Hell, though.  Who knew if there would be any point in the two of them fighting over her, anyway?  Odds were, the only thing either of them would get out of it would be having their hearts stepped on yet again.  Liz would inform them, in regal sympathy and calm, that she was waiting for Paul Stoddard to come home, and that neither of them had a snowball’s chance in hell.

​

You’re drunk, Bill, he thought to himself.  And he thought back at himself, No kidding.

 

It’s the perfect night for it.

 

He and Ned stood side by side with their backs against the wall, beside the Christmas tree in the corner of the room. 

 

Bill asked Ned, “How’s Vera doing?”  He hoped he was asking that question because he actually cared about the answer.  Not just to remind his erstwhile rival that he had another woman to think of besides Liz.

 

“She’s doing all right, I guess.  They shouldn’t call it morning sickness.  Happens day and night.  And her favorite dresses don’t fit her right now.  So she decided she’d sit this one out.”

 

Bill thought, I’m sure her decision had nothing to do with her knowing you’d be drinking yourself into a stupor over Liz.

 

Ned Calder remarked, “You’re thinking the same thing I am.  Aren’t you?”

 

Hell, I hope not, thought Bill.  “Nope,” he said.  “I’m not thinking anything.”

 

“Sure you are.  You’re thinking about how she isn’t here.”

 

No need at all to ask which “she” Ned was talking about.  It was painfully obvious that he was not still discussing his wife.

 

The two of them stared morosely at the partying crowd.  Bill asked, “Did you think she would be?”

 

“Ayuh,” said Ned.  “You did, too.  Didn’t you.  Whether you admit it or not.”

 

“Maybe,” Bill said.  “How many times did you try to talk her into it?”

 

“Only three.  Three this week,” Ned answered.  He started counting off the various attempts on his fingertips.  That wasn’t easy when he was holding two glasses of punch.  “Once when I phoned her this afternoon, once when I gave her my weekly report, and once when I phoned her on Monday.  Of course there were all those other times before this week, but who’s counting?  What about you?  How many times did you try?”

 

“Just the once,” said Bill.  “Today.  The rest of the week, I spent trying to talk her into going to her kid’s Christmas pageant.”

 

“That’s right,” Ned remembered.  “Crap.  How’s Carolyn doing?”

 

“She’s unhappy,” Bill said.  “Like the rest of us.”

 

“Jeez, Bill.  Now I remember why I like talking with you.  Every pathetic man ought to have a friend who’s as pathetic as he is.”

 

“Speak for yourself, Ned.  I’m not pathetic.  I’m just drunk.”

 

“It comes to the same thing.  I guess I know why nobody else here is talking to us, anyway.  We must look as depressing as we sound.”

 

“Ayuh,” Bill agreed.  “I reckon we can leave being the life of the party to Roger.”

 

Ned finished up the second of his two glasses.  He stacked them together and reached over to balance them in a convenient hidey-hole amid the branches of the Christmas tree.  Bill eyed them in fascination, wondering how long it would be before they fell off. 

 

Ned Calder interrupted this speculation by gripping Bill’s shoulder and asking him, “The question is, are you drunk enough?”

 

Bill looked directly at Ned for the first time since they’d walked over to the tree.  There was a dangerous gleam in Ned’s eyes.  Bill was pretty sure the gleam was a bad sign.  Warily he asked the obvious question, “Drunk enough for what?”

 

“Drunk enough to go up that hill right now and give Elizabeth Collins Stoddard a piece of our minds.”

 

Bill swigged his punch.  “That’s a stupid idea.  She’s had plenty pieces of our minds already.  She doesn’t want any of our pieces.”

 

“She may not want them,” Ned said grimly, tugging on his blazer in the attempt to straighten it, “but tonight she’s going to have them anyway.”

 

“Ned, this is dumb.”  Bill wished that every now and then he could find himself in a situation where he didn’t have to be the voice of reason.  “We’ve given Liz our opinions and advice ’till we’re blue in the face.  Everybody she knows has been doing that, for three years.  If she doesn’t want to take anybody’s advice, we’re not going to change that by storming up there drunk and making idiots of ourselves.”

