“Well,” he began, half-wishing he’d inherited money or won his home on the turn of a card so he wouldn’t have to explain his choice to a crowd. “You may not think much of them, to look at the fields now. Lots of spiny shoots and arching stems and those prickly brambles I warned you about. But in the springtime, those branches are full and green, and covered in beautiful sweet-smelling flowers.”
Jane clapped her hands to her chest. “What color?”
“Er, white ones.” What waswithher and colors? Gavin did his best to stay on topic. “Then, over the course of the summer, the flowers fade away to give the berries room to grow among the leaves.”
Rebecca’s eyes widened. “Are the berries tasty?”
“Very much so. And by late summer, the ripened berries smell heavenly. They’re delicious and sweet, but sharp and prickly when you try to pick them. It’s important to wear gloves so they don’t scratch you.”
Rachel nodded sagely. “They don’t like to be picked.”
“Perhaps not. Even in the summer with all the flowers and berries, the hedgerows are beautiful but dangerous. Blackberry bushes like to grow wild and are very difficult to tame. You must stay on the paths and not touch the plants.”
“Even if we see berries?” Rebecca asked.
“Especially if you see berries. We don’t pick them after Michaelmas—September twenty-ninth. They become very bitter and can make you ill.”
“Even I wish to see these mysterious hedgerows,” came an amused female voice.
He glanced up in time to see Francine Rutherford looking surprised by her own admission.
“As do I,” rejoined her husband, and offered her his arm.
By the time Gavin rose to his feet, his guests were already en route to the rear of his property, with the twins scampering several feet ahead. He loped forward until he reached Miss Pemberton’s side and was inordinately pleased when she accepted his proffered arm as well.
“You are wonderful with children,” she said after a moment. “I imagine you will make a marvelous father.”
Gavin nearly took a header into the stone siding of his house. “A what? Me?”
She laughed up at him. “Surely the thought has occurred to you before.” Her smile turned wry. “I’m sure the thought is occurring to Lady Stanton even as we speak.”
He slowed to a stop, allowing the chattering guests to continue forward and disappear behind the house before he turned to face Miss Pemberton.
“For the devil’s sake, any thoughts that woman has about me have nothing whatsoever to do with reality. Look at me. Truly look at me. I’m—I’m—” He ran a hand through his hair hard enough to hurt. “I’m not the marrying sort. I can barely hold a civil conversation with the guests of my own house party. I would be the worst husband. I couldn’t manage to be a good son or a good brother. I—” He turned away and resumed walking, increasing his pace with each stride. “I don’t wish to discuss my many shortcomings. I’d rather show you the blackberry fields. I wish you could see them in the spring, before the berries bud when the flowers are in full bloom. They’re beautiful.”
He swept her around the corner of his house to the rear of his property before she could comment on his inability to participate in successful, caring relationships.
“My kingdom awaits.” He used his free arm to encompass the whole of his fields with a mocking, sweeping gesture, and then turned to grin at Miss Pemberton.
She had frozen.
Not the good kind of frozen, such as frozen in wonder, with eyes shining and lips parted and hands clasped and cheeks flushed with excitement.
The bad kind of frozen.
Her eyes were painfully wide, her skin devoid of color and sheened with perspiration. Her shallow breaths escaped from parted lips with a faint but unsettling wheeze. Farms were not for everyone, but the normally staid Miss Pemberton didn’t tend to overreact. In fact, the only other time he’d seen her in such a state was after she’d laid her hands on Heatherbrook’s corpse.
“Miss Pemberton?” He stepped forward and around, blocking her view of the blackberry bushes with his chest. He tilted her chin up until her gaze met his, and tried not to blanch himself at the terror in her eyes. “What is it? Tell me.”
“I can’t go in there. I can’t go in there. If I go in there, he’ll get me. Where is he? Is he here already?” She shuddered. “No. I won’t go in there.”
What the devil didthatmean?
“All right,” he said aloud, retaking her arm and steering her away from both the blackberry fields and his house. “We’ll save the farm tour for another day. See that little cottage ahead? It’s a summerhouse. I never had a reason to furnish it, so I apologize in advance for its lack of seating arrangements, but we’ll be close enough to the other guests without actually joining them”—good Lord, he was babbling as bad as Jane—“and we’ll be able to talk privately. Come. Just a few more feet.”
He half-carried her up the last three steps and into the summerhouse, and kicked the big white door closed behind them. There really wasn’t any furniture. Damn.
He backed against a window facing away from the fields, leveraged himself against the sill as best he could, with his feet spread wide, and pulled Miss Pemberton into his lap. Well, more like he pulled her into his embrace, as he’d tugged her to him face-forward. He smoothed down the sides of her gown until his hands curved over her hips, securing her between his thighs. Her palms settled atop his forearms.
