He smiled a faint, sad smile. “I know how you feel. I want to be doing something to fix the situation, too, but there’s nothing I can do. It’s all useless now. I might as well sell the land to the Hairy Tit people, since they, at least, would have some use for it.”
“That’s defeatist talk, right there. I think the first thing to do is to look at the remains—when you can, since I assume it’s probably still unsafe to poke around now—and see if there’s anything to be salvaged. And then maybe talk to the bank about getting a loan to rebuild.”
“Rebuild?” He frowned. “Why would I want to do that?”
“Because it’s your home, and I like it here, and dammit, you made me fall in love with you, and that means the least you can do is provide me with a gorgeous country home on the coast of Cornwall where we can live in peace and raise children and horses and possibly sheep. I like sheep. You can use them in place of lawn mowers. Did I tell you that I did a year of agricultural management?”
He laughed, and pulled me over his chest, kissing me in a way that lit up all my insides. “No, but I’m not surprised. You’d better get to your waiting pupils before I decide that the best thing for me is incredibly steamy morning sex.”
“Hey, there’s nothing that says I can’t get in a quickie before class.”
He waggled his eyebrows. “Who says it will be quick?”
“Oooh.” I leaned down to kiss him, murmuring, “I do love you, you know,” against his lips.
“I know,” he said.
I thought of pinching him and telling him that now was the perfect moment for him to reciprocate, but decided he’d had enough for the last twenty-four hours, and instead took myself off for a fast shower, and a faster breakfast.
Things would get better, I promised myself as I ran down the drive to the blackened burning wreck of what used to be the house. It certainly couldn’t get worse.
Chapter 17
Alden was beginning to feel hunted. Barry Butcher seemed to dog his footsteps for four straight days. No matter where he was, he’d turn around and there was Barry, trying to force on him a sheaf of papers and an offer for the land.
Alden tried hard not to think about Barry’s offer, or the future of the house and land. Not after the bank refused to give him a loan, and his insurance agent regretfully told him that there was nothing they could do without a policy in place.
To be sure, there was the time two days after the fire when Mercy found him sitting on a fallen bit of the north wall, a notebook in hand, idly drawing an outline of what the house used to be, unmanly tears staining his cheeks.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Mercy had asked,putting both of her arms around him, and distracting him from the depressing contemplation of the house. Her warmth and love surrounded him, cocooning him in a way that left him breathless with want.
“No,” he said, turning and kissing her. “I don’t want to even think about it.”
Despite that statement, he found himself obsessed with the house. He thought about it when he woke up, his limbs pleasantly entangled with Mercy’s, taking quiet pleasure in her soft snores against his shoulder. He thought about it during the day, when he threw himself wholly into the Hard Day’s Knights’ gearing up for Fight Knight, as well as several additional training sessions with Vandal.
“You’re a natural at this,” Vandal told him, pulling off his helm. “You have the balance to remain on your feet—most of the time—and the sword arm to take down even the biggest competitor.Ifyou stay focused, which you don’t far too often for my liking.”
Alden unhooked his helm and peeled off his arming cap, using it to wipe the sweat from his face. “I said I was sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize to me,” Vandal replied, taking a towel and soaking it with water before wiping it over his face. “You’rethe one who took a mace to the back because you weren’t paying attention.”
Alden wiggled his shoulders inside the armor, wincing at the ache in his back as he did so. He’d definitely feel that in the morning. “I’ll try to be more focused, although I really don’t belong competing in the Fight Knight event. I’m just an amateur.”
“We’re all amateurs. And you have just as much talent as any of the other competitors, or you would ifyou’d not let your mind wander.” Vandal tossed the towel into a bucket.
During his time away from the fighting ring, Alden drew plans, made lists, and brainstormed ways he could raise the funds to build something—anything—on the land that he owned, so that he could live there with Mercy and her horses and sheep and children. For a man who was determined not to think about it, he certainly spent a vast amount of time doing just that.
“What are you doing?” Mercy asked the day before the big event, stopping where he sat on a bale of hay. She had bunting in her hand, and was helping Fenice decorate the garden. “Thinking about the house?”
“Of course not,” he said resolutely, closing the notebook in which he’d been making sketches of a modified version of the old hall. “I haven’t thought about it in days.”
“Right. And how’s that working out for you?”
He glared at her.
She blew him a kiss. “You keep at it, Alden. I have faith in you, even if it means you have to sell off that tit part of the land so we can build our dream Bestwood Hall II: The Next Generation.”
“It’s your unconditional love for me that is making you so optimistic,” he called after her. “I don’t think there’s any chance I can rebuild.”