 

Ned was hearing none of Bill’s rational arguments.  Or if he heard them, he didn’t care.  “We can’t let her go on like this, Bill.  We can’t!  We can’t let her keep on walling herself up in that mausoleum of a house because that bastard committed his one decent act and walked out on her so she could make a new start on her life!”

 

Bill muttered, “I didn’t think that’s why Stoddard walked out on her.  I thought he walked out on her because he’s a scumbag.”

 

The Collins cannery Manager waved that argument away.  “Why ever he did it.  She ought to be happy he’s gone!  She should give thanks for his absence every day!  Instead of wandering around her haunted mansion like somebody in Edgar Allan Poe!” 

 

“You think so.  I think so.  If Liz doesn’t think so, there’s no goddam point in our saying it.  For Pete’s sake, Ned, calm down.  Have another drink.  No, don’t have a drink,” Bill added.  “Go home to your family, instead.”

 

“Not until I’ve made Liz see reason.  I’ve waited too long to do this, Bill.  I’m not waiting any longer.”

 

Bill knew this was the worst damn thing Ned could do.  But it was all too clear that Calder wouldn’t be talked out of it.  And suddenly it occurred to Bill that he might be making a big mistake himself if he let Ned go up there without him.

 

He absolutely didn’t think the encounter ahead would turn out well for Ned.  He thought the chances were vanishingly small that Ned’s planned confrontation with the boss would end up with Liz and Ned in bed together.  But if the chances of that happening were slim if Ned Calder went up there alone, Bill figured those chances would shrink to none at all if Bill Malloy was there, too. 

 

Liz would probably be mad at him for taking part in this.  The prospect of her anger was a lot less haunting to him than the prospect that an argument might rekindle Liz and Ned’s romance.  They might be finding each other again up there on the hill, while Bill was down here swigging punch at the company Christmas party.

 

“All right,” growled Bill.  “I’ll come along to try and stop you making too big a jackass of yourself.”

 

“Thanks, Bill,” Ned snorted with less-than-subtle sarcasm.  “I knew I could count on you.”

 

With Ned marching in the lead and Bill trailing gloweringly behind, they made their way toward the front door.  Roger Collins was clearly taking his duties as the party’s host seriously.  When Calder and Malloy stomped past him – Bill pausing to leave his empty glass on the table – Roger dragged himself out of an obviously engrossing conversation with pretty Peggy, the front office secretary.

 

“Ned, Bill,” Roger called out, “are you leaving us already?”

 

They stopped for the necessary goodnights with the boss’ little brother.  “Ayuh,” said Ned.  “Keep the party going without us.  I’m just giving Bill here a ride home.”

 

Yeah, thought Bill. He’s giving me a ride to your home, Roger, so we can make your sister hate us.  But he kept his mouth shut.

 

“Oh,” Roger answered.  “Had enough Christmas cheer for one day, Bill?  Can’t say that I blame you.  Carolyn was right.  That Santa Claus at Freese’s does have an embarrassingly false beard.  The production values of the school pageant were higher.”  Almost under his breath, he added, “Too bad Carolyn’s mother couldn’t be there to see that.”

 

“I couldn’t agree with you more,” Bill muttered.  “’Night, Roger; Peggy.  Don’t trust anything this character says,” he added to Peggy, jerking his thumb at the prince of Collins Enterprises.

 

The red-haired secretary grinned.  “Don’t worry,” she said.  “I don’t.”

 

When the frigid air hit them outside, Bill had a moment’s hope that the cold would shock some sense into Ned.  But it would clearly take more than a Maine December night to accomplish that miracle.  Ned’s Coupe de Ville was parked just a short piece down the street, so the walk to the car didn’t do anything to sober him up, either.

 

Bill already knew this whole thing was a terrible idea.  He didn’t know just how terrible it was until he noticed the speed Ned was driving at.  And their speed wasn’t even the worst of their problems.

