Biting her lip to keep from shrieking once more, Jessie shook her head again. “Nay,” she refused, choking on her giggles.
“For Christ’s sake, if you won’t come down,” he advised her, “I shall be forced to come up after you.” Even as he issued thewarning, he was making his way up the oak branch. Yet when he reached the spot where she sat, he merely hauled himself onto the limb beside her, instead of dragging her down as she’d expected him to do.
“You had everyone worried.”
She sobered at that.
“I didn’t mean to,” she admitted, still smiling, though her eyes remained melancholy. “I simply needed to be alone.”
“You couldn’t do that safely within?”
Jessie choked on her reply. “Safe... within?”
He misunderstood her.
“I’m sorry for the disorder.”
That wasn’t what she’d been referring to, but she asked, “How can you live like that?”
“Actually, I haven’t been.” He yielded a lazy grin that sobered her completely. That smile had been her downfall once upon a time. But not this time, she swore—not if she could help it. She would not allow herself to melt like a giddy schoolgirl falling under his devil’s spell.
“It was my intent to stay in Charlestown during the construction,” he explained, reaching out and plucking a leaf. He stared at her. “Circumstances, of course, have dictated otherwise.”
She nodded knowingly. “If you’ve been inconvenienced,” she informed him at once, “’tis your own fault.”
Christian’s jaw tautened, but he said nothing in response to her accusation.
The silence between them grew awkward, but he found himself unwilling to abandon their unlikely refuge so soon. Nor could he end this bittersweet diversion as yet.
There were traces of tears in her eyes and upon her cheeks, but he attributed them to her laughter, and ignored the flash of guilt that stabbed at him.
Nor could he deny the fear that had gripped him when he’d found her gone. “Jessie,” he began, his words carefully weighed so as not to frighten her. “Do me the dubious favor of not leaving the house again—not without apprising someone of your whereabouts, whether it be Jean Paul... or even Ben,” he suggested reluctantly, raking his thumbnail over the spine of a leaf. He gazed at her with narrowed eyes as though to see into her thoughts, then sighed heavily. “So I’ll know... where to find you, if... if I need you.”
She averted her gaze. “What if I’ve no wish to be found?”
“Just give me your word,” he demanded, overlooking her flippant response. He tossed the leaf before him. “We’ve had reason to be concerned over gators here,” he lied, looking away. “ ‘Tis for your own well-being I ask this of you.” He turned again to face her. “’Tis true,” he insisted, seeing her wide-eyed expression. “We’ve a few animals missing with no sign of a carcass to be found. I should loathe that fate to be yours.”
A shiver passed down Jessie’s spine, but whether it was over his grisly disclosure, or the way he was gazing at her so solicitously, she could not discern. “And what makes you think ’tis a gator?”
His eyes held hers, unblinking. “For one... ’tis their way to haul their prey back to their nest and dispose of it there, thus no carcass would be found.”
Jessie made a disgusted face. “Gruesome!” she declared, tearing her gaze away. “They are the vilest of creatures.”
He smiled ruefully. “I rather thought you believed I was the vilest of creatures?”
“Yes, well... it seems you have a rival, after all, my lord.” She cocked a brow at him, unable to reassure him, though she was tempted. “Tell me,” she said on a sigh, glancing away, then back, somehow more composed, “are they always so vicious?”
He shook his head, his eyes alight with some unnamed emotion.
Christian’s heart began to pound, for it had not escaped him that she’d managed to call him “my lord.”
“Of usual,” he said, clearing his throat, “they keep very much to themselves.”
“Really? Why not now?”
“Perhaps because their hunting ground has been overrun—or because there are too many, possibly. I dunno. Of usual, they are rather docile creatures.” He smiled, thoroughly amused over the way her brow rose at his disclosure.
“’Tis true,” he asserted, his smile deepening when she cocked her head as though considering. “In fact, I once stood so close to a gator as to be nearly standing upon its snout.” He chuckled softly at the memory, shaking his head in wonder. “It did nothing... nothing at all. In fact, the lazy beast did not so much as stir from the spot where it lay sunning. However,” he continued on a dire note, “those to be found here upon the Ashley seem more vicious than those found inland. They seem to prefer fresh water, and ’tis my guess that if they are found in these salt rivers, such as the Ashley or the Cooper, it is because they are hungry and foraging.”
