“Oh,” she said faintly. It was now her favorite flower, too. “Maybe you should take it home to remember me by.”
“I planted some years ago.” His gaze was hot on hers. “For that very reason.”
“Oh,” she said again. It was the only word she still remembered.
Laughter spilled from an open doorway at the opposite side of the glasshouse.
She expected him to jump away. To avoid being caught close together, in the act of giving and receiving a flower.
He didn’t move except to lift a finger to stroke one of the soft petals.
“I’ve searched through every garden in London,” he said. “Nothing compares to your eyes.”
Oh.
The distant noise faded as the tourists left the glasshouse in search of better pleasures, leaving Olive and Elijah alone.
“All right,” she said. “I surrender. You have my permission.”
He didn’t move. “To what?”
“Kiss me,” she whispered, before panic and self-preservation could talk her out of this mad idea. If he rejected her now, or worse, laughed at her—
His mouth covered hers before she could finish the thought. His lips were soft, sweet, tempting.
He kissed each corner of her mouth, the peaks and valley of her cupid’s bow, every portion of her plump lower lip. As if he was learning her with his mouth, memorizing each contour as he kissed. Searching to uncover her secrets.
The truth was, she had yearned for this. For him. She had long wanted to put paid to the question of whether that brief private interlude behind the stable could have been nearly as superb as she remembered it.
Yes. A thousand times, yes.
This was even better. Surrounded by lush greenery and the scent of hothouse flowers—save the scent-less one clutched in her hand, whose beauty reminded him of her eyes.
This was no obligatory peck. He seemed to honestly enjoy her company. To have eagerly awaited permission to kiss her.
Or was it all part of the plan?
She pulled away, wary. “I suppose our fathers would be pleased to find us kissing.”
Elijah’s eyes were unreadable. “Would they?”
“You don’t have to woo me,” she reminded him. “Romance won’t sway my decision.”
“I wanted to kiss you,” he said simply. “I’ve never stopped wanting to.”
Oh.
She tried for control. “Anyone could have walked in and seen us.”
The corner of his lips curved. “So?”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” She crossed her arms. “Compromise me and end up married that way.”
He lifted his brows. “I might like that more than you’d think.”
Damnable man. He was impossible to argue with.
And he was right—who cared if someone saw her? The answer would always be no.
“Very well, you can kiss me again if you like.” She straightened her spine. “But I warn you, it means nothing.”
He sighed. “Yes, I know.”
There. Was she happy now?
“May I give you a real kiss?” he asked.
“Yes.” She dropped her hands back to her sides. “You’re saying that wasn’t—”
“You’ll see.”
This kiss started out the same. Tender and sweet. But then he cupped her cheeks and coaxed with his lips until she parted hers in surprise. Defenses down, he took his chance. When his tongue touched hers, she froze. Electrified. Terrified.
He was in her mouth now. Exploring her. Observing her. Learning all of the things she’d spent a lifetime trying to hide. Discovering her from angles even she had never seen.
She felt stripped bare. As though her layers of winter apparel had fallen away, leaving her naked beneath his hands.
He did not seem repulsed by her. The opposite. He gripped her tighter, kissed her harder, made a tiny little growl deep within his throat, as though it was she who was releasing feelings he’d long vowed to keep fenced inside.
His reaction made her feel powerful. Vulnerable. As though they had skated out together to the dangerous part of the ice. It might hold; let them out alive. Or the ground might crack beneath them and swallow them whole.
A real kiss, he had called it. That wasn’t the only thing that had turned out to be real. Her heart was stampeding out of her chest because he’d burrowed his way inside.
Their kiss meant nothing, she’d told him.
That was the problem.
Chapter 8
The Fifth Day
As had become his morning ritual, Eli passed through the kitchen to stuff his pockets with pieces of carrot before making the journey to the horses.
When he stepped outside, a gust of cold wind nearly lifted his hat from his head.
Knowing Olive would be out with the horses, Eli had spent extra time choosing his attire and folding his cravat. Fat lot of good that had done. His apparel was hidden between an enormous greatcoat, and his cravat—well. At least the wind hadn’t whipped it into his face.
Olive came into sight, greeting her beasts.
For once, Eli was not filled with dread at the thought of approaching the wooden fence. Olive was on the other side. The memory of her face in his hands, her lush mouth beneath his, warmed him far more thoroughly than gloves and mufflers ever could. He could wake up feeling happy every morning if he knew it was another opportunity to spend a day with her.
His boots crunched on the snow as he approached. A snowstorm had struck the area a fortnight before Eli’s arrival. Although the snow was no longer falling, a thin white blanket still clung to the ground. This morning, green spikes of phleum pratense had begun to poke through in patches.
The horses lifted their nostrils and tilted their ears toward him well before he reached the fence.
Olive turned to see what had caught their attention. At the sight of Eli, a smile blossomed on her face.
A wide, soppy grin formed on his own face in answer.
She strode forward to meet him at the fence.
Duke and Rudolph beat her to it.
A startled laugh burst from her throat. “What in the world?”
“They don’t care about me,” he assured her, stopping well out of reach to toss his morning offering of carrot pieces as far from himself and Olive as he could.
Immediately disinterested in Eli, both horses hurried away from the fence to retrieve their treats from the snow-dusted grass.
Olive leaned her elbows atop the log fence. “Was that bribery? It looked like bribery. I don’t know how I feel about my lifelong rival currying the affection of—”
He covered her mouth with a kiss.
Their woolen mufflers and winter coats separated them as much as the wooden post holding the log fence in place, but the soft warmth of her lips beneath his transcended the real world.
There was no horse farm, no winter wind, no paternal machinations. There was just Eli, and Olive, and a kiss that could pollinate the entire world with the magnitude of his love.
“This means nothing,” she reminded him when they came up for air.
He nodded. “What means nothing? It was so inconsequential, I already forgot—”
She kissed him again before he could finish the thought.
This time was even better. The obstruction of leather gloves, a wooden barricade, and ten layers of clothing didn’t matter. Olive had kissed him.