 

“Ned!” Bill yelped.  “You’ve been running all the stop signs.  And you just ran the traffic light!”

 

“Keep your pants on.  There’s nobody else on the streets.  They’re all at the Collins Christmas party.”

 

“The cops don’t work for Collins Enterprises.”

 

“They’re not out tonight either.  They don’t need to be.  Everyone else is at the party.”

 

Bill thought it would actually be a blessing if one of the cops did pull them over.  It would save them from making frickin’ idiots of themselves and from putting Liz on the warpath.  But no reassuring lights and sirens came to their rescue.

 

The ride had been unnerving enough in town.  Just outside town it turned downright hair-raising.  And they weren’t even heading up the hill, yet.

 

“Jesus, Ned!” shouted Bill.  The Coupe performed several graceful swerves before settling back onto something like the straight and narrow.  “Pull over!  Now!  We’re getting out and we’re walking home!  I’m not letting you kill me tonight and I’m not letting you kill yourself either!”

 

“I’ll let you out if you want,” Ned said mulishly.  “I’m not going home till I’ve told Liz what I’ve got to tell her.”

 

“No, sir,” snarled Bill.  “You’re getting out, too.  I’m not facing Vera and telling her I saved my own hide but let you commit … vehicular suicide.”  The words were something of a challenge to his punch-numbed tongue, but he figured their meaning had to be clear enough.

 

“Sorry, Bill.  I’ve got to talk with Liz.”

 

“What you’ve got to do is remember you’ve got a wife and kids!  And a baby on the way!  They’re the ones you should be thinking of.  Not Liz.”

 

“I know what I’ve got,” Ned grated.  “And I know what I’ve got to do.”

 

The road started up the hill.  The road with its famous hairpin turns that required all a driver’s care and attention, even when the driver wasn’t on a drunken crusade.  And even when the road didn’t have a nice, greasy coating of snow.

 

Being inches from destruction didn’t seem to trouble Ned Calder.  The only thing that stopped Bill from grabbing the wheel was the certain knowledge that if he tried it, he and Ned would go plummeting to their doom.

 

“We’re going to die tonight, Ned,” he said, while his guts twisted in fear.  “We’re going to die, and they’ll give everyone a day off work in our honor, and they’ll carve on our gravestones, ‘They were drunk, they were stupid, and they were old enough to know better.’”

 

“Don’t worry, Bill,” Ned promised him, with the confidence born of multiple cups of punch.  “I’m not dying till I’ve said what I’ve got to say to her.”

 

“Okay, you aren’t dying,” Bill muttered.  “That doesn’t help me.”

 

Bill wasn’t normally one for praying much.  But it wasn’t a normal night.  He wondered whether the patron saints of sailors and fishermen protected their people on the land, or just on sea.  Thinking up a prayer to them might help stop him from screaming every time Ned drove perilously near the edge.  So he thought, Saints Elmo and Andrew, I’m heartily sorry for setting foot in a vehicle driven by this idiot.  If you get me through this night alive I’ll never do it again.  And, if you let me live through this, I’ll never touch a steering wheel after alcohol’s passed my lips, because I don’t want myself or anyone else to be scared this shitless again!

 

Whether through divine intervention or through sheer, dumb luck, they reached the top of the hill without losing their lives or totaling Ned’s car.  By the space of about an inch, Ned missed running into one of the pillars of Collinwood’s grand portico.

 

Ned barely had the chance to switch off the Coupe before Bill reached out and yanked Ned’s keys from the ignition.  “You’re not getting these back tonight,” he announced, shoving the keys into a pants pocket.  “And I’m not driving your car tonight, either.  A nice walk down the hill will do both of us good.  Maybe it’ll mean you’ll be halfway sober by the time you get back to your wife.”

 

“Bill, come on, now—” began the scowling Ned.

 

“Don’t Bill, come on, now me!  You risked both our lives to come up here and say something to Liz.  Now you get in there and say it to her.”

