Above all, it was a day off from being herself. Just what the therapist ordered. Whether it was the wine or the company or just the escape, she was happy. Happy!Carefree. This was exactly the release in her soul she’d imagined when she’d launched her crazy last-minute scheme to come to the UK and Ireland. Booking the flight had felt like her first forward step in a year. Every other decision she’d made since the robbery had been a retreat. Leave the apartment. Leave Rory. Give up the public-facing parts of her job for more time in the conservationstudio. Give up going out in public altogether, because she couldn’t help but see the faces of the robbers in every second person she passed. Not that she knew what their faces had looked like under their balaclavas.
And, sure, fleeing across the Atlantic could also be viewed as a retreat, but it was at least a dramatic one. Now, finally, she was experiencing the buoyant escapism she got from reading or watching Austen, but a thousand times amplified. All because she’d absconded from a tour, got spooked, and fallen down some rotten stairs. Fate was weird.
Part of her—many parts of her—longed to lean forward and kiss Tom. There would be very few consequences. Sure, she’d be bummed at a rejection, but she could call a taxi or whatever. Sneak back and pick up the rental car later. She’d never have to see him again. It felt almost dangerous, the intensity with which she wanted him—and not just physically. She wanted to dive into his very soul. It was like she was drunk onhim, not the wine.
Yes, she thought, biting her lip. She, Amelia Bennett, was going to kiss him, Tom… Shit, what was his surname again? What did it matter? She was going to make a move. She’d read a blog by a psychologist about the power of taking a positive step to get yourself out of a funk.Take control of your journey, one small decision at a time. Starting with this.
She went to lean in, before she could change her mind and chicken out, but he abruptly stood and announced he needed to put wood on the fire. She exhaled back down, in a mixture of relief and disappointment, and picked up her goblet, which she’d just topped up. She was pretty sure he hadn’t read her intention, but maybe his sudden move was a sign. Hadn’t she just declared to herself that this situation was perfect, that she was happier than she’d been in a year? Why put that at risk?
As he crouched before the fire, arranging wood, she brazenly admired the way his breeches outlined a perfectly rounded butt and muscular thighs.
Safety was an illusion.
Screw it. She, Miss Amelia Bennett, was going to take the risk.
Just as soon as she finished her wine.
Chapter 5
Tom
Sometimes you didn’t know you were cold until you stepped into a warm room. You didn’t notice noise until you felt the relief of silence. You didn’t realize you’d become a miserable git until an American textiles expert with brown eyes that glittered in firelight fell down your stairs.
“Alcohol gets a bad name,” Amelia announced, as Tom finished stoking the fire and replaced the screen. “But there’s a reason it has the following it does. All things in moderation, as they say.”
“I’m not certain today counts as moderation.” Tom sat on the rug and picked up his 1967 Château Lafaurie-Peyraguey. Or was it the ’47 Château Climens? Who cared, as long as it was having the desired effect on his state of mind? Or was itAmeliahaving the desired effect on his mind? At this time of year, dusk sometimes felt like it came a few hours after dawn, but even that didn’t explain where the time had gone since she’d fallen down the stairs.
“But,” she said, holding up a finger, “if I’m sober ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time and I get roaring drunk the other zero-point-one percent… Wait, did I get that math right? Eitherway…” She raised her goblet for perhaps the thirtieth toast of the day. “This is the Jane Austen tour I didn’t know I needed.”
“To things you didn’t know you needed,” he said, toasting. In truth, he wasn’t even drunk, and she didn’t seem to have dropped a single syllable in wit or wisdom. It had become more of a wine-tasting experience than the booze fest he’d imagined. Most of the bottles were undrinkable, and they kept getting so caught up in conversation that they forgot to drink. “You must really rate Jane Austen, to come all this way.”
“I do.”
“What’s with that? An Emily Dickinson tour would have been cheaper.”
“Escapism, of course. I’ve been going through some …stuffrecently, and I went back and reread Austen’s books. They took me into another world when I was pretty disillusioned with this one. Do you not like Austen?”
It wasn’t the first time she’d obliquely referred to something dark in her recent past, or that she’d immediately lobbed the attention back to him. Conversational tennis. As per their agreement, they were escaping.
“I can see why she’s a big deal,” he said. “I read most of her stories while they were filming here. I rate the comedy. And the dysfunctional relationships are brilliant, which is most of them. But falling in ‘love’ with someone you barely know? Back then they conspired topreventpeople from truly knowing their spouse until after they were married.”
“You know, you’re in agreement with Jane Austen there. Several of her storylines serve as cautionary tales against love at first sight—that first impressions can’t be trusted. Sense over sensibility.”
“We’re lucky that we get more time to figure it out.” Unless, he added to himself, she was about to fly halfway across the world. Unless you only had one day. “Back then, if you andI had danced more than three times at one ball, we’d be proclaiming our engagement. Now, most of us have a few starter relationships that teach us what love is, or in my case, isn’t. I don’t like the idea of taking my chances with marrying a woman just because she has ‘fine eyes.’” He couldn’t help looking into Amelia’s objectively fine eyes as he said it. She was, in fact, objectively fine from head to foot. Effortlessly stylish and fresh against the aged backdrop, which made her seem right at home. Straight out of theTown & Countrymagazines his mother had once measured her life against.
Amelia raised her eyebrows. “So you don’t believe in love at first sight?” It sounded very close to a challenge.
“Does anyone, really? Attraction, sure, but that’s a low bar.” Again, he couldn’t help eyeballing her. “Do you?”
She chewed her bottom lip in that adorable habit she had when she was thinking. She was in ideal kissing distance. He leaned in a little, then caught himself. Bad form to ply a woman with wine and take advantage. And he was having far too good a time to ruin it by scaring her off.
He hadn’t lied when he said he was done trying to save the house. But somehow,this, right now, seeing how well Amelia fit the picture… It was one of those moments when he felt the defeat like an ache in his bones.
Thank God—or Miss Havisham or whatever apparition had tossed Amelia down his stairs—that she was here. He’d invited Connor to stay for a drink that morning, seeing as the estate had been his childhood home too, but Connor had been eager to clear off. Who could blame him, given his sorry history with the place?
So, Tom had resolved to make it a one-man pity party, seeing as Duncan wasn’t the type for a quiet daytime tipple, and that wasn’t the sort of relationship they shared. And Tom was fine with drinking alone—the concept of it, anyway. He’d neverunderstood the saying “misery loves company.” Misery was far more satisfying when you were alone, with no one to coerce you out of it. But he hadn’t counted on his mood deflating quite as quickly as it had when Connor had thrown up his hands that morning and declared they were officially done.
Tom wouldn’t have invited just anyone to share a drink. Certainly, Amelia was gorgeous in a mesmerizing way that was uniquely hers. That was clear even as she’d sat ensnared in cobwebs at the foot of the servants’ stairs. But he’d swiftly concluded that she was also funny and smart and endearingly geeky. A modern-day American Jane Austen, even. And just wild enough to bunk off an uninformed tour of a country house two centuries past its prime, but not so shameless as to immediately admit to it. Not to mention that she was a textiles conservator, which couldn’t be more compatible with a heritage architect.
