I straightened, catching his eyes then looking to the right where I’d spied a drinks cart earlier.
And there it sat right now.
Back to him and I raised my brows.
“With my sisters,” he added, lifting a leather portfolio and plopping it in front of me.
So we were going old-school, and this agreement was on paper, not electronic.
Interesting.
I tucked my bag in my lap and reached forward to take it.
Bartholomew realized pet time was over, but he didn’t return to Daddy.
Oh no.
He shifted his bulk against my knee, then, no other way to put it, he dissolved down my satin-covered shins with a hearty groan to rest his considerable mass on my feet.
This meant I was smiling when I opened the portfolio.
“Who’s Christian?” I asked as I scanned it.
“A botany PhD candidate from Oxford. He’s writing his dissertation, studying the physiology or genetics or some such of the plants in our gardens.”
This must be the sandy-haired handsome guy who’d been checking out Chastity as much as the roses earlier that day.
“Is he a member of the family or something?”
“No. He’s a PhD candidate who reached out to us to ask if he could study our gardens for his dissertation.”
With all the mystery surrounding The Downs, this surprised me.
“And you said yes?”
“Apparently,” he drawled, eloquently pointing out that was a stupid question.
I gestured to myself with the portfolio. “You seem to say yes a lot.”
“I’m not an ogre, Vivienne. Though, I might seem to be if I’m dealing with a stubborn American.”
Oh my God.
This guy.
“I’m not stubborn,” I retorted. “And being American has nothing to do with anything.”
“Allow me to amend. An argumentative American.”
Yet again I was opening my mouth to retort, then I bit it back, feeling the heat of annoyance sting my cheeks, and I forced my attention to the agreement.
“When she blushes, the freckles across her nose come out even stronger,” he said under his breath, but even if he was pretending to talk to himself, I was oh-so supposed to hear.
I gave up reading the agreement and snapped, “I wasn’t blushing. That was annoyance. And I’ll ask you to refrain from commenting on my person.”
“Does that mean you’d prefer me not to tell you I think that’s a rather fetching frock you’re wearing?”
Oh yeah.
