Page 63 of How to Seduce a Duke this Autumn
He glanced back at the house and then at the bench. “If they can, I doubt they’ll be able to make out who we are.”
How disappointing.
The thought brought her up short.
Disappointing?
Dear saints, Charlene! You have lost your mind.
And perhaps she had.
She glanced at Adam as they took a seat. And she’d lose it all over again if it meant she could share this bench with him.
*
Adam’s heart hadn’tstopped pounding against his chest since the moment their gazes locked back in the ballroom. Well, it had stopped briefly when she turned away from him but started to race again the moment she turned back and strode right up to him. It hadn’t settled since then.
In fact, he thought it couldn’t beat louder.
But he was wrong.
Now she was beside him on a bench, so damn beautiful, each beat of his heart an explosion, and he couldn’t breathe properly.
Not with her scent in the air. Not with her skirts brushing his legs. Not with the knowledge that no one could see them here. Not clearly.
This was a mistake.
A big one.
Especially since their kiss. Especially since all he wanted to do was kiss her again. And especially since his heart beat faster and faster, he wasn’t sure he’d survive it. He’d traveled to many countries before. But traveling from the ballroom to this bench might have been the most thrilling travel of them all.
It should have terrified him.
Instead, with that one tiny thing of peace in his chest, he felt steady. The most steady he’d felt in weeks.
Charlene Fielding had that effect on him. Always had. Even when they were growing up together. Even now, when she made him feel as though he still had something worth fighting for that didn’t have anything to do with duty and estates.
He glanced at her from the corner of his eye, careful not to move too quickly. To act too obviously.
Too late for that, friend.
“You still,” he began, trying to steady his voice, “enjoy raising orchids?”
“Raising?” She chuckled, turning her head slowly to him, a soft smile playing at her lips. “I suppose that’s right. We do raise plants, do we not?”
He nodded, adjusting his posture on the bench. “I’ve heard they’re finicky little things.”
“Orchids certainly,” she replied, her voice light. “Some orchids require the utmost attention. You can’t water them toomuch, nor too little. They must be placed in just the right amount of light, and at the perfect temperature, or they won’t bloom.”
“Much like relationships.”
She blinked but then nodded. “Also, true.”
Damn it, he shouldn’t have said that. Had he ruined the moment? But before he could try to mend it, she spoke again.
“Do you know that some flowers only bloom at night?” she asked.
There were such things? “I didn’t.”