 

Ned cast Bill another glare.  Then he got out of the car – slamming the door behind him, of course – and strode over to the big, foreboding front door of Collinwood.  Once there, naturally, Ned pounded on it as loudly as if he hoped to summon the dead, not just the mistress of the house who probably hadn’t even retired to bed yet.

 

Even after three years, Bill thought it still seemed weird to see Liz open the door herself, instead of that duty being performed by Hanscomb or some other member of the staff.  The Collinwood staff whom Liz had fired, every last one of them, on the day after Paul Stoddard skipped town. 

 

Something else looked weird to Bill, too.  He’d expected Liz to be furious when she opened the door.  In that first instant, before she realized who was standing there, she had a look Bill seldom ever saw on her face.  He thought that Elizabeth Collins Stoddard looked afraid.

 

Well, why shouldn’t she be? Bill asked himself.  She’s a woman living out in the willie-wacks with just her kid, and one groundskeeper in another house on the estate, and somebody comes waling on her door in the middle of the night.  Why wouldn’t it throw her for a loop?

 

As soon as she recognized them, of course, she got an expression Bill was far more used to seeing from her: annoyance.  And he reckoned her annoyance was mildness itself compared to the emotions she’d be aiming at them soon.

 

“Ned.  Bill,” Liz sighed.  “What are you doing here?”

 

“Sorry to disturb you, Liz,” said Bill.  “May we come in?”

 

Already her frown was taking on a sharper edge.  She demanded of them, “Did you drive up here?”

 

“Ayuh,” Ned began.  “Liz, I’ve got to—”

 

“You’ve got to show something resembling good sense!” their employer interrupted him, in far more the tone of voice Bill had been expecting from her.  “I’m used to this kind of behavior from Roger.  Not from the two of you.  Two of the senior-most executives of Collins Enterprises” – that was stretching things, Bill thought, at least as far as his own job was concerned, but he didn’t mind the compliment – “and you put your lives at risk driving up here in the snow when you’re I-don’t-know-how-many sheets to the wind!  There is no point in trying to deny it, Ned; it smells like you finished off all of the liquor at the party between you.  You’re my cannery manager and my assistant fleet manager, not my little brothers.  I need you to be employees I can rely on, not lushes with no more sense of responsibility than Roger or Paul!”

 

In the face of her tirade, Ned was temporarily at a loss for words.  Maybe he was startled into silence by her casual, critical mention of her missing husband’s bad habits – far from the usual way that she had spoken of Paul Stoddard to them since the night he walked out of her life. 

 

Why ever Ned Calder was being silent, Bill Malloy took the opportunity to get another two cents in.  Rubbing his hands together and wishing that he’d worn his gloves, his hat and his coat, Bill said, “All right, boss.  You’ve boxed our ears for us.  Can we come inside now?”

 

She glared.  “I ought to do more than box your ears.  I ought to dock both your salaries until you show me you can be the responsible employees I believed you to be when I hired you.  All right,” Liz went on, after another irritated sigh, “you can come in.  Quietly!  Carolyn just fell asleep.  It will be a miracle if you didn’t wake her up while you were trying to pound the door down.”

 

Bill didn’t wait to be asked twice.  Ned, on the other hand, lingered outside the door, with an uncomfortable grimace.  He said, “I apologize for the noise.”

 

Liz Stoddard sighed and rolled her eyes.  “Come in, Ned.” He finally obeyed her, and shut the door but didn’t seem to shut out much of the cold.  Liz led their little parade across the foyer to the drawing room.  At the doorway she stepped aside to let her two employees walk in ahead of her.  Oh-so-quietly pulling the massive doors closed behind her, she stood with her back to the door.  She snapped icily at Ned and Bill, “And don’t think I’m going to offer either of you a drink.”

 

“Don’t worry about that,” sighed Ned, running one hand over his face and through his hair.  “That’s not what we came up here for.”

 

“And I am waiting for you to tell me what you did come up here for.”

 

Ned glanced grimly at Bill and said, “First thing to let you know is that coming up here tonight was my idea.  Bill did his best to talk me out of it.”

