Max followed her gaze toward the house, and his hand closed around hers. She glanced down in surprise at their enjoined hands. His fingers were so big that they encompassed hers entirely. The heat of his touch permeated through the material of their gloves. Soft and gentle, yet firm. Hard and masculine. Her breaths came quicker, but she didn’t move. She kept her gaze on the house, though she no longer really saw it.
She didn’t pull away from him, although a small voice somewhere inside her said she should—she
must.
She simply didn’t want to. She wanted to stay here, just like this. Touching him innocently, even though something about it felt intimate. Even carnal.
She curled her fingers tighter about his and dragged
her gaze to his. He was looking at her. No, not just looking at her. That implied he was doing something ordinary. But there was nothing ordinary about the way he gazed at her. His green eyes seemed to stroke over her, caress her. She didn’t know how it was possible, but she could feel his touch in faraway places she’d never felt before.
“Max,” she whispered. It came out as a question, though she hadn’t meant for it to.
He bent his head toward her, so close she felt the warm whisper of his breath over her lips… Oh, Lord, was he going to kiss her? She’d never been kissed before. She’d never expected to be kissed. It simply wasn’t in her realm of experience or expectation.
Suddenly, more than anything, she wanted him to kiss her. Every inch of her body cried out for it, rattling her, surprising her so much that she gave a violent shudder, and he jerked back, blinking.
“God.” He raked his free hand through his dark hair. “God, Olivia. I’m sorry.”
He’d called her by her given name. Her name sounded positively sinful in that low baritone of his.
She blinked at him. “You’re… sorry?”
His fingers slipped away from hers, and it took almost all her willpower not to reach for the comfort of his hand again.
“Yes. I—” He shook his head, and his expression turned rueful. “I shouldn’t have done that. Will you forgive me?”
Staring at him, Olivia caught her breath and slowly drifted back to earth, and with her returning senses came the truth of what she’d nearly just done. What she’d wanted more than her next breath.
She’d nearly kissed a man. Not only a man. Lord Hasley, probably the most virile, handsomest man she’d seen in her life. Not to mention the most eligible bachelor in England.
This wasn’t her. She wasn’t a wanton. She didn’t crave touches or kisses.
If she didn’t implicitly trust the people surrounding her, she might think she’d been drugged.
“I forgive you, Lord Hasley.”
“Max.”
She closed her teeth down over her lower lip. “Max,” she whispered. The way it came out reminded her of how she’d said it before. A needy, desperate question. She swallowed dryly, then jerked her gaze away from him. “Really, I am the one who’s sorry. I don’t know what came over me. This… well…” She hesitated, then looked imploringly up at him.
“This what?” he asked.
Blowing out a breath, she shook her head. “It isn’t me. I don’t do”—she waved her hand back and forth between the two of them—“this.”
He nodded, then gave her a pained smile. “I know, Olivia.” He hesitated. “Neither do I. Not… like this.”
She tilted her head at him, not understanding exactly what he meant but not daring to ask. What he did—what he’d done with other women before coming to Stratford House—was none of her business. None whatsoever. He was a bachelor, nine years older than she, and she had no doubt that he was far,
far
more experienced at encounters like this than she was.
Still, he’d said he understood that she didn’t do “this.” And he said he didn’t do “this” either, so…
Oh, Lord. Was he intending to court her? To make whatever it was between them permanent? Was he thinking of her as a possible
wife
?
A thrill rushed through her, leaving her senses tingling and her heart pounding hard. She dropped her gaze to her feet, feeling hot and awkward, and at a complete loss for words. In her periphery, she saw the gray flash of a tennis ball, and she forced her body to turn and head toward the wall to collect it. She heard the sound of him taking the bucket handle and his soft footsteps over the pavement as he followed her.
Silently, they searched for the rest of the balls and deposited them into the bucket one by one. When they’d finished, she glanced at the far wall. “I suppose I should look for the ball that went over.”
“I’ll help you. The brush is thick, though—I doubt we’ll find it.”
“Well, it’s worth a try.”
They went behind the tennis court and picked their way through the deepening weeds and bushes, keeping an eye out for the ball.
