by Erica Ridley
“I don’t want it,” he assured her. “I was ordered to come here by both of our fathers, remember?”
They were on the same side.
How was a woman supposed to fight against that?
“Olive!” A group of her friends spilled out of the castle door.
The le Ducs talked over themselves to fill her in on everything that had happened since she’d last seen them four short days ago, and to beg her to join them on the activities they had planned for the next week.
“I wish I could,” she laughed, careful to cover her mouth with her hand. “Papa needs me at home. I’ll have two new horses to train. It will be chaos.”
“Don’t believe her,” Sébastien said to Elijah. “The last time I raced against one of her ‘untrained’ horses, I could barely see the track through all of the dust she left behind.”
“I promise to avoid races,” Elijah murmured.
As the group continued on their way down the street, Mr. Thompson, the castle solicitor, waved from just inside the archway. “Miss Harper! Have you a moment to discuss the hacks?”
Olive slid a glance toward Elijah. She’d rather not deal with business in front of him.
“I can call in this afternoon around four,” she offered.
“Splendid.” The solicitor beamed at her. “Happy Christmas!”
Olive started to give him her usual close-lipped smile, then remembered she’d smiled at Elijah and the world hadn’t ceased turning.
She hadn’t been brave enough to smile at a big group of friends all at once, but Mr. Thompson was one person. Just like racing horses: the only way to win was to try.
“Happy Christmas.” She gave a tentative, full-toothed smile.
“And to you, too, sir,” Mr. Thompson said to Elijah, without seeming to notice Olive’s teeth at all.
With that, he disappeared into the castle.
“Er,” said Elijah. “Should we follow him?”
Olive’s smile widened. The castle hadn’t crumbled down about her. Perhaps she had grown into her features.
Or perhaps, to the right people, they didn’t matter.
“We’re not going in,” she informed Elijah. “We’re going around. Follow me.”
This was an even bolder risk than smiling at the solicitor. She was leading Elijah not to the ice-skating pond or the crowded amphitheatre, but to the enormous glasshouse at the rear of the castle.
“A conservatory?” He stopped inside the doorway, his expression as delighted as a child on Christmas morning. “This is spectacular!”
Of course it was.
Olive hadn’t feared Elijah wouldn’t like it.
She’d been certain he would. And by showing it to him, she was giving her lifelong enemy a reason to spend more time in Cressmouth.
A decision she would live to regret if their fledgling friendship ended in disaster.
“Are those strelitzia reginae?” He dashed over to inspect a plant shaped like a tropical bird.
Olive had meant to introduce Elijah to the glasshouse and leave him there, but his exuberance was contagious. She let him drag her from pretty pink plant to funny orange plant, showing off a hydra-something here, and a horte-something there.
If she’d been impressed by his grasp of equine musculature, she was bowled over by the depth of his knowledge about... apparently every leaf and stem in the entire conservatory.
He intercepted a passing footman. “Why are the polypodiopsida nearest the windows, and the cactaceae furthest from the sun?”
“I’m a footman,” said the footman. “I just shower them with water once a day.”
“Water a cactus once a...” Elijah gave a very good impression of sudden heart failure. “Who is in charge of the conservatory?”
“No one is in charge of it,” the footman explained. “Half is where fruits and vegetables are grown for the kitchens, and the other half is where there are pretty things for guests to clip and carry away.”
“Clip and carry away an orchid,” Elijah said. “Or nightshade. Excellent planning.”
The footman edged away to his next station.
Olive turned to Elijah. “You hate our glasshouse.”
“I adore your glasshouse,” he corrected. “It is as wild and unbroken as one of your stallions. It needs me.”
She couldn’t suppress a giggle. “If you like botany so much, why not dedicate yourself to horticulture instead of your father’s horses?”
His smile dimmed. “Because according to the marquess, ‘idle hobbies’ are worthless. I have no legal trust. My inheritance is dependent on my father’s good will. I would do whatever it took for an opportunity to further my research, but the one thing I cannot risk is my father’s ire.”
Olive had seen how the marquess treated a stranger. She could only imagine how much more stringent the marquess’s standards must be for his heir.
Elijah turned in a slow circle and frowned. “Where is the physic garden?”
“Er,” said Olive. “The what?”
“The medicinal garden,” he explained. “The healing plants and herbs. Is it in a different area?”
“I can ask Mr. Thompson,” she said doubtfully, “but as far as I know, this is the castle garden, at least in wintertime. Any special plants would be in here.”
“Maybe there are,” he murmured. “Right between the overwatered cacti and the creeping thistle.”
“Clip some if you like,” she said sweetly. “A trinket to take home and remember me by. Mind the thorns.”
He narrowed his eyes, then stalked past her to edge between two rows of green plants. She stifled a choked laugh when she saw what he was doing.
“You carry shears in your waistcoat pocket?”
He knelt over a plant. “Doesn’t everybody?”
“Horses are not the danger,” she scolded him. “You are the danger.”
He rose to his feet and presented her with a delicate golden-brown flower whose soft petals boasted beautiful amber and gold streaks. “Alstroemeria.”
