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19 Bedford Square

One week later

The next week passed in a blur of activity as Fletcher’s first ship was outfitted, her crew hired, and the Misty Morning—Florence’s choice for the ship’s name—was readied to sale to India. The ship would return with spices, silk, linen, and tea, and hopefully the next ship—as yet unnamed—would be nearly ready to outfit as well.

He’d also written Greg and Florence, inviting them to come to London. It was too soon for a response, but he informed them that he had no immediate plans to return to Scotland. He would, of course, do so eventually. He wanted to. Just not quite yet.

A wry grin slanted his mouth.

A fortnight ago, he couldn’t wait to shake London’s coal dust from his boots. Now, however, thanks to an endearing, winsome wood nymph, he wasn’t sure when he’d leave. More on point, when he did eventually return home, would Rayne accompany him?

Conflict still raged within him about formally courting her. If he asked to pay his addresses, Sheffield would rightly expect a marriage proposal to be forthcoming.

Truthfully, Fletcher yearned to marry Rayne.

That knowledge horrified and delighted him.

And yet, a genuine terror that he’d make the same mistake his father had and that Rayne might end up as miserable and bitter as his mother kept him mute.

Rayne is nothin’ like Mother. Nothin’.

That inarguable truth was what kept Fletcher seeking Miss Rayne Wellbrook’s charming company. They’d shared three more clandestine garden meetings at the Sheffields’—each instigated by him. Citing her reputation and gossiping servants for her reluctance, Rayne steadfastly refused to come over the wall to his property again.

Though she eagerly responded to his kisses, he sensed she held something back. That she never completely let herself go. Fletcher wanted to ask her about her reservations, but doing so hardly seemed appropriate as they weren’t affianced, and he’d vowed to himself to not go beyond passionate kisses.

His bloody honor and that damnable pledge might be the death of him.

Could a man die of a permanent erection?

Nonetheless, his passion and desire for Rayne had become a raging inferno. He’d summoned Herculean restraint to keep their interludes to kissing and nothing more. By God, he wouldn’t tup her in a cramped garden arbor.

If she became his duchess, he’d go about introducing her to lovemaking properly in an oversized bed covered in yellow satin sheets—because, after all, yellow was her favorite color. He’d fill 19 Bedford Square’s gardens with yellow roses and every other imaginable yellow flower there was.

Sunflowers. Foxgloves. Primroses. Daffodils. Dahlias. Daisies. Marigolds. Hollyhocks…

The current owner of the house had insisted on meeting with Fletcher in person, which meant a trip to Warwick. Elliot Pritchard, a lean, handsome, soft-spoken man at perhaps the end of his sixth decade, desired to know why Fletcher wished to buy the house.

Quite irregular, truth be told.

Typically, sellers only cared about how much they could gain from the sale of their property. Though Pritchard’s request struck Fletcher as unusual and the timing was inconvenient for a long day trip to Warwick, he’d acquiesced.

Mostly because he wanted the damned house.

Wanted it because of the minx who lived next door.

Every night, often with a tumbler of whisky in hand, he stood in his—well, Pritchard’s— fragrant garden and gazed toward 17 Bedford Square. It had taken Fletcher three days, but he’d finally identified Rayne’s third-story bedchamber. Centered between the other chambers, hers looked out onto the gardens.

He’d suspected it might, and his diligence had paid off.

She often pulled the draperies aside and, in her nightclothes with that glorious hair, a burnished curtain around her slender shoulders, gazed out onto the garden. Or mayhap, it was the night sky that intrigued her. Or…perchance—and he desperately wished that were the case—she looked into his gardens, hoping to catch a glimpse of him.

Over a cup of delicious oolong tea, he’d shared the story of Rayne’s visits to the gardens with Mr. Pritchard. How, in such a short time, she’d come to mean a great deal to him. That, Fletcher admitted aloud for the first time, he was seriously contemplating making her his duchess.

“Honestly, Mr. Pritchard, I canna bear the thought of anyone else livin’ in the house now.” Chuckling, Fletcher raked his fingers through his hair. “The place has bewitched me.”

Och, the vixen in the house next door had, for certain.

One knee flung across the other as he relaxed into the tufted cranberry-red velvet chair he sat in, Mr. Pritchard took a sip of his steaming tea, intently regarding Fletcher over the rim of the dainty cup the whole while. A nascent smile tipped his mouth upward as he effortlessly placed the cup into its matching saucer.