by Rose Gordon
“Is it that important that we find it right now?” Alex asked impatiently.
“Yes, it's of the utmost importance. It will take no longer than a few moments.”
“All right. If you’ll excuse us, ladies. We shall return momentarily,” Alex said irritably as he stood.
They were just a few paces away from the breakfast room when Alex could wait no longer. “What could be so important to keep those two waiting in the same room. Have you lost your mind?”
“I’m not in search of anything, I just needed to speak to you a minute before we go. Would you distract Lady Olivia?” When Alex just stared blankly at him, he added, “Please.”
Alex continued to stare at Andrew. Then he cocked his head to the side and said, “All right, I’ll do it.”
Andrew was pleased and started to stroll off. That’s when the other shoe dropped. “I’ll escort her on the tour, and I’ll even try to manage to get her away from you and Brooke for a while. But you cannot ask me to do this ever again. Also, in exactly one hour I will cease my good friend duties by dumping Lady Olivia off on you, wherever we happen to be, and come back in here to read my newest issue of Popular Plants without being interrupted by you for the remainder of the day. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Andrew confirmed and gave a quick nod of his head.
Together, they walked back into the breakfast room. “This is going to be a pleasant endeavor,” Andrew muttered sarcastically.
Alex sent him a peevish look.
They strolled over to where the ladies were sitting. “If the two of you are ready, we are ready to escort you about,” Andrew said cheerfully.
“Absolutely,” Brooke said stiffly. She stood and moved toward Andrew as quickly as she could. When she reached his side before Lady Olivia, she clutched his arm and shot her a winning smile. Round one: Brooke.
“I would like to escort you, Lady Olivia,” Alex said gently. “If that’s agreeable with you, of course.”
Lady Olivia's face contorted in a way that would have suggested she'd just bitten a lemon.“I would like that very much, Mr. Banks,” she said waspishly.
As soon as Lady Olivia took Alex’s proffered arm, Alex reached into his coat pocket. Taking out his pocket watch, he flipped it open and nodded then looked straight at Andrew.
“Shall we go to the conservatory first?” Andrew asked with a pointed look at Alex.
“Oh, I adore flowers,” Lady Olivia chimed in with her ear piercing voice.
“Very well,” Alex said. “Let’s be off.”
The group started to make its way to the conservatory with Andrew walking as fast as he could manage without causing Brooke to stumble face-first onto the lawn.
“Why are we walking like Satan is on our heels?” Brooke asked breathlessly.
“Because she is.”
Brooke couldn’t help it, she let out a giggle. “That is most ungentlemanly, likening Lady Olivia to Satan.”
“As far as I am concerned that’s a fair comparison. I asked Alex to keep her busy so we could have a little time without her and her inane chatter. You don’t mind, do you?” The last asked as a delayed thought.
“No, not at all. I just feel bad for poor Alex.” And she genuinely did. He was such a nice person and Lady Olivia was not.
“Well, you shouldn’t. It was his fault she knew about the tour in the first place. When she ran into us in the hall, ‘poor Alex’ just blurted it right out. He’s giving us only an hour, then he said he would dump her off on us whether we are finished or not.” Andrew scowled.
“Is that why he made a big production of checking his pocket watch?” Brooke asked as understanding dawned on her.
“Yes,” Andrew said tersely.
They walked to a large building that was mostly made of large windows acting as the walls and roof. In between sheets of glass there were columns of bricks going from the ground to the roof, encasing the windows. Brooke had never seen such an unusual building up close. She had seen it yesterday from her bedchamber window. But now that she was closer she could see its red brick siding was crumbling a bit with age, and ivy was growing up some of the columns.
Andrew opened the door and she walked inside. She looked around at all of the flowers that were in bloom. She had never seen so many different kinds in one place before. It was magnificent.
“Here we are, the conservatory. This is where Alex spends the majority of his time when the weather is disagreeable,” Andrew said as he shut the door behind them.
“He does? I thought he liked the library,” she said curiously, walking over to some orange flowers.
