The Baronet's Wedding Engagement

by Jessica Hart

  “Do you promise you won’t tell anyone? Even Hope doesn’t know.”

  “Cross my heart and hope to die. What should I be calling you?”

  “Moonflower Dreaming.”

  There was a silence. Looking up from her glass, Flora saw the edges of his mouth twitch very slightly. “I knew you’d laugh!”

  With a heroic effort, Max kept his face straight. I’m not laughing. It’s ... unusual.”

  “I can’t tell you how many times I wished I was called Mary or Michelle or something normal.”

  “How did you get to be Flora?”

  “Sky brought me to visit my grandparents here when I was eight. We’d been living in various communes up to then. They were always cold, always faintly grubby.” Flora gestured around the cosy room. “It’s not very big, but coming here was like stumbling into paradise. Sky was talking about following some guru to India, and Granny and Pops persuaded her to leave me with them so that I could go to school.

  “I suspect Sky was already finding that I was cramping her style,” she said. “My grandparents thought I’d be upset that she would go away and leave me, but I couldn’t believe how lucky I was. They said I could have my very own room, all to myself, and I got to choose the wallpaper and they bought me a Cinderella night light.”

  Her face was soft with memory. “Then they sat me down and suggested that they call me Flora instead of Moonflower Dreaming and I was so grateful that I’d have agreed to anything they said. I was glad, anyway, when I got to school. It was bad enough having a ‘weird’ mother without having a weird name as well. I’ve been Flora ever since.”

  “Am I really the only one who knows you’re actually called Moonflower Dreaming?” asked Max, and Flora nodded.

  “I didn’t even tell Rich,” she said, and when she glanced at him almost shyly, their gazes snared and tangled, and something more complicated shimmered into life in the air between them. Something that thickened Max’s blood and set his heart thudding painfully. Flora was sitting on the sofa in those ratty old clothes, looking lush and warm and impossibly inviting. He wanted to peel off that awful jumper and slide her beneath him onto the cushions, wanted to explore the shadowy hollow between her breasts, to skim his lips over every dip and curve of her, to taste her and feel her and hear her sigh with pleasure.

  He drained his wine and stood up before he had a chance to change his mind. “I’d better go,” he said.

  “Oh. Right.” Flora blinked a little at the abrupt change of mood, but she uncurled herself from the sofa.

  Max rescued Bella and Ted from the kitchen. They scuttled out of the front door rather than face the cat who hissed contemptuously after them.

  Flora hugged her arms together in the open doorway as Max turned on the doorstep.

  “Thanks for the wine.”

  “Thanks for coming.”

  He should say goodbye. He should step back and go. He should absolutely not touch her. But something about Flora’s smile made his breath snag in his throat, and Max did what he had been wanting to do all evening, all day, ever since he had kissed her in the kitchen in fact. Instead of stepping back, he stepped forward and cupped his hands around her face so that he could kiss her.

  It was like diving into warmth, into a rush and a swirl of pleasure. He felt her hands uncross to clutch at his waist as her mouth opened beneath his, and he pulled her closer, lost in the pounding surge of his blood until from somewhere he found the willpower to ease away and drop a last kiss on her parted lips.

  “Happy Christmas, Moonflower Dreaming,” he said.

  Chapter Eight

  It was the beginning of January, and the Christmas decorations around the village were looking tired and tatty. Outside Max’s study window, the sky was a bleak grey. Almost as bleak as the way he felt.

  He hadn’t seen Flora since Christmas night. He’d tried to call round at the cottage a few times, because it wasn’t the kind of thing you could discuss on the phone, but either she’d been out or he’d had the children, and somehow here they were in January and they still hadn’t talked about that kiss.

  About either kiss.

  But Flora was back in the kitchen today. He was squinting at bank statements in the hope of making the figures at the end somehow different, when he heard her let herself in at the back door, and in spite of himself, his heart had lifted, just knowing that she was near.

