“I see I am continuing to upset you today then,” he murmured, offering to carry the basket for her with a gesture.
“No, no, you just surprised me,” she said quickly, blushing so red that she competed with some of the reddest roses in a nearby bed. “Is this where you have been hiding all day?”
“It is.” He nodded. “It’s my safe space.” He looked at the roses around them. “I love my garden.”
“I…” she started somewhat timidly, motioning to the basket in his grasp. “I wanted to say sorry for how heated things were between us earlier. I planned to bring some of the blooms into the house.”
“You do not need to apologize,” he said keenly. “It is I who should apologize to you after making you relive such sadness. How about I accompany you as you pick the flowers? If you can stand my company, of course,” he teased her.
She offered the smallest of smiles.
“If you behave.” The fact she teased him back gave him hope. It was a glimmer of the Frederica he had seen that night in the Almack’s Assembly Rooms.
She walked along the roses, smelling the blooms he had told her had the finest scents.
“These are beautiful,” she whispered. “Do you throw such care into everything you do? Or just the garden?”
“I’m capable of more than just caring for my garden, you know,” he said with a low chuckle. She looked at him with a sort of mock surprise, raising her eyebrows. “I am,” he insisted. She turned away though he caught a hint of her smile as she reached to cut another bloom from a nearby bush. “I could care a lot more about things.”
If you would let me care for you.
Though her back was firmly to him at this moment.
“Maybe not this one.” He picked up one of the yellow roses from the basket.
“Why not?” She turned to face him again, attempting to take the yellow rose from his grasp. “It’s a pretty color.”
“And you’ll often find flies hiding in it.” He tried to tussle it from her, their fingers fumbling together across the stem.
“I could pull them out. It will make up the display perfectly,” she insisted.
“Ah, I like how you can state your opinion with me at least,” he said in challenge, still holding onto the rose.
“Of course, I can.” She smiled up at him, matching that challenge. “You are easy to state my opinion with.”
“Good. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He froze with his hand on the rose as did she.
It was that moment of softness again, the same sort of intensity he had felt in the parlor earlier that day.
A wild idea entered his head; it was the same idea he’d had some time ago now, a longing to kiss her, to indulge in a thrill that maybe could help them both forget all the sadness that had been between them that morning. His eyes even looked down at her lips.
He could picture it well. He could imagine brushing his lips against Frederica’s chastely and softly, not demanding but encouraging.
It certainly wasn’t in his imagination that she was looking at his lips too.
Now was the moment. Their fingers even slid together on the stem of the rose. He felt her touch against his own. It was soft and inviting, and he even had a mad idea of dropping the basket of roses, so he could take her in his arms and show her just how much he wished to act on all this attraction and softness between them, how much he longed to see what it could be like between them if she just lowered her walls to him.
Then he remembered her story with her last suitor. He recalled how she had been alone and felt trapped.
I will never force anything upon her.
CHAPTERFOURTEEN
Allan looked away and released the rose, coughing to clear his throat.
Frederica felt a heat raging in her cheeks as she realized what she had been thinking about. Had it all been in her imagination, the idea of that kiss? Or had he truly been looking at her lips and considering the same thing?
“You can choose whatever roses you like,” he assured her. He stepped back, increasing the distance between them, then he returned, trying to hand her the basket once again. “I should… go.”