“He does,” Andrew agreed. “But he has a fascination with biology, physics and even astronomy. When the weather is bad and he cannot study his plants outside or is stumped with a physics equation, he’ll come here and study the flowers and trees that are housed inside.”
“How fascinating,” Brooke said, leaning closer to a plant that she thought might actually bear fruit not flowers.
“Yes, very.”
“Do you have a conservatory at your estate?” Brooke asked innocently.
“No,” Andrew said quietly, his body tensing.
Brooke assumed he stiffened because Lady Olivia and Alex could be heard talking outside.
“Would you like to see the orangery?”
“Yes,” Brooke said uneasily. They had barely walked down one row in the conservatory and he was already rushing her off somewhere else, how was she supposed to work her magic?
At the end of the row was a door, when they walked through it, Brooke discovered she was now in the orangery. “I hadn’t realized we were so close to the orangery,” she murmured.
“Yes, they are connected, quite unusual really. The orangery was not always here. About five years ago Alex decided he would like to raise orange and citrus trees, but there was no space. His father wouldn’t allow a new building to be erected. Alex talked him into a compromise. The conservatory was to be split in half; a wall was put in to divide it. That way Alex could use one of the sides to grow his citrus trees.”
Brooke noticed a bench on the opposite side of the orangery, and without a word started to walk to it. Her hand was still on Andrew’s forearm, forcing him to walk toward the bench along with her. “I should like to sit a few minutes,” she said when they arrived at the bench.
Andrew waited while Brooke took a seat on the bench first. When she was seated and rearranged her skirts around her, he sat down and left only a few short inches between them.
Brooke pretended not to notice how close they were already and began to swing her right leg, even if it were considered unladylike to do so, slowly brushing his calf with her bright blue skirts with each swing.
Andrew didn’t move away, he just looked at her. Then slowly, ever so slowly, he moved his leg closer to hers. He kept moving closer until with one of her swings, she made direct contact with his leg. Well, as direct as one can get through a massive amount of fabric fashioned into a skirt.
Her leg stilled. She could feel the heat radiating off his leg all the way through her skirt, petticoats, and stocking. It felt as hot as the iron Mrs. McNaught had used to steam the wrinkles out of their gowns back in Bath. For a moment they both just looked at each other.
Andrew’s eyes were changing. They were growing darker and more intense. Desire was making them take on a new shade of blue. A shade she had only seen once before, in the museum when they were alone in the empty room.
He leaned closer, so close that his face was less than two inches from hers. His eyes searing into hers and his lips so close she could almost feel them.
Brooke’s mind barely registered what was going to happen. The realization he was about to kiss her made her snap out of her lusty trance. This was her chance. She had to be strong. She had to resist. If she didn’t, her plan would come to naught and she would be even more heartbroken than before.
With shaky legs, Brooke abruptly stood and moved a few feet away to an orange tree that h
ad several ripe oranges hanging on it. “Do you…umm…think that uh…Alex would mind terribly if we…er…I were to eat one of his oranges?” she stammered.
Andrew was to her side before she even finished her question. One of his bare hands plucked down an orange while the other dug into his pocket. A few seconds later he pulled out a penknife. Wordlessly, he began to peel the orange with his knife. In a minute the rind was gone from the orange and he was breaking it into sections.
Brooke peeked at his eyes, the look was not gone. He still had the deep look of desire in his eyes. Brooke smiled to herself, it was working. He was going to find her, and only her, irresistible by the end of the day. She would make sure of it, even if it drove her crazy in the process.
Once Andrew had it all separated, Brooke reached for one of the pieces. Andrew was quicker though and pulled them back. “It would be a pity for you to ruin your gloves by touching the orange,” he said, looking down at her gloves. “I think the better solution is to let me help you eat this. Come, let’s sit back down.”
They walked back to the bench they had both vacated in haste just a few moments before and regained their seats, sitting just as close as before.
“Are you ready?” Andrew asked hoarsely.