  Which was completely ridiculous, and he needed to deal with it as soon as possible. Max took off his glasses, pushed back his chair and strode through the great hall and down the passage to the kitchen.

  Flora was tying her apron round her waist, but she looked up with a bright smile when he came in. “Happy New Year!” she said.

  “Where have you been?” he barked at her, and she lifted her brows in faint surprise.

  “I went to stay with friends in London for New Year. I just got back last night.”

  “Oh.” Max was unreasonably deflated. Had he really thought she would sit around moping and waiting for him to call? “Good time?” he asked.

  “Fabulous. Although I wish I hadn’t remembered what a hangover feels like. We went to a fantastic party on New Year’s Eve – I’d forgotten how much I like dancing.”

  “I thought you couldn’t leave that cat of yours?” said Max grumpily.

  “I can leave him for a few days. I just can’t up sticks and sell the cottage. Ally’s mother fed him, in case you were worried about him.” She clicked on the coffee machine. “How about you? What did you do for New Year?”

  “I had the kids here. We took a picnic and walked over the downs to Avebury on New Year’s Day.”

  Which sounded a bit sad compared to a London party with dancing. Not that Max wouldn’t rather stick needles in his eyes than go to a party with dancing, but it just underscored the differences between them. Obviously Flora wouldn’t want to tramp over the downs with two children, even if Holly and Ben had enjoyed themselves after the initial obligatory moaning.

  “What did you have in your picnic?”

  Max stared at her in disbelief. Only Flora would be interested. “Cheese and pickle sandwiches,” he said and she shook her head.

  “That’s not a picnic. That’s a sandwich.”

  “I suppose you were eating caviar and filet mignon, whatever that is,” he said morosely.

  “Not exactly. But it was a chance to try some new restaurants and pick up new ideas.” She handed him the coffee she had made without asking. “I think I may have changed my mind about the wedding starter.”

  “Thanks.” Max took the cup and waited until she had her own. “I missed coffee like this when you were away,” he confessed.

  I missed you. That’s what he should have said. That was what he meant.

  Flora leant easily back against the counter. “You know, you could learn how to use the machine. It’s really not complicated.”

  He knew she was right. He could have used the machine instead of reverting to instant coffee, but the kitchen hadn’t felt comfortable without her, and he’d avoided it as much as possible. The manor that had once been his haven had been empty and cold, just an old stone building without any warmth at its heart. Holly and Ben had grumbled that it wasn’t the same without Flora and even the dogs had been moping.

  “So.” Max cleared his throat. “I really came down to apologize.”

  “Apologize?” Flora echoed in surprise. “What on earth for?”

  He put down his cup on the counter and set his jaw. “For kissing you on Christmas night.”

  “Oh, that.”

  All this time he had been fretting about the kiss, either wondering whether to apologize for it or pretend it had never happened, while simultaneously doing his level best to put it out of his mind completely, and all it had meant to Flora was ‘that’.

  “Honestly, Max, don’t give it another thought,” Flora said. “It was just one of those things. Both of us alone on Christmas night, a glass of wine ... it’s easy to get carried awa
y. But I know it didn’t mean anything, so you really don’t need to explain, and certainly not to apologize.”

  It might not have meant anything to her, but he had spent the whole week obsessing about it, thought Max, aggrieved. He knew he ought to be grateful she wasn’t making a big deal out of it, but he wasn’t feeling grateful. He was feeling a fool.

  “I wouldn’t want it to cause any awkwardness,” he said stiffly.

  “It isn’t awkward. At least not for me.”

  “Right. Good.”

  “The thing is, I think we both know it’s not a good idea to get involved in any way,” Flora went on. “Especially as we’re having to spend so much time together between now and the wedding. I can’t afford to give up using this lovely kitchen, for a start, and if we got together and then it didn’t work out, well, then it would be awkward. And it’s not as if we’d ever have a serious relationship.”

  “No,” said Max.

