She lifted a brow and tried to sound playful. “Why, Lord Curdiff! Did you have an ulterior motive in mind?”
He chuckled. “As a matter of fact, I did.”
She loved this carefree side of him. “Do tell.”
He glanced at her, his blue eyes twinkling with merriment. “Do you remember theRoman Ruins?”
She laughed, scrunching her nose up in distaste. “You can’t tell me thatpile of rubble isstill standing.”
He grinned so wide that he showed even, white teeth. “Let’s have a look, shall we?” He grasped her hand and pulled her behind him, walking so fast that she nearly had to jog to keep up with him.
When he broke into a run, she shouted with glee and put a hand on her bonnet to keep it from flying off her head.Thiswas the Travell Abernathy that she knew. The man she had fallen head over heels in love with.
They ran across the valley, along the forest line, stopping only when they reached a grassy knoll. There, they stopped, both slightly out of breath,as they looked up at the pile of stones that she and Triana had dubbed the ‘Roman Ruins’ so long ago. Of course, they were nothing of the sort, but they had spent many hours there, reinventing Shakespeare’s plays and slaying the dragons for the knights that weren’t worthy of wielding King Arthur’s sword. The times Travell had joined them, he had rolled his eyes, but she had to imagine that some part of him actually enjoyed their theatrics.
“I loved coming here,” she whispered, her chest tightening with those innocent days of her youth, the ones that went by entirely too fast.
“I know. It seemed you were here every day I was home from school.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “We didn’t make you come along.”
“No,” he returned dryly. “My mother did.”
She slapped his armin a slight rebuke, and then walked toward the boulders. Now that she was back here, it didn’t resemble a fortress so much as a pile of forgotten rocks, but she settled herself on one of the larger boulders just the same. She lifted her chin in the air and did her best impression of a queen on her throne. “Entertain me, Jester, or I shall feed you to the crocodiles of the Egyptian Nile.”
Travell instantly placed a hand over his heart. “I should hate to disappoint such a lovely lady.”
Alyssa laughed as he gathered three small pebbles from the ground and proceeded to juggle them. She gasped when he kept the circle going for quite some time, before he caught them all in his palm and bowed dramatically.
She clapped enthusiastically. “Well done! I think you deserve to be knighted for such a dashing performance.” She rushed over and snapped a dead twig off of a nearby tree and held it out before her. “Bow before your queen.” Travellbent downon one knee,and obediently lowered his head. She giggled as she touched the twig to one shoulder and then the other. “I knight you Sir Dashing of all the land. Arise and pledge allegiance toyour monarch!”
She lowered her ‘sword’ as hegottohis feet. And whether it was the absurdity of the moment, or the charged electricity in the air from the brewing storm, the humor in his eyes shifted to something even more enticing. Alyssa’s mouth parted and she let the twig fall to the ground, completely forgotten.
Like a flash of lightning, they were in each other’s arms, the kiss more magnetic than anything they had shared before.
Alyssa yearned to tear his jacket off his shoulders and rip the buttons off his waistcoat and shirt so that she could feel the firm heat beneath. He must have been thinking something very similar, for his hands roamed over her back, pressing her urgently against him.
When they finally broke apart, they were breathing more heavily than when they’drunacross the length of the grounds. But before either one of them could say a word, thunder rumbled overhead and the rain poured down.
***
By the time they returned to Rosewood, they were both soaked to the skin, but the laughter that filled the cavernous halls as they stumbled into the foyer was entirely worth it. Alyssa’s bonnet was in a sad state of disrepair and her hair hung about her face in a bedraggled mess, but she had never enjoyed the rain so much.
“My boots are actuallysquishing.”
Travell’s dry comment sent off another round of hilarity that made her stomach ache. But when he turned to her with a crooked grin, his dark hair falling into his face, those blue eyes so dreamy—she was quite breathless for another reason.
As the merriment subsided, they stared at one another, that same pull from atop the ruins slowly starting to bring them back together…
“Shall I take your things, my lord?”
Alyssa blinked, and turned to Ives who was standing by expectantly.Travell shrugged out of his jacket, leaving him clad in his waistcoat, cravat, and white shirt, which was clinging to him rather nicely, showing off the defined muscles beneath the thin cambric.
Alyssa handed over her redingote and her pitiful bonnet with a shiver. Travell must have noticed her sudden chill, for he said, “Why don’t we retire to the parlor?” He addressed his butler. “Ives, see that a fire is set and a teacart is brought up straightaway.”
“Yes, my lord.”
As they settled across from one another, both of them seeming to appreciate that they needed some distance, Alyssa glanced about the room. It was just as she remembered it, decorated in soft shades of pale peach with gold trimmings. “Triana was the only girl I knew whose favorite color was orange.”