“It sounds like a sneeze,” she mumbled, but accepted the flower. Her skin felt flushed. She lifted the petals to her nose and breathed in deeply. It didn’t smell like anything.
“Alstroemeria have no scent,” Elijah explained.
She frowned. “Then why...”
“For their beauty. They come in many colors, but these are my favorites because they remind me of your eyes. The petals are almost as beautiful.”
“Oh,” she said faintly. It was now her favorite flower, too. “Maybe you should take it home to remember me by.”
“I planted some years ago.” His gaze was hot on hers. “For that very reason.”
“Oh,” she said again. It was the only word she still remembered.
Laughter spilled from an open doorway at the opposite side of the glasshouse.
She expected him to jump away. To avoid being caught close together, in the act of giving and receiving a flower.
He didn’t move except to lift a finger to stroke one of the soft petals.
“I’ve searched through every garden in London,” he said. “Nothing compares to your eyes.”
Oh.
The distant noise faded as the tourists left the glasshouse in search of better pleasures, leaving Olive and Elijah alone.
“All right,” she said. “I surrender. You have my permission.”
He didn’t move. “To what?”
“Kiss me,” she whispered, before panic and self-preservation could talk her out of this mad idea. If he rejected her now, or worse, laughed at her—
His mouth covered hers before she could finish the thought. His lips were soft, sweet, tempting.
He kissed each corner of her mouth, the peaks and valley of her cupid’s bow, every portion of her plump lower lip. As if he was learning her with his mouth, memorizing each contour as he kissed. Searching to uncover her secrets.
The truth was, she had yearned for this. For him. She had long wanted to put paid to the ques
tion of whether that brief private interlude behind the stable could have been nearly as superb as she remembered it.
Yes. A thousand times, yes.
This was even better. Surrounded by lush greenery and the scent of hothouse flowers—save the scent-less one clutched in her hand, whose beauty reminded him of her eyes.
This was no obligatory peck. He seemed to honestly enjoy her company. To have eagerly awaited permission to kiss her.
Or was it all part of the plan?
She pulled away, wary. “I suppose our fathers would be pleased to find us kissing.”
Elijah’s eyes were unreadable. “Would they?”
“You don’t have to woo me,” she reminded him. “Romance won’t sway my decision.”
“I wanted to kiss you,” he said simply. “I’ve never stopped wanting to.”
Oh.
She tried for control. “Anyone could have walked in and seen us.”
The corner of his lips curved. “So?”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” She crossed her arms. “Compromise me and end up married that way.”
He lifted his brows. “I might like that more than you’d think.”
Damnable man. He was impossible to argue with.
And he was right—who cared if someone saw her? The answer would always be no.
“Very well, you can kiss me again if you like.” She straightened her spine. “But I warn you, it means nothing.”
He sighed. “Yes, I know.”
There. Was she happy now?
“May I give you a real kiss?” he asked.
“Yes.” She dropped her hands back to her sides. “You’re saying that wasn’t—”
“You’ll see.”
This kiss started out the same. Tender and sweet. But then he cupped her cheeks and coaxed with his lips until she parted hers in surprise. Defenses down, he took his chance. When his tongue touched hers, she froze. Electrified. Terrified.
He was in her mouth now. Exploring her. Observing her. Learning all of the things she’d spent a lifetime trying to hide. Discovering her from angles even she had never seen.
She felt stripped bare. As though her layers of winter apparel had fallen away, leaving her naked beneath his hands.
He did not seem repulsed by her. The opposite. He gripped her tighter, kissed her harder, made a tiny little growl deep within his throat, as though it was she who was releasing feelings he’d long vowed to keep fenced inside.
His reaction made her feel powerful. Vulnerable. As though they had skated out together to the dangerous part of the ice. It might hold; let them out alive. Or the ground might crack beneath them and swallow them whole.
A real kiss, he had called it. That wasn’t the only thing that had turned out to be real. Her heart was stampeding out of her chest because he’d burrowed his way inside.
Their kiss meant nothing, she’d told him.
That was the problem.
Chapter 8
The Fifth Day
As had become his morning ritual, Eli passed through the kitchen to stuff his pockets with pieces of carrot before making the journey to the horses.
When he stepped outside, a gust of cold wind nearly lifted his hat from his head.
Knowing Olive would be out with the horses, Eli had spent extra time choosing his attire and folding his cravat. Fat lot of good that had done. His apparel was hidden between an enormous greatcoat, and his cravat—well. At least the wind hadn’t whipped it into his face.
Olive came into sight, greeting her beasts.
For once, Eli was not filled with dread at the thought of approaching the wooden fence. Olive was on the other side. The memory of her face in his hands, her lush mouth beneath his, warmed him far more thoroughly than gloves and mufflers ever could. He could wake up feeling happy every morning if he knew it was another opportunity to spend a day with her.
His boots crunched on the snow as he approached. A snowstorm had struck the area a fortnight before Eli’s arrival. Although the snow was no longer falling, a thin white blanket still clung to the ground. This morning, green spikes of phleum pratense had begun to poke through in patches.
