Page 63
“You’ve spoiled us today.”
“I’m aware.”
She held his gaze. A strand of hair had come loose from under the brim of her bonnet and lay across her cheek, and she let it lie. “You say that,” she said, “as though it settles the argument.”
“Doesn’t it?”
Her chin came up a fraction. The corner of her mouth moved once, and she turned back to Eloise. “Which length do you think?” she said to the girl.
He paid for the ribbon and tucked it into his coat pocket, and they walked on. The crowd had thickened near the center of the fair, and he put his hand at the small of her back to steer her around a cluster of people who had stopped mid-path to watch a juggler.
She did not comment. She did not move away from his hand. They were in contact for perhaps thirty seconds. He was aware of every one of them.
The acrobat stage had drawn the largest crowd of the fair, sixty people standing three deep around the low platform.
Eloise stood on her toes, craned her neck to the left, then the right, stepped sideways, and craned it again. Then she looked up at Adam, hands at her sides, and said nothing.
He crouched. “Come on, then.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Papa!” Eloise laughed, her pitch high, and the sound made him chuckle.
She had climbed onto his shoulder, and he had stood, catching her ankles. She seized a fistful of his hair with a delighted shriek.
“Leave the hair,” he pleaded, knowing that she tended to pull once she got hold of him.
Kind as she was, his beautiful daughter moved her hands to his collar, and he sighed in respite.
“Oh.” Her voice went high and hushed. “He’s standing on the other man’s head. Papa. Both feet.”
“I can see,” he said, a smile in his voice.
“How does he—”
“I haven’t any idea,” he said.
Juliet had moved in beside him. The crowd pressed from either side and kept her arm against his. Just the feel of her body against his own made him mad with his desire, and he wanted to set Eloise down and pull his wife away, into the bushes, and take her.
What are you thinking? He chided himself, deliberately looking ahead so as not to tempt himself any further.
He was losing his mind, wasn’t he? Here he was, lusting after her like a common beast with so little measure of self-control.
And yet…he couldn’t deny that he liked it.
Juliet tilted her head back to see Eloise’s face. “She’s completely lost,” she said, and he heard the amusement in her voice. It was like wine bubbling in his blood.
“That wouldn’t stop her.” He kept his eyes on the stage, grateful he could still hold a conversation while his mind spiraled. “She read something about acrobats in one of her books. She’s been asking about seeing them ever since.”
“So, you brought her.” Juliet’s tone was questioning, and he thought he heard admiration in it, too.
Adam cleared his throat once. “She is very persistent about the things she wants.”
“Hm, I can tell.” He could hear the smile in her voice. “She also said you always say yes eventually. It’s just a matter of finding the right moment and the right number of times to ask.”
He looked at Juliet then. She was watching the stage, her profile clear, her cheeks warm from the sun. A strand of hair had come loose at her temple and moved in the river breeze.
“She tells you a great deal,” he said.
