Amelia rubbed her lips together. Good thing he hadn’t been there to seeherreaction when she arrived. “But all this history, all the people who have lived out their lives here. Upstairs, downstairs, as you say. Triumphs, disappointments, love stories, tragedies… Every scratch, every broken statue—broken chandelier!—tells a story. Like, you don’t love your grandmother any less because she has a few wrinkles, right?”
“My grandmother doesn’t have wrinkles.”
“Huh?”
“Botox. Fillers. She’s like my mother, likes everything to be shiny and new.”
Amelia smoothed a hand down the stubble on Tom’s cheek, and he faced her. “You’re like this place, you know.”
“High maintenance and barely holding it together?”
“Good bone structure, a solid foundation, and a complete lack of artifice.”
“I can’t afford artifice, well, not until now. Though it would be nice to restore some to the house. Or I could walk away with the diamond and live on a yacht in the Med.”
“You already knew about the ‘sound mind’ clause, didn’t you? That the estate is technically yours, along with the earldom, or whatever you call it.” At his querying look, she added, “I could tell by your expression. There were a lot of surprises, but that wasn’t one.”
“I don’t use the title I’ve got. I don’t need another. And I don’t consider this place to belong to me.”
“But you very much belong toit.”
He grunted. “Maybe so. My grandfather wasn’t keen to execute the ‘sound mind’ clause after the accident, though I guess we now know why. He would have had to get Eddie ruled mentally unfit, which might have made things more perilous for Connor, legally. And maybe then the truth would have come out.”
“Could be a drawcard for the tourists—you could charge them for selfies with the earl. You could charge them for dates!”
“Amelia! Are you saying I should pimp myself out?”
She laughed. It gave her a rush even to hear him say her name. Hell, it gave her a rush to look at his face. It gave her a rush every damn time he touched her. “An aristocrat dating show could bring in some cash. You could find an American heiress! Not that you need one anymore.” She picked a chunk of plaster from his hair. “You could use a shower though.”
“I bet you regret declining my offer to make you my countess now!”
“Ha, I’d forgotten. Yesterday morning seems like months ago.”
“Craziest first date ever.”
She screwed up her face. “I’m not so sure about that.”
“You’ve had crazier first dates?”
“No. I just don’t remember being asked out. For it to be a date, it should be premeditated.” She felt stupidly nervous about fishing for a date, considering everything they’d been through. Maybe because now she felt like she had something to lose if he didn’t reciprocate. And something to win. Definitely something to win.
“Like murder.” He grinned for a second, then his face fell. “Oh God, that’s not the sort of joke I should be making. Okay then…” He gave a broad smile that showed his dimple in all its glory. “My dear Miss Bennett with two Ts… Hang on, was that too forward—the ‘my dear’?”
“Probably. But seeing as I already had my wicked way with you…”
“True. Would you do me the great honor of accompanying me on a date? In fact, let’s run away. Escape!”
She assessed him coolly. “Isn’t that what got us in this mess in the first place?”
“You wanted to go to Bath, didn’t you? Let’s go. Take the waters—especially since this place is now a crime scene.”
“We could promenade. Take turns about the assembly rooms, if you can even walk. Have tea. Eat ice cream. Drink wine—strictly grocery store. Kind sir, I would be enchanted to accept your proposal—the Bath one, not the countess one.”
“Capital!”
He cradled her face and kissed her again. As things started to get heated, there was a solid crack and a gut-churning split-second of weightlessness, and then they landed butt-first on the ground.
“Oh no,” she said, laughing. “We broke the love seat!” She rubbed her butt, groaning. She already had a sizable bruise there, possibly from falling down the stairs. Now that the crisis had passed, she was discovering a great deal of scrapes and bruises.