  “Going back to London for New Year was good for me. It reminded me of where I really want to be.”

  Great. He was so pleased for her. Max scowled down into his coffee.

  “Which isn’t to say it wasn’t a nice kiss,” Flora added kindly.

  Nice. Was that all it had been for her?

  “But we both know that we could never have a future together. We’ve got nothing in common. I’ll be going back to London as soon as I can, and you’re committed to Combe St Philip. Even if it wasn’t for how you feel about the manor, your children are here.”

  All of which was exactly what Max had said to himself countless times since Christmas night. He had been going to make all those arguments himself to make her see that it wouldn’t be a good idea to take things any further. So he should have been delighted that Flora had saved him the trouble.

  Funny, he didn’t feel delighted.

  “You’re right,” he said. “It would be a very bad idea.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I’m just glad you’re not upset. I didn’t want you to feel that I’d ... taken advantage of you.”

  “I’m a big girl, Kennard. If I hadn’t wanted you to kiss me, I could have said no. But it was just a kiss. We don’t need to make a big deal out of it.”

  “Good,” said Max. “Well, I’d be glad to forget it if you will.”

  “Already forgotten,” she assured him with a brilliant smile.

  The moment Max had left, the smile dropped from Flora’s face and she slumped against the counter, exhausted by the effort of pretending to be upbeat and unaffected.

  Lust and confusion had kept her awake all of Christmas night after that devastating kiss. It had been so ... so perfect. Like two interlocking pieces of a puzzle fitting together, clicking into place with an ‘aha!’ of realization about how things were supposed to go.

  It would be so easy to fall in love with Max. Flora felt as if she were teetering at the brim of a dizzyingly deep chasm. Because it might be easy to fall in love, but she could already see how hard it would be to get herself out. And nothing had really changed. He was still bound up with Stella, bound up with his children and his dogs and the manor and everything that was nothing to do with her, while she had her own plans. They might be on hold while Sweetie was still alive, but the day would come when she would be free to pursue her dream of having a restaurant. There would be no point in tangling that up with a man who was always going to be emotionally unavailable.

  However warm his hands. However good it felt to lean in to him. However heart-shaking his kiss.

  It had been a good idea to go to London, and she had had a good time. She had hardly thought about Max at all. No more than two or three (okay, twenty or thirty) times a day.

  She had danced all night long on New Year’s Eve and when midnight struck she wouldn’t let herself imagine being alone with him at the manor, curled up on a sofa in front of the fire, crawling over him to kiss her way along his jaw and down his throat, letting his hands roam over her, feeling him smiling that rare and heart-stopping smile against her skin.

  Or not much.

  She had kissed friends and hugged random strangers instead and drunk too much cheap wine and the next morning she had felt vile.

  She could have been walking along the ancient trackways with Max and his children. The sky was always bigger up there. When the wind was blowing on the ridgeway it was like flying above the lovely sweeps of the open downland, looking down over the immaculately tilled fields and copses, and the villages tucked into the valley. They could have sat on the old, old stones and had a proper picnic, not just a measly cheese and pickle sandwich. It would have been fun.

  Flora sighed.

  It would be a very bad idea: wasn’t that what Max had said? He had been grim-faced and obviously terrified that she would get all emotional and make too much out of that kiss. At least she’d been able to keep smiling and act as if she didn’t care, when every cell in her body had been screaming at her to throw herself into his arms and beg him to kiss her again. Thank God she had been able to hold on to some shreds of pride.

  The next six months would be about Hope and giving her the wedding of her dreams. Pretending to be Max’s girlfriend was part of that, but it would be a big mistake to muddle up the pretence and reality. The day after Hope’s wedding, the pretending would be over and she would have no real reason to see Max again. At that point she would need to be thinking about her own future – and that wasn’t going to be in Combe St Philip or with Max.

