Intentions of the Earl (20 page)

Lady Olivia's face contorted in a way that
would have suggested she'd just bitten a lemon.“I would like that
very much, Mr. Banks,” she said waspishly.

As soon as Lady Olivia took Alex’s proffered
arm, Alex reached into his coat pocket. Taking out his pocket
watch, he flipped it open and nodded then looked straight at
Andrew.

“Shall we go to the conservatory first?”
Andrew asked with a pointed look at Alex.

“Oh, I adore flowers,” Lady Olivia chimed in
with her ear piercing voice.

“Very well,” Alex said. “Let’s be off.”

The group started to make its way to the
conservatory with Andrew walking as fast as he could manage without
causing Brooke to stumble face-first onto the lawn.

“Why are we walking like Satan is on our
heels?” Brooke asked breathlessly.

“Because she is.”

Brooke couldn’t help it, she let out a
giggle. “That is most ungentlemanly, likening Lady Olivia to
Satan.”

“As far as I am concerned that’s a fair
comparison. I asked Alex to keep her busy so we could have a little
time without her and her inane chatter. You don’t mind, do you?”
The last asked as a delayed thought.

“No, not at all. I just feel bad for poor
Alex.” And she genuinely did. He was such a nice person and Lady
Olivia was not.

“Well, you shouldn’t. It was his fault she
knew about the tour in the first place. When she ran into us in the
hall, ‘poor Alex’ just blurted it right out. He’s giving us only an
hour, then he said he would dump her off on us whether we are
finished or not.” Andrew scowled.

“Is that why he made a big production of
checking his pocket watch?” Brooke asked as understanding dawned on
her.

“Yes,” Andrew said tersely.

They walked to a large building that was
mostly made of large windows acting as the walls and roof. In
between sheets of glass there were columns of bricks going from the
ground to the roof, encasing the windows. Brooke had never seen
such an unusual building up close. She had seen it yesterday from
her bedchamber window. But now that she was closer she could see
its red brick siding was crumbling a bit with age, and ivy was
growing up some of the columns.

Andrew opened the door and she walked inside.
She looked around at all of the flowers that were in bloom. She had
never seen so many different kinds in one place before. It was
magnificent.

“Here we are, the conservatory. This is where
Alex spends the majority of his time when the weather is
disagreeable,” Andrew said as he shut the door behind them.

“He does? I thought he liked the library,”
she said curiously, walking over to some orange flowers.

“He does,” Andrew agreed. “But he has a
fascination with biology, physics and even astronomy. When the
weather is bad and he cannot study his plants outside or is stumped
with a physics equation, he’ll come here and study the flowers and
trees that are housed inside.”

“How fascinating,” Brooke said, leaning
closer to a plant that she thought might actually bear fruit not
flowers.

“Yes, very.”

“Do you have a conservatory at your estate?”
Brooke asked innocently.

“No,” Andrew said quietly, his body
tensing.

Brooke assumed he stiffened because Lady
Olivia and Alex could be heard talking outside.

“Would you like to see the orangery?”

“Yes,” Brooke said uneasily. They had barely
walked down one row in the conservatory and he was already rushing
her off somewhere else, how was she supposed to work her magic?

At the end of the row was a door, when they
walked through it, Brooke discovered she was now in the orangery.
“I hadn’t realized we were so close to the orangery,” she
murmured.

“Yes, they are connected, quite unusual
really. The orangery was not always here. About five years ago Alex
decided he would like to raise orange and citrus trees, but there
was no space. His father wouldn’t allow a new building to be
erected. Alex talked him into a compromise. The conservatory was to
be split in half; a wall was put in to divide it. That way Alex
could use one of the sides to grow his citrus trees.”

Brooke noticed a bench on the opposite side
of the orangery, and without a word started to walk to it. Her hand
was still on Andrew’s forearm, forcing him to walk toward the bench
along with her. “I should like to sit a few minutes,” she said when
they arrived at the bench.

Andrew waited while Brooke took a seat on the
bench first. When she was seated and rearranged her skirts around
her, he sat down and left only a few short inches between them.

