Jane nodded, but without the gusto she’d shown the rest of the day.
George followed her outside and reached into his pocket, knowing only one way to cheer her up. He handed over the paper and pastry bundle. “It’s a bit smashed and cold by now. I’ll buy you a fresh one if you like.”
Her lips tipped up into a smile. “No. This one is special. I won it through perilous deeds.” Jane opened the package and pulled a piece of pastry off, placed it delicately on her tongue, closed her mouth, and closed her eyes. “Mmm. Perfection.” Her eyes popped open. “Entirely worth the risk. And the pig hair.” Her eyes danced.
He grinned. “So says you, but I’m going to clean my teeth as soon as we return to the manor.”
She chuckled and looked up at the sky. “The sky’s changed color. Do you think it will snow?”
“No danger of that right yet, I think.”
But this game he played with Jane was dangerous, to him as well as to her. He was playing for an outcome he was not sure was wise, taking Jane as a wife, into a home that could be her undoing. He should stop playing, do the right thing, the only thing that would keep her safe—let Newburton have her.
He did not seem able to do so.
She turned toward the basket-heavy cart, putting another bite of pastry in her mouth, and he followed. When he came abreast with her, she handed him a basket and a bit of the pastry.
He took it without question and popped it onto his tongue. Damn, but she was right. It was perfection. Or almost so. He had new definitions for perfection, and nothing quite held up to Jane’s kiss. Even when pig hairs were involved.
Chapter 16
Jane waited atop Apple for George to wave the stable hand away and swoop her to the ground himself. She allowed herself to enjoy the firm grip of his hands on her waist and the soft look in his eyes that promised so very much—the kisses from the garden, the talks beside the fire, the fun of a silly dare, poetry whispered against her skin, and a hot-blooded determination to have her that should feel dangerous but instead made her want to tear his clothes off.
She pulled her waist from his grip and charged into the stables. The darkness, the familiar smells of hay and horse would calm her, but all she could think of was George—George in the gardens, George in the maze, George in her very hot dreams last night.
“Jane, is something amiss?”
She swallowed hard. And there he was by her side, too, fingers gently stroking down the curve of her back. She wanted him, so very much.
And was that so very bad? He could take his pleasure with any widow that waltzed his way, but she… one ill-thought-out jaunt North with the wrong man, and she was banned, outcast.
Not fair.
Jane turned to him, and their eyes locked.
George stepped closer, reaching out with his hand as if to a skittish mare. “Jane Girl, I must tell—”
“Do not call me that. As if I were nothing more than a girl, your friend’s little sister.” She turned back toward the window. Why had she said that? She did not want him to see her as anything other than his friend’s sister.
“My Jane, then.”
His words were hot coals thrown at her cold feet.
Jane’s teeth would pierce the skin if she bit her lip any harder. “Please do not speak further. You’ll ruin everything.”
“Ruin what?”
“Our friendship.”
“What if something better can grow from it?” Footsteps from long strides accompanied his words until he spoke into her hair and cupped her neck with his palm. He rubbed his thumb up and down the length of her throat until she tilted her head to the side, opening the slender column to further caress.
She should not.
But this was lust, not love. So why not? She did not feel like this for Newburton, and slaking a bit of lust before marriage when everyone thought you already ruined… surely it hurt no one, no matter how daring it was. She’d let it go no further than this casual caress, a kiss or two more to store away in her memory.
His lips dropped to her neck, and he spoke softly into her skin. “What if friendship grew into love?”
She snapped out of the haze his touch lately locked her into.