“Love is a risky game”—I look down at my feet, nudge a toadstool growing alongside the path with the toe of my boot, and pray this flushed-all-over, heartbeat-skippy feeling isn’t food poisoning—“and I am not an intrepid player.”
“Perhaps you didn’t know it, but there is a game far riskier than love.”
I look up. “Russian Roulette?”
“No.”
“Playing chicken?”
“No.”
“Poker?”
He shakes his head.
“Eating muffins made with Nutella?”
“Riskier.”
“I know, ordering an iced beverage from Caffè Nero?”
He laughs. The happy crinkles around his eyes reappear. My heart skips another beat.
“You dangled the bait, madam, and I am taking it. I must know, why is it risky to order an iced beverage from a Caffè Nero?”
Obviously, I didn’t think this one through. I overheard William telling Harriet the European coffeehouse chain failed recent health inspections after fecal bacteria was found in their ice makers. I can’t say the word fecal to a man as educated and polished as Knightley Nickerson, y’all. I just can’t!
“Apparently, an undercover investigation determined their stores to be less than hygienic, and their iced beverages to be the riskiest of their products. All I am saying is, don’t order the iced tea.”
“That should not be a problem,” he says, grinning. “I am British. I take my tea with cream and without ice.”
“Don’t be a tea snob!”
“I make no apologies for my tea snobbery,” he says, laughing. “There are only a few things in life that demand thoughtful discrimination, and tea is most definitely one of those things.”
“Is that so?” I laugh. “What else brings out your inner snob, Knightley Nickerson?”
“Hmmm.” He looks at me, narrowing his gaze, and I get that weightless tummy feeling I get whenever I am at the top of a rollercoaster ride, just about to plunge down. “Literature and whiskey, definitely. I am also rather particular when it comes to choosing tailors, best mates, and women.”
Lawdy Miss Clawdy! Harriet’s pea soup isn’t making me feel flushed all over and out of sorts; it’s Knightly Nickerson in his fine-fitting bespoke coat, staring at me with his sexy, slow-smolder eyes, and teasing me with his flirty banter. Women! Knightley said women, as in plural. Lawdy! I need a spritz of Evian Facial Spray to cool my cheeks. Why didn’t I slip a travel-sized can in my pocket before leaving the cottage?
Knightley clears his throat and looks away, as if suddenly embarrassed, and I feel a compulsion to put him at his ease.
“All right, Knightley Nickerson,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest. “Are you going to tell me which game is riskier than love or do I have to whip out my iPhone and Google the answer?”
“Life, my dear Miss Maxwell.” He leans closer, and I catch a whiff of his woodsy cologne, notice the droplets of rain sparkling like Swarovski beads in his dark hair. He lowers his voice. “Life is the riskiest game you will ever play. The moment you are born, you enter a massively dangerous arena, a place that incessantly challenges your wits and your stamina. You can hide in the shadows, play it safe, but even then, you aren’t assured survival. You are too bold, too bright, to live in the shadows, Emma Lee.”
Right now, standing in the shadow of this very sophisticated, very handsome Englishman, I don’t feel very bold or very bright. I feel . . . I feel . . . I feel like I am in a big old canoe, trying to get across a big old lake with just one paddle. I’ll bet Knightley Nickerson would be surprised if I admitted that to him. I know how I come off, like I’m the Second Coming of the excessively cheerful, optimistic orphan girl in that old Disney movie Manderley used to make me watch. What was her name? Pauline? Prudence? Penelope? Whatever. The point is, even pervasively plucky girls like Pippa (Paisley?) experience moments of doubt.
“Maybe I’m not as bold as you think.”
“You are.”
He is so close, his breath fanning warmly over my cheeks, smelling of peppermint.
“I saw what happened at the Clemson–South Carolina game.”
“What? How?”
