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The warmth of the fire was so much more prevalent when sitting on the hearth, it quickly became one of my favourite places no matter where I ended up, drawn like a moth to the flame. A spark bit through the fireplace screen and pain cracked through my hand for a single moment, causing me to flinch, flicking away the smouldering ash and hoping that it wouldn’t leave a mark later.
Placing my book down on the edge of the stone hearth, I stood, stretching my back as reading hunched over to suck up the warmth was lovely but not conducive to a lengthy reading session.
Turning to the small pile of wood in the corner, I picked up the final log and moved to place it on the fire when something moving rapidly caught my attention.
Sitting up, Dorian trilled and began to walk over to something, but I shooed him away quickly as soon as I laid my eyes on it properly. A single ratty mitten sat on the ground, its pair sitting where the wood had been. Had they really been waiting for me to find them all these years?
I grabbed the moth-eaten mittens, bringing them up to my nose, hoping that some semblance of him would still be clinging to them. Nothing. Nothing but the must of the empty house that surrounded them for so long.
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Hyde park was even more beautiful than it usually was in the winter; to me, everything was, and seeing the breath leaving his lips while he looked around the world in awe left me staring for far longer than what could be considered a friendly gaze. I sharply brought my eyes away from him, my pinkie reaching out for his gloved hand, trying to get any sense of intimate connection.
Icicles had already formed on the bare limbs of the trees, making the Christmas lights the city had strung up at the beginning of December all the more magical. It could logically be chalked down to the way that the light bending through the frozen material, but even so I couldn’t help but find myself taken with the beauty of it all.
Robert turned to look at me with his usual soft smile on his face; we were able to spend time in our own constructed solitude. Nighttime, especially before the winter solstice, was a time when people would stay tucked away warm in their houses, not paying any mind to the world on the outside other than to complain about the chill leaking through the windows. We found it a time where we could actually walk together as most couples would do without a second thought.
Glancing down, a horrified look crossed his face as he grabbed my hands, pulling me to face him as he rubbed knuckles that had already begun to turn white from the frost eating away at them. “Your hands…” He took off a homemade mitten, still rubbing my hand in his. “They are freezing, you are lucky they aren’t yet frostbitten,” he chided, slipping his mitten onto my hand before removing his second one.
Abruptly, I put my hand on his, shaking my head. “What about you?” The last thing that I wanted was his hands freezing on my account. I had been the one to neglect bringing my own pair of gloves. Like a hat, it was one of those garments that I never really enjoyed wearing at the best of times.
Thinking for a moment, Robert took the other one back, slipping it onto his right hand before holding out his left for me to take. Searching around us for a soul to see our unholy act, I winced before taking his hand. I felt as though I were ashamed of our relationship, searching around to ensure that no one could see us in an intimate moment. If only they knew the true extent of what could happen to us should we have been found out for what we really were.
I got chilled not long after once again, even with an already warm mitten wrapped around one hand and the other resting snugly in his, thumb brushing over my knuckles every so often to remind me that he was right there.
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Tossing back and forth in bed, I rolled onto my side, staring out at the window. Small flakes of snow dancing down from the heavens above welcomed me alongside the chill that they brought in turn. I spotted the pair of mittens I had brought upstairs in hopes that I could find someone to repair them in the morning without getting too strange of a look.
Reaching out from under the covers, I grabbed them both, running my thumb over the soft wool surface before clutching them to my chest. I didn’t realize that I had started crying until I felt the dampness leaching from my pillow.