The Booklover’s Absolutely Amorous Affair (The Notorious Briarwoods #9)

Chapter 5

“Y ou were not in jest,” declared Jean-Luc.

She grinned at him and waggled her brows. “I was not.”

“Cows,” he stated, staring out at the field and the happy animals that grazed upon the grass.

“Cows, indeed.”

“And why have you brought me to see the cows?” he asked.

Her eyes sparkled with amusement as she pressed a hand to her winter bonnet. “I have not actually brought you to see cows, Jean-Luc. What kind of person do you take me for?”

“Remember? An interesting one. A—”

“Yes, yes. No need to sing my praises. But you don’t actually think I’m going to give you a tour of the farm animals, do you?”

He shrugged, enjoying her pleasure. “I do not know. This is your home. I am not from here. Perhaps there is some sort of strange cow-viewing custom upon this island,” he teased.

She rolled her eyes. “No, there is not. Though our cows are very fine and do produce the best milk and butter.”

“How I miss French butter,” he said with a long sigh.

“What makes it so much better?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps French cows are simply very happy since they have the good fortune to live in France.”

“They cannot be as happy as these cows,” she countered.

“I will have to take your word for it,” he replied as they crossed the field together, his coat and her cloak flapping out behind them in the brisk wind.

Earlier, the sun had shone a resplendent gold through a bright blue sky. Now, clouds were beginning to float in, dimming the light.

“What is it that you like so much about cows?” he asked, trying to make sense of their conversation.

As she walked with a bouncing step, the sort of pace that came from fully loving life, she replied, “If you must know, they make excellent listeners.”

He blinked. “I beg your pardon.”

“Cows make excellent listeners,” she repeated. “If ever you are in a difficulty and you can’t find a person to listen, or you don’t wish to confess what you have to say to a person, a cow is a wonderful choice.” She gave him a sly look. “I cannot recommend sheep though. Sheep are terrible listeners.”

He stared at her for a long moment, trying to decide whether she was in jest or not.

She did her very best to keep her lips straight, but her shoulders were shaking with repressed laughter.

He began to shake his head. “Ah! The English sense of humor can be quite maddening.”

“Truly?” she asked.

“Yes. I cannot explain it. But there is a certain dryness that we do not have in France.” He longed to reach out and touch her hand but refrained. It was the silliest of impulses, but he would not lie to himself about feeling it. “What could you possibly have to confess that you couldn’t say to another human?” he prompted.

She tsked playfully. “That would be my secret, and I cannot possibly tell you the deep dark secrets of my soul.”

He gave her a wry look. “What dark secrets? Being alone with me is surely your darkest secret.”

“We’re not entirely alone,” she said as she gestured with her gloved hand to the field. “Look at all the cows.”

“You have gone too far, Nimue. They are not chaperones.”

And they were without a chaperone, much to his surprise.

She grimaced. “My sisters already had an engagement. And my brother has come down with a cold. I only pray the fresh air keeps us both healthy. Besides, I am not concerned about being alone with you.”

“I think I should be honored,” he replied.

“You should, but I could make short work of you,” she said playfully.

He arched a brow. “Oh? Do tell.”

Her step all but skipped, more evidence of her love of simply being alive. “I am very fleet of foot, and I know how to throw a stone or stomp on a foot. And my brother taught me how to jab a fellow in the throat.”

“Terrifying,” he replied. “Your mother clearly trusts me.”

“She does,” Nimue affirmed.

“But surely your reputation—”

“My reputation is excellent. I do not think anyone will believe you are about to ravish me here in an open field.”

He had never and would never ravish anyone.

Seduce? Oh yes… And he found himself, with each growing moment, wishing that he could seduce her. For she had something that he dearly wished to share in.

Joy.

She narrowed her gaze and looked at him with dramatic suspicion. “You seem to have a good reputation and you don’t seem like a horrible rake. Are you?”

“I am not a horrible rake. Life is too short to be a horrible rake. Besides, being a horrible rake is actually quite boring.”

“Is it?” she asked, clearly fascinated. “Then were you a rake once?”

“I should not tell your innocent ears anything which could burn them.”

“Oh, please do,” she urged. “I’ve read many a novel, but the truth is it is impossible to get anyone to tell me anything really exciting. I shared one kiss with the vicar’s son, but he moved away two years ago, and research into passion has been most difficult. I live on an island, and of course we have nothing like the ton and its wicked ways here.”

“Good,” he replied with surprising vehemence.

She laughed, something she seemed ever inclined to do. “Yes, I suppose so. I like to read about such things, but I don’t think I’d actually like to live amongst such people.”

