I opened it.

Sheets and blankets.

Shit.

Back out I went and I got the second trunk in.

On top of some folded, soft, knit woolen gowns, I saw a note. I picked it up and read it.

Princess Sjofn,

We’re so sorry. Your mother supervised your packing. We had to pack only your trousseau. We couldn’t pack any of your breeches or the shirts and boots you like.

But all of this is lovely and we hope you enjoy it.

Write to us and tell us how you’re getting along.

We will miss you.

Alyssa, Esther, Jocelyn and Bess

Well, apparently, Sjofn of this world dressed like a boy.

Perhaps not a surprise.

I had to admit, even though I (mostly) avoided dressing like a boy (unless I was caving or the like) I could use some breeches or whatever at the present time but if a dress was all I had, a dress was what I would use. I sorted through them, finding the least fine but warmest looking one as well as a light wool cloak at the bottom of the trunk and changed (with some difficulty for it was buttoned down the back) out of my wedding gown.

Seeing my underwear at its fullest, I was right, it was awesome, the bustier was hot as all hell, my br**sts nearly spilling out of it. It was so damned sexy, as crazy as such a thought was, I couldn’t help but think my stupid new husband who didn’t wait around to get an eyeful of that was a moron. But I didn’t look long because it was f**king cold and I needed to get dressed.

So I got dressed then I got busy.

I started fires in the two grates in the living room. Luckily, there were dry logs stacked at the sides as well as kindling and they even had matches that were made of very long, slim pieces of wood that I had to drag across the stone of the hearths but they made starting a fire a snap.

Then out to the sleigh I went to drag in all the trunks. Then back out to stamp through the snow to the biggest outbuilding. Upon entry, I found it was what I thought it was, a six stall stable, cleaner than the house by far (my husband was clearly not only scary but also a dick, cleaning the stable but keeping the house in such a state) and there was a barrel full of fresh water, plenty of oats and hay. With effort, I threw open the huge sliding door, stamped back through the snow, got in the sleigh and led them inside the stable. I closed the door and went to work. It took for-freaking-ever to figure out how to unhook the horses and get their apparatus off them. But I damn well did it, led them to their stalls, fed and watered them. I hung the apparatus up on hooks outside each stall and then I stamped back to the house.

Once inside, I fed the fires more wood then took inventory.

The kitchen was rudimentary: big, old battered wooden table with two chairs, big used butcher block in the middle, big, black iron stove, wooden sink with (thank God) a pump that, upon testing, worked and pumped clear, clean water. Cupboards, as my dickhead husband said, were not bare but most of the shit at first glance I didn’t know what it was.

I decided I’d spend more time on that later.

There were also other supplies stuffed in the plethora of cabinets: dishes, cups, silverware, wooden spoons and a stack of wooden bowls and other accoutrements to use for cooking, cast iron pots and skillets, candlestick holders and gas lamps with a few lanterns thrown in.

Using the stack of wood in the kitchen, I built another fire in the stove then out the backdoor I went. There was an enclosed porch type area that ran the length of the house, one whole side lined with stacks of logs so high, they went up to my neck. There were a couple of cupboards too, one I opened was filled with tall candles of all widths. Another one was filled with plugged jugs of what a sniff test told me was some kind of fuel. Probably for the lamps.

Okay, good. I had heat and light and, by the looks of it, a lot of it.

I stamped out the backdoor to the two, remaining out buildings.

One, to my gloom, was an outhouse.

The other, far larger, was a shed that was also filled with split, prepared logs, a shitload of kindling and another cupboard filled with fuel. There was also a hatchet, an axe, several buckets and other bits and bobs.

Back to the house I went, I opened a door off the living room and entered a room that had a table with a ceramic basin on it, a pitcher under it, an oval mirror on the wall over it and a drum like thing in the middle of the space, this one made of some kind of metal. It was oval and I suspected it was a tub. There was also a small fireplace in there.

Well, bath time wasn’t going to be relaxing. But at least there was a bath.

Back out to the living room where I wandered the place, noting there were lots of rugs on the floor, not thick, but they covered the wood planks so the cold wouldn’t seep up. As I wandered, I carefully pulled off the sheets covering the furniture, bunching them quickly while doing it so I captured as much of the dust as possible.

Now we were talking. Finally, something decent.

A big, fluffy couch and two deep-seated fluffy chairs with ottomans, all turned to the biggest fireplace. A sturdy desk with chair behind it in a corner. Handsome tables here and there as well as some tall candleholders. It was all rustic, hunting-cabin chic but it looked well-made and definitely comfortable… if cleaned.

I then climbed the ladder and, moving around the loft stooped, which was the only way I could for the ceiling was so low, I saw it had three windows (two either side of the small, stone fireplace that had an iron grate at the front to catch sparks) and one at the side facing the back, all grimy, all with heavy, short curtains. It also had a fluffy, down mattress on the floor covered with a sheet I yanked off and I saw it also had four fluffy down pillows. Last, it had a heavy curtain that ran on a rail the length of the space in front of a short railing, likely to ward off the chill from the bigger space and keep in the heat from the fire.

Bent double, I stared at the bed. Then I thought of crawling into it. Then I wondered about the light, how long the days were here and how I would most assuredly not want to pass out, sleep the day away and be in this loft in this stinking house in the dark without having at least set up the candles and probably be, by that time, ravenous instead of what I was right then, starving.

Not to mention, I had two open fires burning downstairs.

I sucked in breath.

Then I muttered, “I’m never telling Claudia any of this.”

Then I went to the ladder and down to see if I could unearth any cleaning supplies.

* * * * *

There were, indeed, cleaning supplies in the back of a cupboard in the kitchen (if one could call them that, but there was soap, what I took as parallel universe dish towels and rags which weren’t much different from each other but the towels were slightly finer material and definitely cleaner and I found a broom and mop on the back porch).