“Your sisters obviously adore you,” he said quietly. “But I can’t understand why they shelter you so thoroughly.”
She’d been kneeling down to search under a bush, and she smiled up at him. “I adore them, too. The three of them are so different, and yet I love them all. We lost a sister a few years ago, too. She was Seren—I mean, Meg’s twin. It was the most horrible thing that ever happened to us—especially Meg—but in a way, I think it brought us closer together.”
And further away from their mother, but that wasn’t
a story she was ready to tell Max, even if they were addressing each other by their Christian names now. Even if they’d almost kissed.
Deep in the bushes, she saw a flash of gray. “Oh, there it is,” she exclaimed. But then she frowned. The ball had been caught in the brambles of a rosebush, and there was no way she could retrieve it without ruining her dress.
Before she had the chance to say so, Max dove under the bush. Seconds later, he emerged, smiling, holding the tennis ball up in victory. “Got it!”
“Oh, dear. Your coat is torn!”
He looked down at the small tear in his sleeve, then back up at her. He gave her a wry shrug. “Ah well. My valet will have my hide. Then, he’ll likely burn it, along with the coat.”
“What a waste of a perfectly good coat.” At his raised eyebrow, she added with a laugh, “And hide.”
Max shrugged. “Gardner is far too fastidious to allow me to keep either now that I have damaged one of his fine works of art.”
“For goodness’ sakes!” Olivia patted his arm over the tear. “I’ll mend it for you. He’ll never need to know.”
He looked honestly shocked, which made her laugh.
“You’d do that for me?”
“To rescue such a fine coat? And”—
such a fine hide,
but, oh, she couldn’t say that!—“your hide? I certainly would.”
“That is very kind of you.” He grinned. “I
am
rather fond of this coat…”
This time the words tumbled out before she could stop them. “And I’m rather fond of your hide.”
She felt her eyes widen in surprise at her own words
as the heat of a flush washed over her cheeks. A part of her, a deep, wanton part that she’d never known existed before, prayed that he’d try to kiss her again. It longed for the touch of those soft-looking lips against hers.
Instead, his lips curled into a smile, and he took her hand and led her back to the house. She didn’t speak; she was too overcome by all the new sensations—the new desires—coursing through her.
The next few days went by in a flurry of activity. The gentlemen went hunting. The ladies visited with one another and with Lady Fenwicke, and Jessica was making good on her promise to truly befriend the lady, even to the extent that she visited Stratford House’s kitchen with her and managed not to shudder as Lady Fenwicke and the cook discussed the many uses of pig stomachs.
Max and Olivia had met to play tennis on four separate occasions when everyone else was otherwise occupied. Even after such a short time, Olivia had seen a marked improvement in her own skills and a more subtle improvement in Max’s. He was simply too large—too wide—to be able to scramble to a ball and flick it across the court. Olivia, although she was slight and not tall at all, was fast and nimble, and she prided herself on how quickly she’d learned.
They weren’t playing true sets; instead, they enjoyed their short tennis games and approached them as lessons, as Olivia was still learning the rules. Today, they’d been playing for almost an hour, and the score was forty-love with Olivia serving. Excitement fluttered through her—this was the closest she’d ever come to beating Max in a game—and if she won this point, it would be a sound defeat.
She tossed the ball into the air and served. The ball bounced on the penthouse and down into the corner of the court. Max lunged, but Olivia’s serve had been perfectly placed, making it awkward to hit, and the tip of his racquet only grazed the edge of the ball and sent it flying over the wall.
Olivia threw her racquet up into the air in a burst of joy. “I won!” she squealed, catching her racquet neatly. She couldn’t help herself—she beamed at him proudly.
Shaking his head but with his lips tilted in a smile, Max went to the table for a glass of lemonade, and drank heartily. She danced over to him. “Did you see that? I beat you for the first time ever!”
“You did indeed. One game out of sixteen today.” He handed her a glass of lemonade. “And here’s your reward.”
“Oh, you think you can remind me of my losses, do you?” She narrowed her eyes at him playfully.
He merely cocked a brow at her.
“Well, I won’t let you spoil this victory for me.”
