“You work the fields yourself?” She stared at him in amazement.
George handed her the purple flower. “As I said, you shouldn’t be too quick to judge a person. There could be more to them than you think.”
“What about the child?”
“Miss Granger has a ten-year-old brother. She’s doing her best to see him through school.”
Miss Hollyoak blinked. Contrition filled her eyes next. “I fear I’ve misjudged you most grievously, Mr. Townsbridge. I’m truly sorry for the assumptions I’ve made. Can you forgive me?”
“I suppose I can try,” he told her with a mischievous lilt to lighten the mood. “If you can forgive me for expecting you to be insufferably arrogant.”
Her eyes widened. “There’s nothing remotely arrogant about me.”
“So I’ve discovered, but when my father first mentioned you to me, he described you as prim and proper, perfectly turned out, accomplished, the sort of lady who kept the very best company and never did one thing wrong. Needless to say, I imagined you as a porcelain doll who never stepped off her pedestal for fear of soiling the soles of her shoes.”
“What a horrid notion.”
“I know.” They sat for a moment in silence while the sun warmed their skin. Eventually George looked at her and said, “I’m glad you told me you liked to muck about in the dirt while searching for worms and the like.”
“Even though it wasn’t true?” she asked, meeting his gaze.
“The veracity doesn’t really matter. What’s relevant is that it gave us the means by which to bond in an interesting and unique way.”
“I really enjoyed our time together by the lake,” she confessed. “So much so, I’m almost tempted to take up the hobby I invented in order to chase you away.”
“Instead, you achieved the opposite.”
“I did?”
Too mesmerized by her sparkling eyes, George could only nod. He reached for a stray lock of hair and tucked it behind her ear. Unable to resist the pull, he allowed his hand to linger against the smoothness of her cheek. When she leaned into his touch, quickening the beat of his heart, he no longer had a choice. He simply had to kiss her.
Chapter Four
MARGARET’S PULSE LEAPTthe moment Mr. Townsbridge’s lips met hers. It was as if the universe shifted to let the stars align in the way they were always meant to. She sucked in a breath as his mouth moved over hers, not in desperation or frenzy, but in a caress so tender it filled her heart to overflowing.
She leaned in to meet him more fully, to impart her own growing fondness. How blind she’d been and oh, how she’d misjudged him because of it. This wasn’t the sort of man she ought to run from, but rather the sort whose attention she should be lucky to gain. Even if he’d had lovers in the past, the important part was that he’d not coerced or tricked them with false promises.
