Take the day off with me,I want to say, but the words die in my throat. There’s a long pause, like Maddy’s waiting for the invitation, but I clam up. Offering this young woman pleasure is one thing, but what else do I have to give her?
What else could we possibly have in common? She’d hardly enjoy my piles of dusty notes and ancient plant samples, and for the last eight years, those have been my whole life.
For a sickly moment, my small, barren world is thrown into stark relief. I shift against the bench and clear my throat, hot with embarrassment, but Maddy smooths over my awkward silence.
“Oh, I could never do that,” she says, tugging out her hair tie and quickly unweaving her ruined braid. When she runs her hands through her loose waves, the scent of her shampoo washes over me.Coconut.Another food ruined for life. “Play favorites like that, I mean. Mrs Ainslie would give me such alook. Can you imagine?” Maddy snorts, rebraiding her hair with expert fingers. “Mr Jenkins, too. No, this has to be top secret.”
She turns and gives me a faux-stern look, and I draw a small cross over my chest in response. “Cross my heart, Madeleine.”
“Good.” Maddy grins and hops up, her black dress fluttering around her thighs, and stretches her arms overhead. “‘Cause I was hoping to stay here at least until the spring, and if everyone finds out we’re hooking up, that could get super awkward.”
I nod along, but my heart is a leaden stone, sinking to the bottom of my chest.
The spring? Already the days are getting longer, with sunshine chasing away winter’s chill. When does spring officially begin? How much longer do I have with this girl?
“Of course. I will be the soul of discretion.”
Maddy beams, leaning in to where I’m still sitting stupidly on the bench for a long, deep kiss. Can she taste herself on my lips? I tilt my head, frowning into the kiss, dragging it out for as long as she’ll let me. My hands come up to cup her face, holding her close as her tongue strokes mine.
When Maddy finally breaks away and steps back, she’s flushed again, eyes bright. Her thighs squeeze together beneath her dress, and I know instinctively that if I tugged her close and leaned back on the bench again, she’d happily straddle my face for a second time.
Tempting. It’s shamefully tempting, but I clear my throat and let her go instead, swatting Maddy’s ass as she turns away and smirking at her laugh.
There’s already so much to process. And besides, if she wants to keep this secret, we can’t spend hours together, just waiting to get caught.
I’ve promised Maddy I’ll be discreet.
For however long I have her.
…Fuck.
Eight
Maddy
The rest of the day crawls by at a snail’s pace. After hurrying back across the grounds, sneaking up to my attic bedroom to swap out my underwear and clean up a little, then slipping back to my abandoned vacuum cleaner… the world grinds to a halt.
Every second lasts a minute.
Each minute lasts an hour.
And each passing hour takes a whole damn year.
I’m trapped in this wing of the manor, dusting and vacuuming and polishing, my clumsy limbs going through the motions even as my mind replays our greenhouse encounter over and over again.
The soft tickle of Lord Westmore’s beard against my inner thighs. His hot breath wafting against my panties. The mischievous gleam in his eyes, the salt and pepper at his temples, the possessive way he gripped my ass as he tilted his magnificent head up and—
“‘Scuse me.”
Another housemaid scuttles past me through the dining room doorway, carrying a huge armful of folded linens. She’s one of the day workers who walks to work across the land bridge every morning; blue eyed and red haired with a lilting local accent. We’ve chatted before a couple of times, mostly about the grumpy cats that live in the manor or the weather outside, but we’re not close or anything. The mainland girls tend to keep to their own.
A few weeks ago, that fact would have left me so hollow and lonely. Cursing my own flighty personality, and the way it’s kept me from putting down roots and making real connections. The way I’ll leaveheresoon too, drawn away by the constant call to adventure, only to start over somewhere else, always the lonely stranger.
But today, I smile briefly at the other girl, then turn back to polishing the mantelpiece, lost once again in daydreams of our reclusive employer. Maybe this is temporary, but it’s intoxicating while it lasts. And…
What is West doing right now?
Is he thinking of me too?