“Yes,” Brooke whispered. Reason was telling her to put him off a little longer, but her body was screaming something else entirely.
Andrew took one of the orange slices and gently ran it over her lips; just enough to let the juice from the wedge moisten her lips.
Brooke’s lips parted a little further and her tongue came out to lick up the juice the orange had left in its trail. Andrew swallowed visibly then shifted on the bench.
After running the orange around her mouth a second time, he slowly slipped it into her mouth.
The slice was a bit too large for one bite and a little stream of juice came out around the corner of her mouth and dripped to her chin. Embarrassed she was making a mess, her hands flew up to wipe the juice from her chin. But Andrew was quicker, he grabbed her hands, bent closer to her and he whispered, “Allow me.”
Brooke relaxed her hands in his hold. His left hand came up and wiped the bit off of her chin; then he brought his fingers to his mouth and sucked the juice off.
Brooke’s eyes widened. That was not what she had expected. She wasn’t sure what she had expected, but it wasn’t that.
All thoughts of holding him off vanished when he leaned a little closer and said, “It seems I missed a spot.” Then, within a blink of an eye, his lips were on the corner of her mouth.
He nipped the corner playfully before moving over to be dead center on the middle of her lips.
Brooke’s arms went around Andrew’s neck and her fingers sank into his hair. She twirled her fingers into his black curls, holding his head close to hers. His tongue ran along the seam of her lips. This was new to her, yet it felt so natural. Other men had just tried to shove their tongue inside, but this, this was much better. It felt so good she gasped.
Andrew took advantage of her gasp and pushed his tongue past her lips. He ran his tongue along her perfect row of teeth before doing a full exploration of her mouth.
Brooke had never been one to only observe, boldly she slipped her tongue into his mouth and mirrored all his actions. She explored his mouth just as fully as he was exploring hers. She had never been so bold before, and she was finding she enjoyed this kind of kissing with Andrew.
Brooke tightened her grip of his hair, and groaned, “Andrew.” It was the first time she’d called him by his name, and she hoped she hadn’t overstepped by doing so. But at present, she couldn’t care enough not to do it again.
Andrew managed to say her name while running his fingers up to her soft brown hair. He grabbed one of the curls that were overflowing from her coiffure and wrapped it loosely around his finger before giving it a gentle tug then letting it go. Then he moved his hands and reached right into the back of her massive knot of hair and caressed her scalp with his fingers.
Brooke had been aware that it was bad form not to wear bonnets outside, and had thought to grab hers when Lady Olivia donned hers, but Andrew had been in too much of a hurry for her to ask; now she was glad she hadn’t bothered. She could feel his fingers tenderly touching her hair and massaging her scalp.
Suddenly there was a distinct clink, clink, clink. Breathing raggedly, both of them drew back and looked around the room to see if they had a visitor. When Brooke moved her head back to face Andrew and his ocean blue eyes, she realized what happened to make the noise they heard.
“It appears that you have dislodged some of my hairpins,” Brooke said, her voice still coming in small pants.
Andrew nodded jerkily.
Brooke leaned over and picked up a handful of hairpins that had dropped on the bench when Andrew had given one of her curls a tug.
When Andrew looked at what she held in his hand, comprehension struck. “I’m sorry, I didn’t intend to ruin your…” he broke off and waved his hands around her head.
“It’s all right.” More than all right in her opinion. “I’ll just put these back in real quick.” In just a few seconds Brooke fixed her hair and it looked as good as it had before.
“You are quite talented at that,” Andrew remarked.
“Yes, well, one learns to do their own hair when they have no one else to do it for them,” she said dryly. Why was everyone in England so surprised to learn that a person could fix their own hair without any help? No wonder they lost the war, their soldiers probably depended on someone else to load their guns for them, too.
“Of course,” Andrew muttered. “Shall we go see something else?”
“Yes, though I'm surprised we haven't been accosted by Lady Olivia yet. How much time do we have left?”,
Andrew reached into his pocket and withdrew his watch. “We have roughly half an hour.”