 

Bill nodded his thanks to Ned for that.  Ned turned to Liz again and went on.  “Bill may not agree with me about how or when to say this.  But I’m pretty damn sure he agrees that it’s got to be said.  I’m pretty damn sure everyone in the company agrees with me.  All your friends.  All your family.  Everyone who cares about Collins Enterprises or about you.”

 

“Please don’t leave me in suspense,” Liz mocked.  Her haughty raised eyebrows and no-nonsense crossed arms promised trouble ahead.  “What is this crucial point on which you’re unanimously agreed?”

 

The better part of valor would have been to retreat then and there.  But Ned Calder had no intention of retreating.  He declared, “This has got to stop.”

 

“This?” inquired Liz.  “And what ‘this’ would that be?”

 

In that moment, three years of questions and concern boiled over.  Ned definitely did not remember the sleeping little girl upstairs enough for him to keep his voice down.  “Hiding away from the world up here!  Acting like you’ve turned into … Miss Havisham!  Failing your employees, your daughter, yourself!  Failing everyone who loves you!”

 

“I told you to be quiet, Ned,” hissed Elizabeth Collins Stoddard.  “If you wake up my daughter you’ll be facing worse than a cut in salary.”

 

“I’m sorry, Liz,” Ned grated.  “But you owe Bill and me and all the rest of us some answers.”

 

“Do I?” she snapped.  “Perhaps you will answer me this: in what way, precisely, am I failing you?  For the past six years this company has shown record profits.  Employee salaries and pensions are among the highest in the state of Maine for businesses of this kind.  Collins Enterprises has provided, and continues to provide, steady, reliable employment for generations of local families.  The company is healthy and viable and the envy of our competitors.  If it can achieve all of this with Miss Havisham at the helm, I cannot see that you have any cause for worry!”

 

Good points, thought Bill.  But Ned had come up here with three years’ worth of things to say.  He wasn’t letting anything stop him from saying them.

 

“That’s because you aren’t down there with the rest of us.  You don’t see and hear what the rest of us see and hear.  Sure the company’s in good shape, on paper.  But that’s only half the story.  You always say what matters most about Collins Enterprises is its people.  Well, its people are scared, Liz.  They’re worried.  They’re confused.  They don’t know where they stand because they don’t know what’s going on with you.

 

“There’s so little you’d have to do to make things right with them.  Just come down off your hill once a month or so; it wouldn’t take much.  Come to the Christmas party, the annual picnic, employee funerals.  Meet with your senior executives every now and then at the office instead of up here.  For heaven’s sake, go to your daughter’s school pageant and Back-to-School night, so Bill here doesn’t have to do it!  Just a few little things, the things people expect of you.  Then no one will worry.  Then your employees, your town, won’t be afraid that … that there’s something wrong with you.”

 

Liz waited a moment to be certain Ned had finished his speech.  Then she aimed a challenging gaze at Bill.  In dangerous softness she said to him, “You’re being awfully quiet, Bill.  What about it?  Do you back Ned up on this?”

 

Mentally Bill sighed to himself.  Since Ned had gone clambering out on that limb, he figured he ought to see whether the limb would hold the both of them without breaking. 

 

“I guess I do, Liz.  I reckon I don’t need to say much.  Ned’s said all of it just about right.  Give or take Miss Havisham.  Everybody’s worried for you, Liz.  Everyone.  Maybe Collins Enterprises only employs half the town, but there wouldn’t be a town at all without the company.  And there wouldn’t be a company without you.  And everyone knows it.  Everybody’s scared and everybody’s beginning to wonder if just maybe the ship’s starting to sink.  And if you don’t either come down off this hill or else start seeing a shrink, then everything’s just going to keep on getting worse.”

 

And God Almighty, he thought, what did I just say?  I just told my boss (who is also the woman I love) that I think she needs to have her head examined!

 

Liz studied Bill and Ned with her look that made the Maine winter night outside seem like a tropical paradise. 

