Page 43 of A Very Roguish Boxing Day
Instead, he woke refreshed, more refreshed than he usually found himself after a night in his own bed.Which was odd, considering one leg was dangling off the side of the bed and the other was hanging over the footboard.Well, he supposed having a good fuck always helped you sleep, and that had been a bloody good fuck.He also noticed that his ears weren’t ringing.Which was odd, given how quiet it was out here in the country, but he wasn’t about to complain about it.
He slipped from beneath the quilt, careful not to disturb Gwen, who was snoring softly.Pulling on his clothes, he padded out of the room, shutting the door behind him.
He headed for the kitchen.He found a loaf of bread that wasn’t too stale, some eggs, and a slab of bacon.He got the stove going and put together a pretty decent breakfast, if he said so himself.
Gwen wandered out of the bedroom while he was putting it on the table, looking deliciously rumpled and confused in a dark green wrapper.“What’s all this?”she asked, surprised.
“Breakfast,” he said, setting out the teapot.“I wasn’t sure how you take your eggs, but hopefully this’ll do.”
She laughed.“This will do very nicely.As if I would complain.I had no idea you could cook!”
He held out her chair, then sat next to her and began tossing bacon and toast onto his plate.“Most of the fellows I train with take their breakfast at the local tavern.Not me, though.”He spooned six fried eggs onto his plate.“Do you know what they charge down there?It’s?—”
“Highway robbery,” Gwen said in unison with him, then laughed.
Tom laughed, too.“Yes, well, the point is, it isn’t too hard to fry a few eggs.”
“Well, I appreciate it.”When he reached for the pot of marmalade, she laid her hand atop his.“Wait—would you like to try some of my honey?”
“I certainly would.”She fetched the pot from the sideboard.Nodding his thanks, he lifted the lid and inhaled.“That’s it, all right.”
Gwen tilted her head as she sliced an egg.“That’s what?”
“That’s what you smell like, bun.”He drizzled a generous dollop onto his toast.
Her cheeks flushed, but she was smiling.“I do use it to make the soap I use.Say, I’ve noticed you sometimes call me ‘bun.’Why is that?”
He paused, toast halfway to his mouth, to grin at her.“For the very reason we’ve been discussing.It’s short for honeybun, which is what you smell like.”
Now her cheeks went full scarlet, but she looked tremendously pleased.“Gracious me!I—I never thought I would have a pet name.”
“Well, you do.”He took a big bite of toast and groaned.“Gwen.MyGod, that’s delicious.”
She smiled as if he’d just given her the best compliment in the world.“Do you really think so?”
“Mmm,” he said around another bite.He chewed a moment, savoring, then swallowed.“It’s not like I’ve never had honey before.But this is something else.How do you get it to taste so good?”
Gwen leaned forward.“My Great-Aunt Agatha always said that the honey takes on the flavor of whatever the bees are eating.This is a blackberry blossom honey I collected this autumn.”She paused, biting her lip.“I also made a honey in which I put out blackberry juice for the bees to drink, but I’m not sure if you’d like it.”
Tom was helping himself to two more slices of toast.“I’m sure I would.It sounds delicious.”
“It is,” Gwen assured him as she rose and went to the sideboard.“But it’s… Well, you’ll see.”
She set a pot on the table and lifted the lid for his inspection.Tom couldn’t help but rear back in surprise.The honey waspurple.
But it smelled damn good, and he loved blackberries, so… “I’ll try it,” he said, smearing it on his toast.
Four seconds later, he was exceedingly glad he hadn’t let the honey’s color put him off.“Gwen,” he moaned.“That’s fucking delicious.”
She giggled at his profanity.“It really is, isn’t it?That’s probably my favorite flavor, although I have ideas for all kinds of honeys I’d like to make.I’ve heard that orange blossom honey is wonderful, but I’d have to find some nobleman who wouldn’t mind me bringing one of my hives to his orangery.I’d also like to take them to the cherry orchards over in Kent, just to see what kind of honey I would get.”
Tom swallowed another bite.“Maybe you’ll do it this year.”
She shrugged.“Maybe.It would be expensive for me to rent lodgings for long enough for the bees to gather pollen.And that’s if I could even convince the farmers to let me unleash my bees in their orchards.”
“It does sound like a big venture.Do you keep your bees just as a hobby?Or do you want to turn it into a business?”
She looked down, her expression turning sheepish.“I’d like to turn it into a business.The family of Maurice Simpkins—the man who was briefly my husband—was able to claim half of my inheritance from Aunt Agatha as our eight-hour marriage was sufficient for it to become part of his estate.I have enough to get by, but it would make me feel more secure if I had a source of income.”She shrugged.“It would have to be modest in scale.It’s just me, after all.And, as you’ll see, there’s a lot of work to be done.Aunt Agatha wasn’t able to keep everything up in her later years as well as she usually did.”
