After her shameful reaction to his kiss a few days earlier, Caroline was of the opinion that touching him was always a bad idea, but that seemed a rather embarrassing observation to make out loud, so she just shook her head and said, "No, I'm quite nimble with this cane."
"Ah, yes, the cane. It looks like the antique my uncle George brought back from the Orient. Where did you get it?"
"Perriwick gave it to me."
Blake shook his head as he held open the door for her. "I should have surmised as much. Perriwick would give you the deed to this house if he knew where to find it."
She tossed a mischievous smile over her shoulder as she limped into the hall. "And where did you say it was?"
"Sneaky wench. I've had it under lock and key since the day you arrived."
Caroline's mouth fell open in shock and laughter. "You trust me so little?"
"You, I trust. As for Perriwick..."
By the time they exited the rear door to the garden, Caroline was giggling so hard she had to sit down on the stone steps. "You must admit," she said with a magnanimous wave of her hand, "that the gardens look quite splendid."
"I suppose I must." His voice was part grumble and part laugh, and so Caroline knew he was not truly angry with her.
"I know that it has only been two days," she said, squinting at the plants, "but I am convinced that the flowers are healthier in their new locations." When she looked up at Blake, his face held an oddly tender expression. Her heart warmed, and she felt suddenly shy. "Let's examine the windows," she said hastily, standing back up. She hobbled onto the grass and stopped in front of the window to the study.
Blake watched her as she cocked her head to assess the window's height. Her face glowed healthy and pink in the morning air, and her hair was almost blond in the summer sun. She looked so damned earnest and innocent that it made his heart ache.
She'd told him he needed to laugh more. She was right, he realized. It had felt wonderful to laugh with her this morning. But that was nothing compared to the joy he'd felt when he'd made her laugh. It had been so long since he'd brought happiness into anyone else's life, he'd forgotten how nice it was.
There was a certain freedom in allowing oneself to be just plain silly every now and then. Blake resolved not to lose sight of that once he finally severed his ties with the War Office. Maybe it was time to stop being so damned serious all the time. Maybe it was time to allow himself a little joy.
Maybe...
Maybe he was just being fanciful. Caroline might be rattier entertaining, and she might be here at Sea-crest Manor for the next five weeks, but she'd soon be gone. And she wasn't the sort of woman with whom one dallied; she was the sort one married.
Blake wasn't going to marry. Ever. So he was going to have to leave her alone. Still, he thought with typical male reasoning, there wasn't any harm in looking...
He stared shamelessly at her profile as she studied the window, her right arm moving up and down as she mentally measured its height. Turning quite suddenly to face him, she nearly lost her balance on the soft grass. She opened her mouth, then blinked, then closed it, then opened it again to say, "What were you looking at?"
"You."
"Me?" she squeaked. "Why?"
He shrugged. "There isn't much else to look at just now. We've already established that it's better for my temper not to pay too much attentiori to the garden."
"Blake!"
"Furthermore, I rather enjoy watching you work."
"I beg your- But I wasn't working. I was mentally measuring this window."
"That's work. Did you know you have a very expressive face?"
"No, I- What has that to do with anything?"
Blake smiled. She was rather fun to fluster. "Nothing," he replied. "Merely that I could practically follow the processes of your mind as you examined the window."
"Oh. Is that bad?"
"Not at all. Although I daresay you won't want to try to earn a living as a professional gambler."
She laughed at that. "Certainly not, but I-" Her eyes narrowed. "If you can tell so well what I am thinking, what precisely did you think I was thinking?"
Blake felt something young and carefree taking hold of him, something he hadn't felt in all the years since Marabelle's death, and even though he knew this couldn't possibly go anywhere, he was powerless to stop himself as he stepped forward and said, "You were thinking you'd like to kiss me again."
"I was not!"
He nodded slowly. "You were."
"Not even a little bit. Perhaps when we were in the study-" She bit her lip.
"Here, in the study. Does it really matter?"
She planted her free hand on her hip. "I am trying to be of assistance to your mission or operation or whatever you want to call it, and you're talking about kissing me!"
"Not precisely. I was actually talking about you kissing me."
Her mouth fell open. "You must be insane."
"Probably," he agreed, closing the distance between them. "I certainly haven't acted this way in a rather long while."
She looked up into his face, her mouth trembling as she whispered, "You haven't?"
He shook his head solemnly. "You have a very odd effect on me, Miss Caroline Trent."
"In a good way or a bad way?"
"Sometimes," he said with a crooked smile, "it's hard to tell. But I tend to think good."
He leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. "What were you going to tell me about the window?" he whispered.
She blinked. "I forgot."
"Good." And then he kissed her again, this time more deeply, and with more emotion than he thought he had left in his heart. She sighed and leaned into him, allowing his arms to wrap more fully around her.
Caroline dropped her cane, snaked her arms around his neck, and completely gave up trying to think. When his lips were on hers, and she was warm in his embrace, there didn't seem much sense in trying to figure out whether kissing him was such a good idea. Her brain, which had just seconds ago been trying to deduce whether he was likely to break her heart, was now thoroughly occupied with devising ways to keep this kiss going on and on and on...
She moved closer, standing on her tiptoes, and then-
"Owww!" She would have fallen if Blake weren't already holding her up.
"Caroline?" he asked, his expression dazed.
"My stupid stupid ankle," she muttered. "I forgot, and I tried to-"
He put a gentle finger to her lips. "It's better this way."
"I don't think so," she blurted out.
Blake carefully disentangled her arms from around his neck and stepped away. With one graceful swoop of his arm, he reached down and retrieved her forgotten cane from the ground. "I don't want to take advantage of you," he said gently, "and in my current frame of mind and body, I'm liable to do just that."
Caroline wanted to scream that she didn't care, but she held her tongue. They had reached a delicate balance, and she didn't want to do anything to jeopardize that. She felt something when she was near this man-something warm and kind and good, and if she lost it she knew she would never forgive herself. It had been so very long since she'd felt a sense of belonging, and heaven help her, she belonged in his arms.
He just didn't realize it yet.
She took a deep breath. She could be patient. Why, she even had a cousin named Patience. Surely that should count for something. Of course, Patience lived rather far away with her puritanical father in Massachusetts, but-