“We did say eight o’clock, my lady, did we not? Unless you wagered I would not make it.” He arched a brow in challenge.
She opened her mouth to deny the charge, but then she shrugged. “I did guess you might have forgotten our meeting. I suppose that was an unkind assumption, I apologize.”
“You needn’t,” he said with a low chuckle that seemed to make its way into her bloodstream. “I am a bad bet, my lady. You might have been right more than half the time.”
She worried her hands together before her, uncertain how to respond to his playful magnetism. Part of her wanted to laugh. He brought that out so easily. But…it felt dangerous to do so.
He seemed to sense her discomfort and stepped away, granting her space as he turned around in a circle to look about him. “It’s already a beautiful space,” he said.
She nodded. “My favorite on the estate, truth be told. This spot in particular.”
He focused his attention on the little nook where they stood. “Let me guess, you curled up on the bench where you’ve laid your designs and read before the statue.”
She couldn’t help her smile then, for he had guessed entirely right and it brought her back to long, lazy days where she’d done just that. “Persephone and I shared a great many stories, yes.”
His eyes widened a little and he looked a bit closer at the statue. Lizzie found herself watching him instead of following his gaze. He took in the lines of the marble young woman’s face, beautiful and soft as she glanced downward with an almost coquettish smile.
“Persephone, eh?” he said, his voice a little rougher now. “I would not have pegged you for a devotee.”
“She made the god of the underworld love her,” she said softly as she shifted her attention from him to the statue she had long loved. “She found the good in Hades. And according to legend, she is the reason for all these flowers and trees. Life and death, light and dark. What is not to like?”
She felt him watching her, and she shifted beneath the sudden regard. Heat suffused her cheeks and she caught her breath as she lunged toward the plans. “At any rate, I have my mother’s designs. Now that you are in the space, perhaps we can discuss them at greater length.”
He did not follow her for a moment. She still felt his gaze on her back and she waited for him to say something more about the statue or the myth or anything else that would peel away a layer she’d wrapped around herself for protection.
But he didn’t. Instead, he stepped up to join her. He leaned in, examining the plans carefully. “Hmm, yes, I see. She wanted to change the plantings. Moving the bushes and trimming them should be easy enough. Now what about this?”
He pointed to a gazebo that was to be built in the far corner of the garden, right beside the exit of the hedge maze and near the place where the garden met the long, rolling hills of the remainder of the estate grounds.
“What about it?” Lizzie asked.
“Why not move it?” he pressed, skimming his index finger across the plans gently. He seemed to be trying to divine a location and then he settled on the opposite side of the garden. “Here. It makes more sense with the path line.”
She scowled and reached out to push his hand away. “No.”
He straightened up and stared at her. “No? Just no?”
She folded her arms and glared at him. “We—we are not altering the plans, Morgan.” She caught her breath at the inappropriate slip of the tongue. Had she truly called him by his Christian name? What was wrong with her? “Mr. Banfield.”
He was silent for a breath and then he cocked his head. “Morgan. And why not?”
She hesitated. It was a good question. In truth, when she thought of where he wished to place the gazebo, it probably did make more sense and would be more useable for garden parties and small gatherings with friends. And yet she didn’t want to do what he suggested.
And she didn’t trust him enough to tell him why.
“It’s none of your business,” she whispered, snatching up the plans and folding them gently.
She waited for him to argue. Or to become angry at her reticence, certainly her unexplained peevishness deserved a set down. But he did neither of those things. He just watched her, dark brown eyes tracking over her face, down to the plans, as if he were assembling the puzzle of her without any effort at all.
She fought to stand her ground in the face of that.
“I believe I have misread the situation,” he said at last. “Elizabeth, I thought you wanted my creative input on your project.”
She ignored the fact he had just called her by only her Christian name and worried her lip. “I…do. I-I did.”
He tilted his head. “But you don’t want me to change anything.”
“Er…no?” She said it as a question because when stated out loud it did seem ridiculous. And patently unfair to him.
