Page 24 of The Lord Next Door I Wished For
But interrogations aside, both families were thrilled with the news, and most of Luke’s time was spent conferring with Jane’s father or his grandfather, or sometimes both, as they worked out the details of the marriage contract.
In his free time, he was subjected to discussions regarding the banns, and the engagement party, and the particulars surrounding the wedding itself.
All necessary, to be sure, but Luke supposed he’d thought getting engaged would involve more time with Jane…not less.
After a full week of wondering if she was indeed as preoccupied by wedding preparations as both mothers claimed, or if she were actively avoiding him, he ran into her.
Or rather…she stumbled upon him.
He was just coming around the side of her family’s house, having opted, thanks to the decent weather, to walk to and from the neighboring estates. But as he turned the corner, he caught a flash of pale green in the window on the second floor. He stopped, brows arched high as the green fabric unfurled into a skirt that caught the breeze as Jane dangled one slippered foot over the window’s ledge and used it to seek out the ivy-covered trellis that ran alongside her window.
At least, he assumed it was her bedroom window out of which she was climbing.
For a moment he was too stunned to move, and then he was heading swiftly toward her, too afraid to call out lest it catch her by surprise and lead to disaster.
The best he could do was attempt to be there to soften the blow if she fell.
Which he did. Most spectacularly, if he did say so himself.
She’d made it most of the way down when her grip slid on the ivy and she fell backwards right into his waiting arms.
“Oh!” She blinked up at him in surprise and he…
He was speechless. She fit into his arms like he’d been meant to hold her, and her eyes were even more dazzlingly pretty when he was this close and could see the thick lashes and the brilliant green and the—
“What are you doing?” she breathed.
Ogling my bride-to-be. “Catching you,” he managed to say with a calm that surprised him….
And irritated her.
She scowled, and he suspected she had no idea how adorable that pout was or she’d stop using it to try and terrify him.
The thought had him smothering a laugh.
“What were you doing under my window?” she demanded.
“Didn’t you know? It’s part of a newly betrothed gentleman’s duty to stand guard under his fiancée’s window lest she decide to flee.”
Her brows came down, but her lips twitched with amusement. “Now I know you are in jest.”
He smiled and for one brief moment, she smiled back. But then she became aware of the situation all over again.
“You do know you can set me down, don’t you? I wasn’t injured.”
“Mmm.” He didn’t set her down. He watched with no shortage of delight as her hands fluttered between them nervously before settling on his shoulders.
Something settled in his chest at the same time. Something warm and heavy and almost unbearably sweet.
“If we continue to just stand here, I’ll be caught,” she said. “So, if it’s not too much trouble, you can just set me down and—”
“Where to?” He didn’t set her down. Not to irritate her, just because…well, he didn’t want to.
“You don’t have to carry me.”
“I know I don’t,” he said. “But this way if anyone sees us, they’ll think you’re running off for a romantic rendezvous and not just…running away?” He arched a brow, hoping she couldn’t discern how much that theory unsettled him.
He didn’t expect her to be thrilled about their engagement, but he certainly hoped she wasn’t so miserable with the plan that she felt she had to flee.