***
Andrew and Brooke made their way to the stables, with only about twenty minutes left before Lady Olivia would be foisted upon them.
“The stables?” Brooke asked.
“Yes, I wanted to let you pick out a horse,” Andrew said with a smile.
“Pick a horse? Whatever for?”
“To ride of course. That is what one normally does with horses. I thought we could go on a ride and picnic tomorrow.” Andrew laughed as he watched the confusion fade from her face, and joy took its place. He smiled brightly at her. Then his smile started to slowly dim. It was his turn to have confusion surface on his face. When had he ever laughed, or smiled for that matter, so often? Not for a long, long time. And why did it keep happening in the company of Brooke Banks? What was it about her that made him grin like an idiot? He shook his head. That was not a question he wanted to ponder too deeply.
Brooke took no notice of his facial expressions; she was too consumed looking around at all the horses that were before her eyes. She scanned them all. Horses of all different colors, sizes and dispositions were in the stable yard.
In case he had to help her decide, Andrew came up next to her to look at the horses, too. Some of the horses looked too large and uncomfortable for her. A few of them looked to be too old and slow to be any fun. And a couple were rather high spirited, which could be hard for her to handle.
“I think that one. The brown one near the back, on the right,” she said, pointing to where a brown medium sized horse was standing in the far corner of the stable yard, her head bent, eating the grass.
“Ah, Bluebell. Good choice. I should think the two of you will get on quite nicely.” Andrew’s approval was evident in his voice, as was the nod of his head.
“Bluebell,” Brooke said with a smile. “I even like her name.” Then, “It is a ‘her’, isn’t it?”
Andrew chuckled. “Yes, Bluebell’s a girl.”
Brooke laughed, too. “Not that I have anything against male horses, mind you, but I should think a female horse would be more sensitive to having a female on her back.”
“You have
no idea what you’re talking about, do you?” Andrew accused laughingly.
“Not at all,” Brooke admitted, bursting into giggles.
“I shall tell one of the grooms to have her saddled up for a ride tomorrow. We need to be heading back now before Lady Olivia shows up and invites herself to our picnic.”
“All right,” Brooke agreed, giving one last look back at Bluebell.
Andrew caught sight of the look she gave Bluebell. The look on her face was pure joy, he was glad to see that. He was glad she took joy in his presence. So caught up in the idea, he leaned down and placed a kiss on the top of her head.
Brooke shot him a questioning glance, but said nothing.
Neither of them spoke during the walk back to the house. When Andrew caught sight of Alex’s grim face, he checked his watch. What a lucky save, they had been mere seconds away from having Lady Olivia thrust upon them. Best to end this while still ahead. “I do apologize that we got separated,” Andrew said with false sincerity
Brooke suppressed a giggle. Alex rolled his eyes. Lady Olivia pouted; then said, “Well, if you hadn’t been in such a hurry to see everything we could have stayed together. You were practically running when we last saw you. Then you were gone by the time we made our rounds through the conservatory.”
Lady Olivia was someone he never considered attractive, even in her nicest gowns, but when she pouted, her face contorted in a way that could cause a grown man to have nightmares. “Once again, I do apologize. If you were unable to see everything you would have liked I am fairly certain that one of Watson’s servants can complete your tour,” Andrew said smoothly.
“What of you, my lord?” she asked, batting her eyelashes. “Why don’t you give me the same tour as Miss Banks?”
She was flirting again he realized. He wasn’t falling for it; nor would he ever think of giving her the same tour he'd given Brooke. Knowing her, she’d use the tour as another opportunity to propose. He suppressed a shudder at the thought of her earlier proposal for them to marry, and felt a little pity for the man who would make her his wife, bedding her would be a difficult task for sure. “As delightful as that sounds,” he said, trying not to choke on his tongue, “I cannot. I have a pressing affair just now and I fear I’m already late. So without any further ado, I must bid you adieu.” He watched in quiet amusement as both Brooke and Alex rolled their eyes at his play on words.