It was my junior year at Clemson and it was the biggest game of the season. There are many rivalries in the world of sports, but none as heated and contentious as the one between the Tigers and the Gamecocks. We had just finished the second quarter and were leading by twenty points (Go Tigers!). We decided to get the crowd fired up by doing a basket toss we had practiced a thousand times, a slick move that involves tossing a squad member straight up in the air so she can flip around and assume a swanlike position. If it’s done right, the cheerleader lands in a nest of hands, like a bird, head up, back arched, arms outstretched. Only, something went wrong. One minute I was flying straight up in the air, and the next minute I was flat on my back on a stretcher, being wheeled out of the stadium by two paramedics.
“YouTube.”
“How did you even know to look on YouTube?”
“I Googled you.”
“You Googled me?”
“Guilty.” Two spots of color appear on Knightley’s cheeks, as bright as the toes of my military-red rain boots. “They wheeled you out on a stretcher, Emma Lee, but you came back, under your own steam, and cheered your team to victory. Well done, you.”
“Oh, pshaw!” I wave my hands at him. “It wasn’t as serious as it seemed, not like that basketball player who collapsed and had to have his heart restarted with defibrillators, with his poor momma looking on, pleading with the Lord Jesus not to take her son.”
“It looked rather serious,” he argues. “The people who were supposed to catch you—”
“—the base.”
“Right,” he says. “Your base royally cocked up!”
“Cock up sounds harsh. It was an accident.”
“An accident? They let you fall on your head! I am gobsmacked you didn’t suffer traumatic brain injury or permanent paralysis.”
His concern, his proximity, his yummy cologne. It’s too much. I am tempted to press a hand to my forehead and fake an old-time Southern girl swoon, but I don’t really do fake, and I’ve never even attempted a swoon. So I do what I always do when I need to wedge a little space between me and an uncomfortable situation.
“Who says I didn’t suffer brain damage?”
I look at him with crossed eyes and smile crazylike. I hold the face until my eyes ache from the strain, but Knightley doesn’t laugh.
“Sorry,” I say, uncrossing my eyes. “Bad joke.”
“You make me laugh, Emma Lee,” Knightley says. “Though I fear you use humor to keep me at a distance. Am I right? Do you wish to keep me at a distance?”
“No!” A breeze lifts the end of his scarf, slapping it against my face. Soft, cologne-scented cashmere brushes my cheeks, my nose, my lips. I imagine Knightley’s lips brushing against me in the same soft, silky manner, and I shiver. “Why would I want to keep you at a distance?”
“Hmmm,” he says, grabbing his scarf and tucking it inside his jacket. “Why would you, indeed?”
He doesn’t say it, but I hear the implication, like one of those movie trailer voice-overs: Emma Lee Maxwell, the impassioned matchmaker, the seeker of soul mates, has intimacy issues. She is a hopeless romantic who doesn’t want romance. Knightley is staring at me like he expects an answer to his question, so I try to think of something to say, something true and heartfelt, something that isn’t too cheesy. In my head, I see Julia Roberts standing in a shabby used bookstore in Notting Hill, saying, I’m also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.
Way, way too cheesy.
“You showed tremendous courage and fidelity in returning to the field, just as you have shown tremendous courage by beginning a new life in a place wholly unfamiliar to you,” he says, his voice low. “Falling in love, risking your heart, requires the same courage.”
“Does it?”
“Absolutely.”
“Have you ever been in love?”
“Absolutely.”
My stomach roils, the taste of tea-soaked cheese bread burbles at the back of my throat, and a thought occurs to me, sudden and shocking: a pea is responsible for this flushed-all-over, sick-and-queasy feeling. Pea-green envy. That’s it! Harriet’s soup isn’t making me feel sick. I have nausea-inducing envy. Right now, on some swank street, in a swank part of London, there is a woman who was the object of Knightley Nickerson’s affection, a swank woman with a closet full of Burberry trenches, who sprinkles her conversations with obscure literary references. A woman who doesn’t have intimacy issues.
Ew! Do you smell that? I stink to holy heaven with self-doubt and negativity. I am so gross right now. I can’t even stand it. I need to just stop. Stop stinking up the air with my rancid pea-green envy and icky self-doubt.
“Thank you, Knightley.” I belt my trench, nice and tight, and look him in the eye. “Thank you for watching the video of my accident and reminding me of the strength it took to get back out on that field. I am glad we are becoming. . . friends.”