Brooke pretended not to notice how close they
were already and began to swing her right leg, even if it were
considered unladylike to do so, slowly brushing his calf with her
bright blue skirts with each swing.

Andrew didn’t move away, he just looked at
her. Then slowly, ever so slowly, he moved his leg closer to hers.
He kept moving closer until with one of her swings, she made direct
contact with his leg. Well, as direct as one can get through a
massive amount of fabric fashioned into a skirt.

Her leg stilled. She could feel the heat
radiating off his leg all the way through her skirt, petticoats,
and stocking. It felt as hot as the iron Mrs. McNaught had used to
steam the wrinkles out of their gowns back in Bath. For a moment
they both just looked at each other.

Andrew’s eyes were changing. They were
growing darker and more intense. Desire was making them take on a
new shade of blue. A shade she had only seen once before, in the
museum when they were alone in the empty room.

He leaned closer, so close that his face was
less than two inches from hers. His eyes searing into hers and his
lips so close she could almost feel them.

Brooke’s mind barely registered what was
going to happen. The realization he was about to kiss her made her
snap out of her lusty trance. This was her chance. She had to be
strong. She had to resist. If she didn’t, her plan would come to
naught and she would be even more heartbroken than before.

With shaky legs, Brooke abruptly stood and
moved a few feet away to an orange tree that had several ripe
oranges hanging on it. “Do you…umm…think that uh…Alex would mind
terribly if we…er…I were to eat one of his oranges?” she
stammered.

Andrew was to her side before she even
finished her question. One of his bare hands plucked down an orange
while the other dug into his pocket. A few seconds later he pulled
out a penknife. Wordlessly, he began to peel the orange with his
knife. In a minute the rind was gone from the orange and he was
breaking it into sections.

Brooke peeked at his eyes, the look was not
gone. He still had the deep look of desire in his eyes. Brooke
smiled to herself, it was working. He was going to find her, and
only her, irresistible by the end of the day. She would make sure
of it, even if it drove her crazy in the process.

Once Andrew had it all separated, Brooke
reached for one of the pieces. Andrew was quicker though and pulled
them back. “It would be a pity for you to ruin your gloves by
touching the orange,” he said, looking down at her gloves. “I think
the better solution is to let me help you eat this. Come, let’s sit
back down.”

They walked back to the bench they had both
vacated in haste just a few moments before and regained their
seats, sitting just as close as before.

“Are you ready?” Andrew asked hoarsely.

“Yes,” Brooke whispered. Reason was telling
her to put him off a little longer, but her body was screaming
something else entirely.

Andrew took one of the orange slices and
gently ran it over her lips; just enough to let the juice from the
wedge moisten her lips.

Brooke’s lips parted a little further and her
tongue came out to lick up the juice the orange had left in its
trail. Andrew swallowed visibly then shifted on the bench.

After running the orange around her mouth a
second time, he slowly slipped it into her mouth.

The slice was a bit too large for one bite
and a little stream of juice came out around the corner of her
mouth and dripped to her chin. Embarrassed she was making a mess,
her hands flew up to wipe the juice from her chin. But Andrew was
quicker, he grabbed her hands, bent closer to her and he whispered,
“Allow me.”

Brooke relaxed her hands in his hold. His
left hand came up and wiped the bit off of her chin; then he
brought his fingers to his mouth and sucked the juice off.

Brooke’s eyes widened. That was not what she
had expected. She wasn’t sure what she had expected, but it wasn’t
that.

All thoughts of holding him off vanished when
he leaned a little closer and said, “It seems I missed a spot.”
Then, within a blink of an eye, his lips were on the corner of her
mouth.

He nipped the corner playfully before moving
over to be dead center on the middle of her lips.

Brooke’s arms went around Andrew’s neck and
her fingers sank into his hair. She twirled her fingers into his
black curls, holding his head close to hers. His tongue ran along
the seam of her lips. This was new to her, yet it felt so natural.
Other men had just tried to shove their tongue inside, but this,
this was much better. It felt so good she gasped.

