Page 19 of Lady Mary's May Day Mischief
“Will you excuse us?” Ivy asked him and Mary. “Grace and I have not seen Fifi in months.”
He and Mary turned aside to let them pass.
“Do you think he’ll be kind to her?” Mary did not take her gaze from the couple.
“He is, Mary. Always.” Her focus on her friend and his irritated him. “Come tell me about your roses and why you think they are not thriving this year.”
That brought her attention to him. “The leaves are brown. I’ve no idea why. I’ve turned the soil twice since February and added in fresh manure I got from the Carper estate outside of town.”
“Perhaps you added too much?”
“Not likely. Three cups is what I use each year in that garden frame.”
“Then the weather is at fault. It is colder this spring.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“That calls for a wind screen. Have you tried that? Or a glass cover? Removable, of course.”
The light in her sea blue eyes turned to a radiance that paused his beating heart. He wanted to put his lips to each one. Feel the fire in her gaze.
“A marvelous solution!”
“I’m pleased to help.”
She clasped her hands. “You wonderful man! Oh, where have you been? I have needed you for years.”
Her acclaim filled him with the impulse to haul her near and drop kisses to her pretty lips. His arms ached to do it. His fingers curled in restraint. Successfully enchanting Mary could be as simple as teaching her how to make all her flowers bloom. With the light in her eyes and the lure of her smile, he could grow flowers, ford rivers, build aqueducts to rival the Romans’. How could he not?
She stepped near and put her fingers to his sleeve. Against the rules of contact, he covered her hand and pressed her warmth to his. Her spontaneity was a boon to the despair he’d suffered at the loss of so many of his friends in battle. Here in her own lovely body was the one female whose smile could spark his own. Could her heart find solace with his? Here at home or anywhere he might be sent? Had he not fought so she and others might find peace and love and quiet contentment?
She moved ever so slightly. He knew it was so that others in the room might not see how she kept her hand on his arm and looked into his eyes with a regard far beyond the friendship they’d resurrected in the coach.
A primal sense told him the room was emptying.
Someone noted that a buffet was available in the dining room.
Mary watched those at the door and her happy blue gaze shot to his. “Alone,” she mouthed the word.
His opportunity to taste her arrived.
He stepped scandalously close to her and cupped her cheeks. She nestled against him, her lure the echo of that one which resonated in him ever since he’d kissed her two years ago. Fitting him so perfectly, she rose on her toes. Her hips met his, her breasts rubbed against his chest, her arms went around him and locked him to her. Her lips were a whisper away, his restraint fled in gay abandon.
He brushed his mouth over hers. The silken texture of her lips could provide dreams for decades to come.
She sighed and closed her eyes. “I’ve missed you so.”
The dam of his resistance broke. He bent and took her lips in a feral urgency he could contrast only to the madness of cannon fire and the hell of sabers and blood and men falling in their tracks. But she was soft and yielding, sweet succor, her mouth as eager as his to taste and nip and take.
Voices drifted in the air.
He crushed her close and gave her one parting kiss, a benediction and a promise. “I hate that we must stop.”
She pressed her cheek to his chest and hugged him so dearly he thought angels must embrace each other with just such adoration.
He stepped back and offered his arm. “Refreshment.”
She blushed, wild and red as berries, then laughed in that full-throated way that no one could match. “I think you and I have just had ours.”