Friends? I hear Maddie’s chiding voice in my head. Slick, Emma Lee. You just banished Prince Charming to Friendship Forest, the place where budding romances and boners go to die.
“I was hoping we—”
“There you are!”
Knightley clears his throat and takes a step back, clasping his hands in front of him. His lips press together in a polite, enigmatic smile.
I turn around and discover Bingley strolling toward us looking like he just walked off the pages of a fashion magazine for young jet-setters, a thick leather-bound book tucked under his arm. He is dressed in a stylishly frayed tweed vest and dark jeans rolled up at the ankles to show off leather brogue boots, boots that are so on-trend, they’re practically pre-trend. His mop of sun-kissed dirty dishwater blond curls have been artfully styled to flop to one side and his sparkling blue eyes are hidden behind a pair of Cartier aviators, the golden mirrored lenses adorned with two tiny gold and black lacquer panther heads. Bingley Nickerson is the only man I have ever met who could wear thousand-dollar golden sunglasses on a rainy day and make it look completely natural. He is a walking glam squad. Head-to-toe fabulous.
He strolls up to us, devil-may-care grin on his boyishly handsome face, sun-kissed curls glowing as if he is being illuminated by a heavenly shaft of light. He glows like an old-time bronzed Hollywood matinee idol, like Leonardo DiCaprio glowed when he played Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby. I half-expect him to lower his sunglasses, wink, and say, “Hiya, doll!”
Instead, he hands Knightley the book, and then he presses a kiss to each of my cheeks.
“Emma Lee Maxwell!”
“As I live and breathe,” I say, bobbing a curtsy.
He pushes his sunglasses on top of his head and squints at me through red-rimmed eyes. “Spare me the Southern belle routine. You just cost me ten pounds, I’ll have you know.”
“I did? How?”
“I made a bet with old bean that you looked out your window this morning, saw our drab little village bathed in the light of a typically drab Cotswolds morning, and decided to return from whence you came. I was certain we would find you trudging down the road to Cheltenham, dragging your suitcases behind you, desperate to make it to the station in time to catch the three twenty-six to Paddington.”
“Old bean?”
Knightley clears his throat.
“Old bean is the moniker I affectionately crafted for Knightley many years ago, just after our dear papa passed.” Bingley grins and slaps his brother on the back. “Isn’t that right, old bean?”
I want to ask Bingley why he would refer to his brother—a man who was neither old nor beanlike—by such a ridiculous name, but something else he said has piqued my curiosity. I look at Knightley.
“You really made a bet I wouldn’t last more than a night in Wood House?”
“I did not,” he says softly, fixing me with a serious stare. “I would not bet against you, Emma Lee. Not ever.”
My pulse quickens. Easy, Em. There is no reason for your sweaty palms and red cheeks. He promised not to bet against you. He did not promise eternal devotion and a platinum two-carat Cartier Destinée engagement ring.
Bingley chuckles, and I am struck by just how different he is from his older brothers—as different as I am from my older sisters. Bingley, the golden-haired imp with the razor-sharp wit who commands the attention of any room he inhabits, is Knightley’s opposite in physique and personality. Knightley, with his wavy dark hair and conservative suits, seems to be the standard bearer for all that is proper and polite, while Bingley appears eager to set a match to that standard, to torch all expectation that he behave like a British blue blood.
“Mum will be pleased to learn William hasn’t frightened you off with all his talk of flesh-eating bacteria,” Bingley says. “She is so looking forward to you joining the Blue-Haired Book Lovers Club, another person to knit tea cozies and rhapsodize over Jane Austen’s idiosyncratic punctuation, stylistic innovations, and delightfully modern characters.”
“I knew we would be discussing Jane Austen’s novels, but nobody told me about the knitting.” I laugh. “Tea cozies, you say?”
Bingley grins. “Loads of them, chunky sweaters for squat little pots. I believe they are working on floral-themed cozies at present. How are you with knitting roses?”
“Golly,” I say, widening my eyes. “I don’t know how to knit, but I have always wanted to learn! Think your mum would be willing to teach me?”