Andrew took advantage of her gasp and pushed
his tongue past her lips. He ran his tongue along her perfect row
of teeth before doing a full exploration of her mouth.

Brooke had never been one to only observe,
boldly she slipped her tongue into his mouth and mirrored all his
actions. She explored his mouth just as fully as he was exploring
hers. She had never been so bold before, and she was finding she
enjoyed this kind of kissing with Andrew.

Brooke tightened her grip of his hair, and
groaned, “Andrew.” It was the first time she’d called him by his
name, and she hoped she hadn’t overstepped by doing so. But at
present, she couldn’t care enough not to do it again.

Andrew managed to say her name while running
his fingers up to her soft brown hair. He grabbed one of the curls
that were overflowing from her coiffure and wrapped it loosely
around his finger before giving it a gentle tug then letting it go.
Then he moved his hands and reached right into the back of her
massive knot of hair and caressed her scalp with his fingers.

Brooke had been aware that it was bad form
not to wear bonnets outside, and had thought to grab hers when Lady
Olivia donned hers, but Andrew had been in too much of a hurry for
her to ask; now she was glad she hadn’t bothered. She could feel
his fingers tenderly touching her hair and massaging her scalp.

Suddenly there was a distinct
clink,
clink, clink
. Breathing raggedly, both of them drew back and
looked around the room to see if they had a visitor. When Brooke
moved her head back to face Andrew and his ocean blue eyes, she
realized what happened to make the noise they heard.

“It appears that you have dislodged some of
my hairpins,” Brooke said, her voice still coming in small
pants.

Andrew nodded jerkily.

Brooke leaned over and picked up a handful of
hairpins that had dropped on the bench when Andrew had given one of
her curls a tug.

When Andrew looked at what she held in his
hand, comprehension struck. “I’m sorry, I didn’t intend to ruin
your…” he broke off and waved his hands around her head.

“It’s all right.” More than all right in her
opinion. “I’ll just put these back in real quick.” In just a few
seconds Brooke fixed her hair and it looked as good as it had
before.

“You are quite talented at that,” Andrew
remarked.

“Yes, well, one learns to do their own hair
when they have no one else to do it for them,” she said dryly. Why
was everyone in England so surprised to learn that a person could
fix their own hair without any help? No wonder they lost the war,
their soldiers probably depended on someone else to load their guns
for them, too.

“Of course,” Andrew muttered. “Shall we go
see something else?”

“Yes, though I'm surprised we haven't been
accosted by Lady Olivia yet. How much time do we have left?”,

Andrew reached into his pocket and withdrew
his watch. “We have roughly half an hour.”

***

Andrew and Brooke made their way to the
stables, with only about twenty minutes left before Lady Olivia
would be foisted upon them.

“The stables?” Brooke asked.

“Yes, I wanted to let you pick out a horse,”
Andrew said with a smile.

“Pick a horse? Whatever for?”

“To ride of course. That is what one normally
does with horses. I thought we could go on a ride and picnic
tomorrow.” Andrew laughed as he watched the confusion fade from her
face, and joy took its place. He smiled brightly at her. Then his
smile started to slowly dim. It was his turn to have confusion
surface on his face. When had he ever laughed, or smiled for that
matter, so often? Not for a long, long time. And why did it keep
happening in the company of Brooke Banks? What was it about her
that made him grin like an idiot? He shook his head. That was not a
question he wanted to ponder too deeply.

Brooke took no notice of his facial
expressions; she was too consumed looking around at all the horses
that were before her eyes. She scanned them all. Horses of all
different colors, sizes and dispositions were in the stable
yard.

In case he had to help her decide, Andrew
came up next to her to look at the horses, too. Some of the horses
looked too large and uncomfortable for her. A few of them looked to
be too old and slow to be any fun. And a couple were rather high
spirited, which could be hard for her to handle.

“I think that one. The brown one near the
back, on the right,” she said, pointing to where a brown medium
sized horse was standing in the far corner of the stable yard, her
head bent, eating the grass.