“The first time my mother put me on a reducing diet,” she said, wrinkling her nose.
He frowned. “A diet?”
“I need to lose weight. I have ever since I was the tender age of thirteen, actually. Perhaps even a bit younger.”
“No, you don’t. I disagree.”
“Well, I think I do. Your mother agrees, given the precept oft repeated in The Mirror: ‘Virtue’s livery is a comely shape.’ As does,” she said consideringly, “most of the ton, given the number of slimming tips that have been whispered to me in ladies’ retiring rooms.”
The cruelty of Olivia being taught to loathe an aspect of herself that—to be frank—he thought was perfect made his heart feel as if something had broken loose inside. He straightened, leaned toward her. Her head angled instinctively, and their mouths met, hot and sweet, breath fast from the climb, or perhaps just proximity . . . She tasted like sunshine and grass. Like happiness.
Careful, he moved closer, not breaking the kiss, then leaned against the trunk of the tree and pulled her into his arms, being sure not to break her hold on the branch at shoulder level. “Olivia,” he murmured against her mouth. “What’s my name?”
She opened heavy-lidded eyes. “What did you say?”
“My name,” he said, and then couldn’t wait, snatching an openmouthed kiss, a silken mating of tongues.
“Quin,” she said, drawing back. And then: “We’re flirting again.”
“We’re out of flirtation and into the fire. But in any event, no one of our rank could possibly be kissing in a tree.”
“So that means we aren’t where we think we are?” Her eyes shone with amusement, and her lips were swollen from his kisses. “Or this isn’t us in the tree? Or you’re not a duke?”
“I must not be,” he said thirstily, curling a hand around the back of her neck. “I’m not a duke. And you’re not betrothed to a marquess, either.”
They sank into the kiss as if they’d been kissing for years. His hands burned to take the kiss further, to run a finger, a hand, both hands, down the thin linen of her bodice. No corset.
He could hardly bear to look.
And then he did look, and actually groaned softly. “You have—” he said, and had to stop for a moment. “I think yours are the most beautiful breasts I’ve ever seen.”
She glanced down and then at him. Oddly, for someone who seemed as experienced as she was, her cheeks turned pink and she looked self-conscious for a moment. Abashed.
But then she seemed to shake it off. “We need that kite,” she said, pointing at it, which just strained her bodice even more. “Surely, Mr. I’m-not-a-duke, you can reach it?”
Quin wrestled with the part of his body that felt—strongly—that he wanted to reach not for a kite, but for the delectable female body that stood before him. She was still breathing quickly from the climb, or their kisses, or both, and the movement of her breasts bewitched him.
Leaves swayed all around them, creating a little bower, a room whose walls flickered with sunshine and green shadows.
If only there were a bed. He imagined her under him, struggling for breath, her cheeks a wild rose, hair around her head like a pillow.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said sharply. “You mustn’t.”
“How about if I only look like this when we’re high in a tree?” he suggested.
“This won’t happen again.”
“Precisely.” So he looked again, head to toe. “You’re exquisite, Olivia.” He searched for more words, but couldn’t find them, of course. He could never find the right words when he most needed them.
“You are very appealing as well,” she said primly. “Not that it matters in either case, insofar as we are not birds and cannot live in this tree. I’m surprised your family hasn’t come in search of us.”
“Aunt Cecily was asleep in the cart, and I’m fairly sure that Justin is napping in the grass. His kite probably flew off by itself; he is far too lazy to retrieve it from a tree or elsewhere.”
“Please, can you fetch my kite?” she asked, redirecting him to the original reason they had climbed so high.
Obediently, he stretched an arm and wiggled the kite free, managing to avoid tearing the fragile silk. He carefully let it spiral to the ground, controlling its fall through the branches and tossing the spool of string after.
“You are all dappled with leaves and sunlight,” she observed.
“As are you,” he said, running a finger down the curve of her cheek. “If Justin were here, he would make up a poem. I suppose we’d better descend from this tree. I’ll go first, so I can catch you if you fall.”
“Wait,” she said, touching his arm lightly. Her touch sent a pulse of fire straight to his groin. “May I ask you something? What happened when you took the kites from the box, Quin?”
He hadn’t expected that. Though he should have.
“Nothing.”
She let her hand slide up his arm, over his shoulder, curl around his neck. “You don’t want me to pull you off the branch, do you?” Her lips were smiling, but her eyes were serious.
“Time was when I would have begged you to,” he said, the words coming from somewhere outside his control.
She waited.
But he couldn’t bring himself to say more. “We should go back,” he said, knowing the gruffness in his voice was its own confession.
“Did your wife like the kites? Was that one hers?” Olivia nodded toward the red kite on the grass below them.
“No. It was . . .” He had to wait a moment. Slap the layer of black ice back where it belonged until he was able to speak. “That was the nanny’s. She was called Dilys. She was . . . she was . . . she liked bright colors and laughter. She was from Shropshire.”
“Like Riggle?”
“I forgot you met him. Yes, she was his daughter. He’s forgiven me, Lord knows how.”
Her eyes met his, gentle and steady. “I am quite sure there was nothing to forgive. How old was your child?”
“Five.” It came out a harsh whisper, and he cleared his throat, tried again. “Alfie would be ten now.”
“Alfie?” Her whole face transformed when she smiled. “I love his name.”
“He was named after my father: Alphington Goddard Brook-Chatfield. Though I called him Alfie, to my mother’s enormous dismay. Dilys gave him the nickname; she’d been with him from birth. And—” He stopped, momentarily, then said steadily, “at the end as well. They drowned, you see. My wife, too.”
Very delicately, Olivia slipped an arm around his neck. Then she let go altogether and stepped onto his branch. Quin felt a moment of panic, but the limb was stout. And she was close against him, clouding his mind. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“Right,” he said, awkward as always. He should know what to say, he thought, frustrated.
Her mouth feathered over his. “Rupert sees his father every Thursday from two to three o’clock. I have the feeling that you saw Alfie more often than once a week.”
“I couldn’t stay away,” Quin said, leaning back against the trunk again, one arm around her waist, the other holding tightly to a branch over their heads. “From the moment I saw him . . . I couldn’t stay away.”