 

“I see,” she said.  “My cannery manager thinks something is wrong with me and my assistant fleet manager believes I should see a psychiatrist.  Is this the level of conversation that ‘everyone’ is indulging in regarding me?  If so, I don’t believe I have missed much by not descending from my hill to listen to it.”

 

“For crying out loud!” Bill exclaimed.  “It’s gol-danged obvious you need some kind of help!  If you didn’t, you would have washed that S.O.B. Stoddard out of your hair by now and you’d be getting on with your life!  For God’s sake, Liz!  Tell us what help you need.  We’ll do everything we can to make it happen.”

 

“He’s right,” Ned said firmly.  “Tell us what you need and we’ll do it.  We’ll do anything we have to, to help you.”

 

For the second time that night, Bill wasn’t sure what the expression was that he saw on Liz’s face.  Fear, maybe.  Maybe it was hope.  Then whatever that look had been, it was gone.  Her far more familiar expressions of coldness and self-control were firmly back in place.  “I don’t need you to do ‘anything,’” Liz frostily declared.  “I need you to do the jobs for which you were hired.  And I need you to let me do my job, instead of undermining my position with vicious gossip about the state of my sanity.”

 

Ned’s drunken courage had brought them up here.  But right at this moment, Bill was as fed-to-the-back-teeth with this whole wretched business as Ned could possibly be.  He growled, “That’s not what we’re doing and you know it.”

 

From the anger that sparked in her face now, Liz was about to say something to him that both of them would regret.  Ned Calder jumped in to draw her fire. 

 

“Bill told you that people are starting to wonder if the Collins ship is sinking.  That’s what both of us are afraid of.  That’s what we’re trying to stop.  Sure, like you said: the company’s healthy now.  It only takes one small weakness, for that to start to change.  You said our competitors envy us.  Sure they do.  From envy it’s just one small step for them to start trying to cut us down.  Or take us over. 

 

“You know we’re already that little bit more vulnerable than most of our competitors, just because we’ve got a woman at the helm.  With a woman CEO, our rivals automatically assume we’re slightly more fragile – slightly less stable – that tiny little bit more prone to the kind of uncertainty that brings a company down.  It’s crap.  It shouldn’t be that way.  But it is that way.  And you know that, Liz, and you’ve always known it. 

 

“Before this thing with Stoddard, you were able to keep the company above all of that.  Your strength was enough to wipe those questions out of everyone’s minds.  But now … well, now our people are questioning.  They’ve got doubts.  They’re wondering about you.  And if they’re wondering, you can bet the competition is, too.

 

“It’s that little whiff of blood in the water, and the sharks are circling.  They’re all going to start nosing around us to see if maybe we’re ripe for a takeover.  Maybe some of them’ll start trying to talk Roger into selling his shares.  Maybe they’ll start trying to lure away our workers.  Logansport, Bucksport, Stinson Seafood … they’re going to start sniffing out our weaknesses, and then we’ll have a real fight on our hands.  Unless you show them the weakness just isn’t there.  Unless you show our people and everyone else that there’s no reason to wonder or be afraid.”  

 

Jeez-oh-pete, Bill thought.  Either Ned’s sobered up pretty darn quick, or the booze really does give him the gift of gab sometimes.  Bill just about felt like applauding. 

 

From the look on Liz’s face, Ned’s speech didn’t affect her so favorably.  But at least she hadn’t fired either of them, yet.

 

For what felt like a helluva long Goddam time, Liz stared at the two of them.  When, at last, she said something, her tone was a lot less cold and scathing than Bill figured it would be. 

 

“You’re right about one thing,” she told them.  “I need to discuss this further with both of you.  But not here.  Not with Carolyn upstairs.  If she has managed to sleep through your visit thus far, I don’t want to risk waking her with a conversation that may lead to further raised voices.  On my part as well as yours.”

 

Ned and Bill glanced at each other in wary surprise.  Then they watched as Liz walked over to the telephone on the sideboard.  Reaching for the receiver, she paused to ask them, “Do either of you have a coat with you?”

 

“Uh, mine’s in the car,” Ned answered.