“Why not?” he asked, quite curious. “I thought most young ladies dream of going to London and participating in the Season, dancing at ball after ball.”

She considered this. “I suppose many young ladies do, but not I. It seems rather cruel, the ton. And we do have dances here which are good fun.”

He inclined his head. “I am most curious about those dances, and I confess the ton can be cruel, though not as cruel as those at the Palace of Versailles.”

“Truly?” she asked, eyes wide.

“Oh, the French made cruelty an art,” he replied ruefully. “We are extremely good at judging others.”

“Do you judge me?”

“Of course I do. I have already.”

“And what was the verdict?” she challenged.

He wagged his finger at her. “I told you yesterday and began again a few moments ago. You silenced me.”

She frowned, the ribbons of her bonnet flying behind her as the wind began to pick up. “But none of that was cruel.”

“You wish me to be cruel to you?” he returned, struggling to understand her.

“Of course,” she returned. “I want you to be honest.”

He shook his head. “Honesty is not the same thing as cruelty.”

She folded her hands behind her back and said with regret, “Well, if you will not be entirely French in your judgment, then I suppose I shall just have to take you at your word that the French are crueler than the English.”

“The French are more in many things than the English,” he informed.

“Oh?” she queried. “In what things?”

“Love,” he began factually. “Food. And, of course, fashion. The French do all of those things better.”

Her mouth dropped open. “That is a very arrogant thing for you to say, and you were so nice to my mother yesterday about her cuisine!”

“It was lovely,” he assured, “but there’s nothing like the food at Versailles.”

She gave a shake of her head. “I shall never know.”

“No,” he agreed, fairly certain that was a good thing. He could not imagine Nimue at Versailles. The courtiers there would have made a meal of her, and it would have been a tragedy.

They strode on and he rushed, “Honestly, no one will ever know again. But French cooking is still quite remarkable. Anytime I have the opportunity of dining at a table that has a French cook, I feel blessed.”

She seemed most amused as she prompted, “And in love? How are the French so superior?”

“They know how to fall in love. The English don’t. They’re so serious about everything, and they have very little passion—”

“That seems an impossible accusation. Besides, you are not interested in falling in love, are you?”

“No,” he exclaimed quickly. “And you do not wish to fall in love either?”

“No, because I’m a sensible person who likes my sensible life, but surely it cannot be true of all English people.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps not, but from what I can see, very few here know how to truly enjoy each other in that regard. But I will confess, my cousins have all found wonderful marriages. Their marriages are better than any French marriages I have seen.”

“How remarkable about your family. I thought it was just my parents,” she breathed.

“Your parents do seem to love each other.”

“Oh, they do!” she assured. “It is very sweet but also quite hard to live up to.”

“A good marriage is perhaps the greatest thing in the world. It’s good to aspire to that, even if it seems impossible,” he replied.

“Then you shall be married?” she prompted.

“I shall not,” he agreed.

“You and I are to be unmarried people together.”

His lips twitched. “It seems so.”

“Then we shall be marvelous friends.”

“Marvelous friends,” he echoed, then nodded. “It is excellent.”

“We are so very different,” she mused. “It is really quite surprising to think of us as friends.”

“Isn’t that the perfect kind of friendship?”

“How do you mean?” she queried.

“Don’t you think that good friends should teach each other something?” He suddenly felt as if he was warming to the idea of them as friends. He had not allowed himself many friends outside of his cousins. “And if we are very different, we can teach each other many things.”

“Well put,” she affirmed. “Now, as a mark of my friendship, I wish to take you to a place that is full of rocks.”

“When we met, you sat upon the rocks. Are not all rocks the same?”

She gave him a horrified stare. “They are certainly not,” she exclaimed. “I shall show you.”

And with that, she charged off.

They kept good pace until they came to a large area covered, just as she had promised, with many large rocks pressed right up to the water.

“This place,” she said, stopping and gazing out at it, “and the water makes me feel as if the island has been here forever, for all time. And if you close your eyes, you too can be in the past. You too can be as old as time itself.”

She did as she described, closing her eyes. She pressed a gloved hand to her bonnet, then tilted her head back, up to the sky, which was now covered in dark gray clouds.

“I don’t know if I have the energy to be as old as time itself,” he replied.

She opened her eyes and dropped her arm to her side as she leveled him with a stare. “You are, at times, a very, very challenging conversationalist,” she replied.

“I’m French,” he replied as if that explained everything. Usually, it did.

“So we have established,” she said, “but that cannot be the excuse for everything.”

“Of course it can,” he returned.

