“Is it always like that?” she whispered after a moment.
“I’ve never experienced anything like that. I’m not certain there’s a word for what that was.”
“So it was— I did it properly?”
Benedict decided in that moment that his life’s mission was to ensure she never had cause to sound unsure again. “Any more properly and I’d never walk again.”
Eliza gave a pleased little hum, tracing the lines of his chest with her fingernails.
“This next bit can be a bit of a… mess.” Reluctantly and at great personal cost, Benedict shifted his hips to slip from her warmth. It was also the moment the potential consequences of their choices knocked at the door of his mind.
He brushed the thought aside in favor of wrapping his arms around her. He grasped the corner of a blanket, wiping away the evidence of their combined pleasure with a pang of disappointment.
“Did you— Was it enjoyable for you?” he asked, waiting for the gnawing sense of loathing that typically accompanied any display of vulnerability, but it was strangely dormant.
“Very much so,” she said, before popping her head up to prop her chin on his chest. “Can we do it again?”
Benedict’s smile tugged at his lips. “I would very much like to say yes and spend the rest of the day between your thighs.”
“But?”
He tipped his head toward the windows, where the sun was very much up. “It’s frankly a miracle we’ve not been discovered as it is, what with an entire fire brigade nosing about the grounds.” Benedict captured her pout with his lips.
“Well, if you simply must be practical about it, I suppose I am quite hungry.” Despite her musing, Eliza made no indication that she wished to move from her perch atop him.
There was still one lingering, impossibly weighty question running through his head on a constant loop. Desperately, he wanted to ask her to marry him, to be his wife, to build a new home and a life together.
But he had no home, no living, no kind of life to offer to a wife—especially one so fine as Eliza. And so he bit his tongue.
Instead, he took a moment to appreciate her mouthwatering curves as she popped up to her feet to toss her chemise, robe,and slippers back on. Then he thrusted his own legs into his breeches.
Reality pressed against the edges of the glass walls. Outside, the world waited—consequences, expectations, and choices they could no longer outrun.
Benedict’s chest ached as they left their little greenhouse heaven. He couldn’t bring himself to release her hand as they made their way back to Weston’s house.
They stepped inside to find both Mr. and Mrs. Weston crowded around the table where Eliza had tended his back the day before. Wayland, too, was occupied with a plate of the bland porridge the physician prescribed for those who breathed in too much smoke.
He glanced up from his breakfast. “I will not ask where you’ve been. I beg of you, never tell me.” It was a far better reception than Benedict deserved, and he had no intention of sharing what he’d just done with Eliza.
“He has a greenhouse, Papa,” Eliza said by way of reply.
“He has a greenhouse,” Wayland repeated, seemingly to himself. “Of course he does. Only half of an actual house, but he has a greenhouse.”
Benedict wasn’t entirely certain what about that fact was irritating to Wayland, nor was he willing to risk the tentative truce they’d built during their rescue mission by pressing him on it.
“Well, petal, I always knew I’d lose you to the first man who could offer you a greenhouse.”
Eliza wrapped her arms around her father from behind and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Thank you, Papa.”
Benedict’s heart leaped before his head caught up, a giddy hope rising in his chest. He tamped it down, certain he would never survive the fall if he did not.
“I-I don’t understand.”
Wayland shot him a withering, albeit teasing, look. “As content as Lizzie would be to live in a greenhouse, I require a more solid roof over her head.” He held Benedict’s gaze a moment too long, something akin to pride in his eyes.
“I don’t?—”
“I have quite a debt to repay. I hope between that and any insurance you have, you’ll be able to build quite a strong one—ideally less flammable than the last.”