 

“’Fraid not,” said Bill.  “I left mine at the office.”  Because, he added silently, I didn’t expect to get hijacked out of the Christmas party to go ride shotgun on Ned’s attempt to Say Everything That Needs to be Said.

 

She nodded and dialed the number.  They soon learned who she was telephoning: Matthew Morgan, Bill and Ned’s fellow member of the Elizabeth Collins Stoddard Fan Club.

 

“Matthew?” Liz said.  “I’m sorry to bother you so late.  Could you come up to the house, please, so someone will be here in case Carolyn wakes up?  Mr. Calder and Mr. Malloy are here.  I’ll be going out for a walk with them.  And would you bring an extra coat with you, that Mr. Malloy could borrow?  Thank you, Matthew.  I’ll see you soon.”

 

Bill took out his watch to check it.  Ten thirty had just passed.  A 10:30 walk in the snow with the cannery manager and assistant fleet manager – on an almost moonless night, no less – was a bit on the eccentric side.  But Bill didn’t figure that would matter to Matthew.  From what he had seen of their fellow employee since the day Liz hired him as groundskeeper three years ago, Matthew Morgan took pride in obeying Liz’s every order without question or complaint.  No matter how off-the-wall some of Liz’s orders might seem.

 

Not, Bill thought, that Ned and I are any less obedient to her.  We just question and complain first.  And then we obey her anyway.

 

Liz opened a drawer of the sideboard and took out three flashlights.  “You’ll need these,” she said, distributing one to each of her walking-companions.  Then she told them, “You can wait here while I put on my boots.”

 

Neither of them bothered to obey that particular order.  With another quizzical look at each other and a couple of shrugs, they trailed after Liz into the foyer.  She was standing just inside the front door, putting on snow boots.  For the first time that evening, Bill spared more than a passing thought for the fact that Liz had changed her clothes from the dress she’d been wearing when he brought Carolyn home from the pageant.  The CEO of Collins Enterprises was now wearing jeans and a red turtleneck sweater, both of which fit her snugly in all the right places.  She had pulled her hair back in a bun that would give the appearance of a spinster schoolmarm to just about anyone else, but not to Elizabeth Collins Stoddard.  From her outfit, Bill figured she had either been doing housecleaning – not an easy task at Collinwood these days, since Liz had fired all of the staff – or else their upcoming stroll wasn’t her first hike of the day.

 

Matthew Morgan entered the great house in a swirl of wind-blown snow.  He smiled warmly, if shyly, in response to Liz’s words of greeting and thanks. 

 

“It’s no problem at all, Miz Stoddard.  Miss Carolyn won’t be any trouble if she wakes up.  She never is.  She always knows exactly what fairytale she wants me to read to her.  And she fixes my pronunciation for me if I say anything wrong.  Evening, Bill; Mr. Calder;” he added.  “Here’s that coat for you, Bill.” 

 

“Thanks.”  Being Matthew’s overcoat, it hung loosely enough on Bill that he reckoned it made him look like a scarecrow.  But he thought he would rather look like a scarecrow than go slogging through the snow without a coat.

 

Liz had her own coat on now.  She led the way out the door.  As she did so, she cast a glance downward at her companions’ footwear.  “I’m afraid the snow won’t do your shoes any good,” she remarked, without any noticeable sympathy.  “I’m sure you are paid well enough that you can afford new shoes.”

 

She’s enjoying this, Bill thought, while he and Liz waited for Ned to collect his coat from the car.  He guessed it was fair enough for Liz to enjoy their predicament. 

 

A snowy hike, and getting snow in their shoes, were milder punishments than they could have expected for their drunken drive up the hill – and for the things they’d dared to say tonight to the queen of Collinwood.

 

And damn, Bill thought, am I ever getting snow in my shoes.  His socks were already soaked as soon as they walked a few steps beyond the driveway.

 

It wasn’t snowing.  But it might just as well have been, for the way the wind blew the snow around.  Liz headed their procession like King Wenceslas, with Ned and Bill trooping along in her footprints.