“Won’t you? How many times did I win a game at love, might I ask?” he said, all smugness.
“Why, Lord Hasley, I do think you’re embarrassed. You’re upset that you were beaten by a woman half your size.”
He looked at her for a long moment, his dark eyebrows lowering, the humor fading from his expression.
“No. That’s not it.”
She felt her own humor draining away. “What, then?” she asked, almost breathless.
“I’m surprisingly… delighted that you beat me.” The low serious tone of his voice sent skitters of pleasure down her spine.
“Did you allow me to win?” she asked, suddenly suspicious.
He chuckled and shook his head. “No. You won that game entirely fairly.”
“Good,” she murmured, accepting the return of that sweet sense of satisfaction.
“You’re a very quick learner,” he said sincerely. “I believe you possess more physical coordination than most women.”
“Do you think so?”
“I do. It’s too bad…” His voice dwindled, and he looked away.
“It’s too bad, what?” she asked, setting down her glass of lemonade.
“Never mind. I don’t wish to offend you.”
She stared at him, one eyebrow raised.
He sighed. “Very well. I was going to say, it’s too bad your family limits you so much. I’ve been watching since we last spoke, and you’re right—your sisters and Stratford are extremely protective when it comes to you.
Over
protective. I think they’re attempting to squelch your innate sense of adventure.” He frowned. “They handle you like a porcelain doll. And while it’s true that you’re slighter and more slender than your sisters, I don’t see that you are any weaker than them, yet they treat you as if you are.”
She blinked at him. She didn’t know what to say. Her family was the most important thing in her life, and she wanted to defend them, but there was no denying their tendency to stifle her at times. Hence, her walks. Her desire to run at night. Her need to be alone at times.
“Am I right?” he asked quietly.
She nodded. Another woman—a wiser woman—
would be more offended. She might lie to him and say he was a virtual stranger, he couldn’t know the first thing about how her family—herself, in particular—operated. But Olivia had always been a forthright kind of person. She never thought of dissembling… until it was too late, of course.
Yet, allowing this man to get too close to her—that would be unwise. Surely he must know that. Even without taking the malaria into account, she was the daughter of an obscure, impoverished Irishman, hardly fit to be paired with the heir to a powerful dukedom.
And yet… and yet here he was, behaving like a suitor might behave. Like a potential spouse might behave.
“Oh, Max,” she murmured, swallowing hard.
He tilted his head, questioning her with those startling eyes of his.
“We have become friends, haven’t we?” The word “friends” sounded silly on her lips. She’d never really had friends apart from her sisters, but she was fairly certain that a friend couldn’t make her feel the way Max made her feel.
“I hope so,” he said in a low voice.
“Can I tell you something, then? Something that will be very embarrassing for me to speak with you about, yet I feel we must speak of it.”
Max hesitated. She watched his chest rise and fall as he took a breath and set down his empty glass. “Come. Let’s walk.” He held out his hand, and she took it, nearly sighing aloud at the firm press of his fingers as they closed around hers.
They strolled into the woods, taking the path that led to the spring where they’d met. They walked slowly and
without speaking. Beside Max, with his hand enclosing hers, Olivia felt even more vibrant and alive than she did on her solitary walks. Her senses were alert, every one of them abuzz. The sun shone brightly, causing the autumn forest to glow in deep and varying shades of gold and bronze. There were few sounds, but Olivia could discern between each one: a call of a jay, the stirring of the branches in the breeze, the crunch of dried leaves beneath their feet.
When they reached the spring, Max shrugged out of his coat and spread it across the large flat rock. They sat side by side, removed their gloves, and tossed pebbles into the water until he asked, “What is it you wanted to talk about?”
She swallowed hard. There was nothing to do but to get straight to the point. She lowered her hands, still clutching a pebble she hadn’t thrown yet, and looked straight into his eyes. “I am concerned… I fear… you might misunderstand our… association.”
He just gazed at her, a deepening frown creasing his brows.
“Please understand, I have no intention of…” She took a breath and tried again. “My future has been laid out for me, you see. I intend to live out my life here, at Stratford House, close to Meg and Phoebe and their children. I will not marry.”