“Right, well, forgetting feeling as old as time, what do you think?”

He gazed about at the rough rocks that seemed to march into the water. “It is very beautiful,” he admitted, studying her, thinking she was far more beautiful inside and out than any rocks could ever be. “And I do see what you mean about it feeling older than time.”

Nimue loved this place.

She felt like there was magic underneath it, as if a great discovery was waiting to be made and it would likely not be done by her. Yet, she somehow knew that it was there all the same.

She liked that feeling running through her bones, that the past lingered in the earth here and if one but had the imagination, they would be able to see it.

“Your mother truly wished you to come out here alone with me? Is she secretly a Briarwood?” he asked.

She swung her gaze to him, her brow furrowing with confusion. “I know little of the Briarwoods, but if you mean that she has an independence of thought and optimism about the world? I’ll take your comment as a compliment. Why do you say it though?”

He frowned, which only made his Gallic face more handsome. “I still don’t understand why she would put us together. Does she think that you and I should wed?”

She blanched. She hated the idea that he worried she was trying to catch him. “Oh no,” she rushed. “I made it very clear to her that I have no interest in marrying you. She knows I have no wish to marry anyone. My plan is to live with my parents and take care of them as they age. We shall all be merry company for each other.”

He frowned again. “I am beginning to worry that you shall accidentally ruin yourself with someone besides me.”

“Should I be touched?” she asked.

“No.”

She turned to him and folded her arms under her cloak. “I know it’s shocking and perhaps my parents shouldn’t be so permissive, but they want me to be happy, and my mother could tell that you make me happy.”

His eyes flared at that. “I make you happy?”

“Yes, you do,” she replied easily, as if it wasn’t terribly significant. “You see, you are like a walking book.”

He peered at her and then let out a laugh. “Go on.”

“And on this walk, I get to take you out and read you,” she explained.

His dark brows drew together. “Mon Dieu. Explain that to me, please.”

She nodded, happy to oblige in the furthering of her thinking. “You have a great deal of knowledge that I don’t, and you can tell me about many things that I’ve never encountered. So you are like a book, and if you tell me all those things, it would be as if I have read you. You see?”

He stared at her again for a long moment. She could all but see his brain working as he mulled it over. She clearly mystified him, and she rather enjoyed that.

Then a laugh, rich and deep and full of amusement that was not dry or cynical, filled the air, booming from his chest. “Actually, you lot are a great deal like the Briarwoods.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” she asked.

“It is a good thing,” he said quietly. “They’re wonderful. And like them, there’s something also very true about you.”

“Why would I wish to be anything but true?”

The gray clouds darkened then. And as so often occurred on the coast, the sky turned wild. The waves began to lap, rushing in, frothing.

Then cold rain began to drip down in a warning of what was to come.

“It is raining,” he said simply but with clear irritation.

“This is England, after all,” she said cheekily.

And as so often occurred in this country, the rain turned suddenly from drops to slashing down upon them.

He stood like a shocked cat. His dark hair quickly plastered to his head, which so often resembled the famous Grecian and Roman busts she had seen on display in the most prominent homes. He looked like thunder, which she found amusing given the rain.

The cold drops sluiced down her own frame, causing her bonnet to droop and her cloak to sag against her form. Freezing water slipped down her neck.

She felt like he looked, but she refused to be daunted. This was her homeland and she loved it!

“I know a place,” she called, and much to her surprise, she reached out, grabbed his hand, and began to pull him along the rocks.

He went with her without question.

It was tempting to run full out, but such a decision would have been a perilous one, for the rain-soaked rocks were quite dangerous. The last thing she wished was for either of them to crack their heads on the ground or break a leg.

Negotiating the rain-slicked rocks was no easy thing, but they went carefully, heading back towards the fields.

Rain fell harder and harder, causing their clothes to stick to their bodies.

As the madness of the downpour swallowed them, they exchanged a look. They both were so drenched and bedraggled, there was nothing to do but laugh.

As they came up onto the muddy ground, they rushed through the countryside, still laughing at the absurdity of it.

She spotted the small cottage not far away and knew it would be the perfect spot for them.

It was a little place that her father often rented to a single farmer or couple. But it was vacant at present.

She pointed towards it. “There!”

He gave a nod and then, much to her surprise, she stepped in a deceptively deep puddle and lost her footing.

Jean-Luc seized her into his capable arms, swept her up into his embrace, and cradled her easily against him, one arm under her knees, the other at her back. Then, without breaking stride, he ran for the small white cottage with its dark timbers, opened the door, and slipped both of them inside.

Away from the world.