  After a week of rain, the sunlight struggling weakly through the clouds on Saturday made Flora restless. The cottage felt cramped after the manor, and Sweetie’s incessant yowling had set her teeth on edge. Pulling on her boots, and shrugging into her coat, she set off with no clear idea of where she was going other than getting out.

  Perhaps if she walked fast enough, she could leave behind the memories of Max kissing her.

  Of kissing him.

  Enough! She wasn’t supposed to be thinking about Max at all. They had agreed what a very bad idea it would be to get involved, and it was. Flora shoved her hands in her coat pockets and strode down the lane and into the street that curved down to the Three Bells and the centre of the village, but she had only reached the green when she heard her name being called.

  “Flora! Flora!”

  Puzzled, she stopped and looked around. A muddy Range Rover had pulled over on the verge near the church, and she could see Holly waving from the back seat. Ben was in the front passenger seat, his window wound down so that Max could lean across him to call her.

  Her entrails promptly tied themselves into a hard knot, and her heart did a weird kind of somersault but from somewhere she found a smile as she went over.

  “Hello,” she greeted the children, flashing the smile to include Max and show that she wasn’t the slightest bit awkward about seeing him. Absolutely not. “What have you been doing?”

  “We’ve been up to West Woods,” Ben told her. “It was really muddy.”

  Flora peered over the back seat to where the dogs panted happily. They were both filthy. “So I see.”

  “It’s a bit of luck seeing you,” said Max, putting on the handbrake and switching off the engine. “I had a phone call from Hope while we were out.” He nodded at the mobile phone on the dashboard.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “As far as I can tell. It turns out some Count – Fredrik something – is coming over from San Michele next week. He’s head of security at the palace there. Presumably he’s coming to check out the security situation here and liaise with the local police. Hope might want to keep it a simple wedding, but once magazines like Celebrity get a whiff of it, it’ll be chaos down here.”

  “That’s true,” said Flora. “At least the Three Bells should get some good business out of the wedding with all those paparazzi propping up the bar.”

  “I assumed that this Fredrik would be staying there, but Hope’s asked if we can put him up at Hasebury Hall.”

  Flora turned up
her collar against a sharp wind that swirled out of nowhere. “We?”

  “We’re a couple, remember?”

  “You said you’d be Dad’s girlfriend,” Holly piped up from the back seat.

  Flora felt the colour warming her cheeks and hoped they would put it down to the cold. “Only in San Michele and for the wedding.”

  “The thing is, this Count Fredrik is part of the court, and presumably if he’s head of security, it won’t take him long to suss out the situation,” said Max across Ben. “If we’re pretending to be a couple for the Crown Princess, we might as well see it through.”

  “Also Dad’s panicking about what to give him for dinner,” Holly explained, smiling innocently when Max turned and scowled at her.

  “Ah, now I see where I come in!” Flora nodded sagely. “How long is the Count staying?”

  “I’m not sure. Two or three nights? I can’t give him spaghetti bolognaise every evening.”

  Well, what could she say? “I expect I could manage to cook him a decent meal. When is he coming?”

  “Tuesday evening. Thanks, Flora,” said Max gratefully.

  “I don’t mind. It’ll be fun to meet a real-life Count. We can ask him about San Michele and how to address all those royals.”

  And maybe with a third person there, the air wouldn’t be jangling with memories of the feel of Max’s mouth and the touch of Max’s hands and the taste of Max’s lips.

  “I really am grateful to you for doing this,” said Max the following Monday morning. Flora was sitting at the kitchen table, drawing up a menu for the Count’s visit.

  “It’s fine,” she said. “It’ll give me a chance to trial a few menu options for the wedding.” She put down her pen and sat back in the chair. “I hadn’t really thought about what’s involved until now. I’ve just been focusing on the food, but that’ll be the easy part. Every wedding has food. But this is a royal wedding, and it’s going to be a logistical nightmare, isn’t it? Where are all those royals going to stay, for a start? They can’t all be checking in to the Three Bells. They’re not staying here, are they?”