Knightley chuckles—like I am joking.
Bingley narrows his gaze.
“Funny,” he says. “I didn’t have you pegged as a Janeite.”
“What is a Janeite?”
“A devotee of all things Austen.”
“And what makes a Janeite?”
The sky has turned as dark and flat as a slate tile roof, and each breeze brings with it the random raindrops. We should hurry to Wood House before the heavens let loose, but I am having too much fun talking to Bingley (and standing on a supersweet lover’s bridge, still close enough to Knightley to catch the occasional whiff of his cologne).
“Besides the aforementioned blue hair and requisite knitting needles?” He strokes his chin as if he is a professor pondering an intriguing question posed by a student. “A cultlike worship of Jane Austen and a compulsion to memorize and regurgitate the minutiae of her novels. A Janeite has an ardent passion for costume balls, tea parties, and campy Anglophilia. She will tittle over a man in uniform, mourn the passing of the fine art of letter writing, and moan with ecstasy whenever she shoves her nose between the pages of a musty old book. Plain of face and physique, she reeks of desperation, pining for a love that does not exist beyond the pages of her beloved romance novels. Her wardrobe is filled with sensible loafers, matching sweater sets, and thick-rimmed glasses. Her home is filled with chintz, cats, and a frighteningly large collection of tea cozies.”
Bingley’s bright blue eyes are twinkling with mischief behind his golden lenses, and I wonder if he disdains Austen and her ardent Janeists half as much as he would have me believe.
“I don’t know what campy Anglophilia is, but the woman you described is the polar opposite of your mother.”
“Bollocks!” Bingley laughs. “Don’t let her fool you with her posh airs and dowager countess of the Abbey routine. Next time you’re at Welldon, venture beyond the great hall and grand library. You’ll see. Her private quarters are jammers with cozies and cats.”
I laugh so hard I nearly snort. What would Miss Belle say? “Shut up!”
“Yes, Bingley.” Knightley smirks. “Do shut up!”
“Consider yourself warned,” Bingley says, sniffing. “She will woo you with her lemon zest scones and talk of Mr. Darcy’s haughty reserve, his ten thousand per annum, and before you know it, you will be sitting in some hair salon, instructing a stylist to fashion your fabulous blond t
resses into a sensible, chin-sweeping bob with wispy bangs.”
“Never,” I gasp, seizing the ends of my hair as if to protect them from invisible shears. “I am a Southern woman, Bingley Nickerson, which means I like my hair long and my lashes false, and anyone who tries to alter that will be kicked to the curb. I sure don’t need that kind of negativity in my life.”
Bingley and Knightley laugh—like I am joking.
A terrific crash of thunder, like brass cymbals in a marching band, has us finally moving, headed over the bridge and down the path to my Wood House. Knightley puts his hand on the small of my back, guiding me around potholes and puddles. Fat, icy raindrops begin to fall, plopping on my cheeks and forehead. Bingley runs ahead, but Knightley shrugs out of his coat and holds it over my head as a makeshift umbrella.
“That’s awfully kind of you.”
“It’s nothing,” he says, looking surprised.
Nothing? I suppose using his expensive cashmere coat as an umbrella to keep a relative stranger from getting drenched is nothing to a man as wonderfully well-bred as Knightley Nickerson, but to a Southern girl who has only casually dated unsophisticated jocks or smarmy frat boys, it is chivalrous and romantic.
“You’re going to be soaked to the bone,” I say, moving close to him, pressing my shoulder against his surprisingly warm, surprisingly muscular side. “If we huddle together, we might-could share.”
Knightley looks offended, as if my offer to share the space under his coat is an affront to his masculinity, but then he wraps his arm around my shoulders and pulls me closer. We press our heads together and race back to the cottage. I am breathless by the time we join Bingley under the narrow, vine-covered awning hanging over the back door of Wood House. I reckon Knightley has more to do with my breathlessness than the dash through the raindrops. I’m not gonna lie, y’all, the man does things to me, dangerously delicious things.
Badly Done, Emma Lee Page 11