And the world shrank around them, to something the size of two stubborn heartbeats and a wilted bouquet.
It must have been the arguing, because Rafe rarely felt this way outside a fight. Sharp. Intent. Powerful. Aware of everything at once. The petal pink flush of her skin against her white frock. The sleekness of her wrist contrasted with the clinging flower stems. The breeze that caught a stray curl of her hair and twirled it in a dance. The tender sweetness of violets.
Only there weren’t any violets in the bouquet. Which meant he was breathing in the tender sweetness of Clio herself. The scent of the French-milled soap she used in the bath, or maybe the pomanders she tucked between her folded underthings.
He shouldn’t be thinking of her underthings. Much less envisioning those crisp, white underthings on her otherwise-naked body.
Or worst of all, picturing them as a heap on the floor.
Eyes. He kept his gaze stubbornly locked with hers. But that wasn’t safe, either. Her eyes were the clear, brilliant blue of mountain lakes. Water that came pure and sweet and deep, and could drown a man in seconds.
Already, he felt himself leaning forward. As if to bend his head and drink.
Gods save me.
And for the first time in his life, some deity actually answered his prayer.
His deliverance came in the form of a piercing shriek.
At the sound of her sister screaming, Clio wrenched her gaze from Rafe’s. A strange, smarting pain accompanied the motion. As if she’d pulled her tongue from a block of ice too swiftly, leaving a small piece of herself behind.
She wheeled in place, looking for the crisis.
In the center of the summer garden, Daphne stood pale and utterly immobile, like a piece of garden statuary that had begun shrieking in outrage. “No. No! Stop, I say!”
Clio started toward her sister, searching for the source of danger. “Is it a wasp? A snake?”
Rafe said, “It’s the dog.”
“Oh.” She clapped a hand to her mouth. “Oh, dear.”
Evidently she wasn’t the only one who’d mistaken Daphne for statuary.
Ellingworth was urinating on her foot.
“No!” her sister shrieked. “Stop! Stop it this instant, you odious beast.”
Having finished his task, Ellingworth shuffled off and disappeared under a hedge. An agitated Sir Teddy gathered his wife, and together they began walking back to the castle. Phoebe and Bruiser followed.
Clio fought back laughter. “I really shouldn’t find this amusing, should I?”
“No, that’s good,” Rafe said. “If you’re amused, I don’t have to be sorry.”
“We’d better find the dog, poor old dear. It’s going to rain.”
Distant thunder rumbled in agreement.
Together they searched the garden, peering into hedges and parting dense clusters of mums to search the ground.
At last they found Ellingworth, lying flat on his belly beneath a rosebush.
The bulldog seemed too fatigued to go anywhere.
“I’ll have to carry him in,” Rafe said.
“Wrap him in this first.” She slipped the shawl from her shoulders. “Or you’ll be covered in mud.”
“I don’t want to ruin your shawl.”
“It’s only an everyday shawl. Nothing special.”
Without entertaining further argument, Clio draped the length of printed cotton over the sleeping bulldog. Rafe scooped him up.
The distant thunder rumbled again. Only this time, the thunder wasn’t so distant, and the castle was even farther away.
“We’ll never beat the rain,” she said. “Come this way.”
She led him toward an old stone tower standing sentinel on the castle’s northeastern border.
The storm broke just before they reached the structure. Rain spattered the ground in heavy drops. They ducked inside the tower, breathless.
“What is this place?” Rafe asked. Despite the muting force of the rain, his voice rang through the gutted stone silo.
“A watchtower, once,” she managed. “It’s been used to store hops for the past hundred years. I thought this would be helpful for Ellingworth.”
She tugged an old hopcart out from the shadows. The wooden, hand-pulled wagon was just the perfect size for the bulldog. “There. Won’t that suit him? We’ll pull him back to the castle once it stops raining, then store this in the carriage house. This way, the servants can take him on walks.”
“Not bad, but it’s lacking in pillows,” he said gravely. “It needs at least a dozen.”
She ignored his teasing. Mostly.
Once he’d deposited the dog in the cart, and she’d arranged her shawl as a blanket, Rafe stood and surveyed her appearance. “You’re wet.”
“Just a little.” She hugged herself.
He shrugged out of his coat and draped its weight about her shoulders.
“Thank you,” she said, looking out at the rain. “I suppose we should stay here until it stops.”
Clio gathered the lapels and pulled the coat tight about her. The thing must have weighed ten pounds, at least. The wool was still warm with the heat of his body. But the best part was how it smelled—intensely wonderful and intensely Rafe. She inhaled deep, surreptitiously breathing in the scents of coffee, leather, oil of wintergreen. And that faint musk that was uniquely his. She’d never been so thoroughly enveloped by another person’s scent before. It felt intimate somehow.
Almost like an embrace.