end. Dwight decided to start looking at the furthest stall from their horses and proceeded in that direction.
Once Horace realized that he wasn’t being held as tightly as before, he raced out of Caroline’s arms and out of the stall. He wanted to resume the fetch game.
Dwight, surprised by Horace’s appearance, started to turn toward the stall from where the pug came.
Once she no longer had a hold on the pug, she had no choice but to run herself and sprang forth out of the stall. “Catch me if you can!” Whereas the dog ran toward her husband, she turned the opposite direction to race outdoors once more.
Dwight followed in pursuit without a second thought for Horace.
The dog followed his master and mistress out of the stables, barking and running.
While Caroline had a small head start, her husband’s longer strides caught up to her in short order. They both fell, laughing, in the snow, when she tried to elude his grip and became off balanced, bringing him down with her. “Got you!” Her husband held her by her waist.
When Dwight tried to rub her face with snow, she just managed to push his hand away, dropping some snow onto her neck causing her to squeal from the cold and wet. They rolled about the snow, laughing, giggling and squealing, for a good five minutes with Horace barking while he ran around them. Dwight was finally able to subdue his wife’s flailing limbs, when he looked at her and started to laugh, which lead Caroline to giggle. This was the most fun he had had for a very long time. To avoid getting more wet, he sat up and helped her to sit up in the snow.
When Caroline sat up, she looked at her normally serious husband in a new light. It had been a long time since they had this much frivolous fun and she did not remember playing in the snow like that since she was a little girl. When they paused for a moment, Caroline on impulse leaned in and kissed him.
Dwight was momentarily surprised, before he pulled her closer and deepened it. How he loved her. When they finally pulled apart, he whispered, “Perhaps we should continue this in the comfort of our room before we’re soaked through.”
Caroline looked into his eyes, smiled and nodded, not daring just yet to speak. Even Horace’s barking could not ruin this magical moment.
Standing up, Dwight held out a hand for his wife to take. When she placed her hand in his, he pulled her up and offered his elbow. Once steady, they started to walk back to the inn. Horace was still barking and jumping about wondering when he and the master were going to continue to play fetch. “Come, Horace. We’re heading inside now.”
Seeing that there was no more fetch to be played, Horace ran happily after them into the inn.