The horses lifted their nostrils and tilted their ears toward him well before he reached the fence.
Olive turned to see what had caught their attention. At the sight of Eli, a smile blossomed on her face.
A wide, soppy grin formed on his own face in answer.
She strode forward to meet him at the fence.
Duke and Rudolph beat her to it.
A startled laugh burst from her throat. “What in the world?”
“They don’t care about me,” he assured her, stopping well out of reach to toss his morning offering of carrot pieces as far from himself and Olive as he could.
Immediately disinterested in Eli, both horses hurried away from the fence to retrieve their treats from the snow-dusted grass.
Olive leaned her elbows atop the log fence. “Was that bribery? It looked like bribery. I don’t know how I feel about my lifelong rival currying the affection of—”
He covered her mouth with a kiss.
Their woolen mufflers and winter coats separated them as much as the wooden post holding the log fence in place, but the soft warmth of her lips beneath his transcended the real world.
There was no horse farm, no winter wind, no paternal machinations. There was just Eli, and Olive, and a kiss that could pollinate the entire world with the magnitude of his love.
“This means nothing,” she reminded him when they came up for air.
He nodded. “What means nothing? It was so inconsequential, I already forgot—”
She kissed him again before he could finish the thought.
This time was even better. The obstruction of leather gloves, a wooden barricade, and ten layers of clothing didn’t matter. Olive had kissed him.
He was not stealing kisses. She was giving them eagerly. If it weren’t for this cursed fence between them, Eli would—
She broke away from him, panting. “I can’t kiss you all day. I have work to do. Besides, if Papa glances out of the window and catches us, he will gloat unbearably.”
Oh, good Lord, her father. Eli had forgotten about everyone except Olive.
He stepped backward until she was safely out of reach. “Duke is eyeing me rather jealously as well. I can take a hint. Enjoy your horses as you meant to. I can entertain myself in the conservatory for days.”
“Perhaps limit it to hours,” she said. “Though I suspect you are exactly what the conservatory needs, you must eat. Shall I see you for dinner?”
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
There were only five days left in their arrangement. As enticing as the castle glasshouse was, there were plenty of plants in England, but only one Olive.
Eli went to his guest chamber to pack his leather satchel full of notebooks and pencils, then set out on the pavement leading up to Marlowe Castle. The Harper residence was one of the farthest from the castle, but a mile walk in brisk weather would do him good.
The conservatory had been the most perfect gift Olive could give him.
Very well, it wasn’t hers to give, nor was the glasshouse Eli’s to keep, but while he was stuck up here in the middle of nowhere, perhaps he wasn’t so far away from his research after all.
Ironically, it might even be easier. Eli’s usual physic garden was in London, but so was his father, who denounced botany and other related fields as irrelevant nonsense, unbefitting for the son of a lord. The marquess had long ago forbidden Eli from dabbling in “embarrassing scholarly pursuits,” resulting in Eli sneaking about like a footpad so his father wouldn’t catch him with a notebook in his hand.
The quantity of tourists increased as he approached the castle. One group fell into step beside him, smiling in recognition.
“Mr. Weston, is it?” It was the gentleman whom Olive had bested in a horse race. “Miss Harper’s friend?”
Friend was... not quite the r
ight word.
“Her guest,” Eli hedged. “Temporarily.”
“Well, guest, allow me to introduce my wife, my uncle, my brother, my sister, my brother-in-law, my sister-in-law, my niece and nephew—”
Only because Eli spent his life memorizing details was he able to keep up with the names, faces, and how all of the Skeffingtons and le Ducs were related. He surprised the lot by reciting their names and relative positions back to them, in the same order they’d been presented.
“Very good!” They exchanged impressed expressions. “We’re heading to the pond for ice-skating. Are you up for an adventure?”
“I appreciate the invitation, but I’m off to...” He was in Cressmouth, Eli reminded himself. He could say the words aloud. He was safe here. “...the conservatory.”
They nodded as if looking at plants was a perfectly reasonable Yuletide alternative to ice-skating. “We’re having dinner afterwards here at the castle, if you’d like to join us.”
“I would like to,” he said, and found that it was true. “But I’ve already promised the meal to Olive.”
“We’re trundling hoops tomorrow,” said the nephew. “Bring Miss Harper. I bet I could beat her at hoops.”
“I bet you can’t,” murmured his sister.
“I will convey the invitation and challenge,” Eli promised and watched, bemused, as the large family teased and laughed their way down a walking path that presumably led to a frozen pond.
Cressmouth was full of surprises.
Nothing could surpass London in sheer number of apothecaries and opportunities for study, but this picturesque village was easy to navigate in all of the ways London was difficult.
Making friends here was as simple as bumping into someone on the street. There were no recriminations, no impossible-to-meet expectations, just good cheer and sunny dispositions everywhere he—
“What the devil do you think you’re about?”
Eli’s blood ran to ice. He stood rooted at the entrance to the castle, unable to turn his legs about. There was no need to. Eli knew that voice as well as he knew the fury of the man it belonged to.
