“Possibly both,” he said, and for a heartbeat, she wondered if he was speaking of more than roses.
Clara reached out, touching one of the blue blossoms.A thorn caught on her glove and pricked her finger clean through.Blood beaded instantly, vivid as the roses behind her.
She cursed a low, unladylike word.Before she could so much as inspect the damage, Crispin was at her side, a handkerchief already in hand.He wrapped her finger with quick, competent movements, his touch so gentle that it startled her more than the prick itself.
“There,” he said, knotting the cloth with deft fingers.She looked down.The linen square was pale and finely embroidered with a devil’s head monogram in the corner.
“I did not think you capable of first aid,” she said, distracted by the warmth of his hand around hers.
He did not let go.“You would be surprised what I am capable of.”
She met his gaze, blue on blue.Crispin’s hand lingered around hers, thumb tracing a circle just above the pulse in her wrist.
Her breath turned shallow.“You can release me, Lord Oakford.I am not in mortal peril.”
He did not move.“Perhaps I prefer to keep you in suspense.”
Her cheeks flushed.She pulled her hand free, but the gesture was more symbolic than forceful.
They stood in silence, the pause thick and lush as the garden itself.
Crispin tucked the stained handkerchief into his pocket.“You are welcome,” he said, tone mild, as though she were a recalcitrant child he had just saved from a scraped knee.
“I am hardly in your debt,” she replied, but the words rang hollow.Something in her had shifted, a degree or two off axis.She hated him for it, and yet, wanted nothing more than to see what else he might do to unsettle her world.
What the devil was wrong with her?
She stepped back, hands folded tight at her waist.“Thank you.For the assistance.”
“My pleasure, Lady Clara.”
She turned then and began retracing the path back toward the crowd.
Clara had meant to return to the crowd.To lose herself among the white pavilions and appropriate gentlemen, and let the memory of her encounter with Oakford dissolve in their company.But her feet conspired against her, carrying her down a quieter, winding path toward the estate’s wilder edges, the crunch of gravel loud in her ears.
Crispin followed, of course.She heard his tread behind her.Softer than she expected.She neither acknowledged nor invited him, but when the path narrowed and he fell in beside her, she did not protest.
For a few minutes, neither spoke.The garden’s wilder kin—the honeysuckle, the mock orange, the arching willow—crowded around, filtering sunlight into ragged green mosaics that mirrored the quiet disarray of Clara’s thoughts.Her anger from a moment ago ebbed with every step.The air smelled too much of summer for it to last.Sweet and thick with honeysuckle and memory.It softened something in Clara, loosening the grip of her indignation like silk unraveling.
“You walk as if you are being chased,” Crispin observed.
“Perhaps I am.”
He glanced sideways, smile bright and incorrigible.“If you wish to escape me, you will have to do better.”
She snorted, not bothering to soften the sound.“Why are you not among the guests, conquering the resolve of more inviting ladies?”
He pretended to consider it.“The company is better out here.”
She rolled her eyes, but the compliment, genuine or not, coaxed the edge from her retort.“I suppose you will now quote poetry and expect me to soften at the words.”
“I never quote poetry,” Crispin said.“It is a crutch for those with nothing to say.”
She nearly laughed.“A novel philosophy.”
They rounded a turn and came upon the old fountain, a feature Clara remembered from her first season, half-collapsed, its rim tilted, but still fed by a thin stream that trickled over the edge into a mossy basin.Someone had planted forget-me-nots around its feet, blue as the morning sky.Clara paused, and Crispin did too, as if the sight had summoned a truce neither wished to break.
He nudged her with his elbow, playful as a schoolboy.“Legend has it, if you throw a coin and make a wish, the fountain spits back what it does not want to keep.”
