Chapter 9
As she settled on the wooden bench, Kate admonished herself to act natural.
This was easier said than done, particularly given that she did not know what, precisely, constituted normal behavior for a young man about to spend several hours squished inside a building the size of a wardrobe with his handsome tutor.
Thank God Nathaniel had grabbed her by the arm.
Had he reached a few inches higher and seized her shoulder, he would have encountered a handful of padding.
Which perhaps she could have explained away.
Men did pad their jackets in certain places in order to improve their physiques.
She could plead embarrassment at being so scrawny.
What was more difficult to explain was the fact that she had padded her waist. Absolutely no one did that, except for young ladies attempting to pass themselves off as young men in order to attain remunerative employment as a scientific illustrator.
The shed darkened as Nathaniel appeared in the doorway. As he wedged himself onto the bench beside her, Kate was careful to keep her left elbow down to make sure he didn’t accidentally brush against her torso.
It became immediately clear that the bench was not wide enough to accommodate them both.
He managed to wedge himself into the seat, but this caused her hip to pop up, leaving her bottom pressed against his thigh! She squealed in a manner that was something less than masculine, but really, who could blame her?
“I beg your pardon, Kit!” he cried.
“That’s quite all right,” she gasped, scrambling off him. As the bench was not wide enough to accommodate the width of both of their hips, she decided her best course was to prop her hip against the far wall.
She did so, then promptly lost her balance and went sprawling across his lap. “I’m so sorry!”
“Here, let me…” He grabbed her beneath her armpits, and his fingers strayed perilously close to her breasts.
“Eek!”
“Are you all right?”
“I am, I just… dropped my pencil.” That was not the reason she had shrieked, but it happened to be true.
“I see. Hold still, I think I can reach down and—”
Something warm pressed against the inside of her thigh. “Oh, my gracious!”
“I’m terribly sorry! Was that your—”
She tried to sound nonchalant even as her heart threatened to beat out of her chest. “My, er… leg.”
“I apologize,” Nathaniel whispered. “I lost my balance.”
“It’s quite all right!” And it was. Quite all right. At least, in the sense that she knew it had been an accident.
It was not quite all right in the sense that she could still feel the imprint of his big, warm hand upon her inner thigh, nor that a strange throbbing had started up in a spot a few inches farther north. But that was neither here nor there.
He grunted. “At least I found it. Here.”
They fumbled in the dark as Nathaniel attempted to hand her the wayward pencil. Her bare hand brushed against his once… twice… three times before he seized her hand firmly in his and pressed the pencil into her trembling fingers.
“Th-thank you,” she whispered.
They wedged themselves onto the bench. Kate’s right hip was hitched up against the wall, and she couldn’t imagine Nathaniel was any more comfortable, but he did not utter a word of complaint.
Peering around, Kate saw that Farmer Ross had left one horizontal plank out of the front wall, presumably so they could see out.
Unfortunately, the gap between the boards was a few inches higher than her head, meaning that the only thing she could see was the darkening sky.
She tried sitting on her foot to get a better angle but still could not see the den from which the badgers would emerge.
She craned her neck, but it was no use.
“Can you see?” Nathaniel murmured.
Kate shuddered at the rich, deep sound of his voice in her ear. “Not very well,” she admitted.
He bent forward, rummaging beneath the seat. “Perhaps if you sit on my satchel.”
They rose from the bench and shifted around in the cramped space. In the darkness, she felt something brush against her left breast. Cheeks scorching, she prayed it was nothing more intimate than an errant elbow.
Finally, Nathaniel got his satchel into place.
They tried to wedge themselves on the bench once more.
You would think the satchel might have helped, but they somehow seemed to fit even more poorly than the first time around.
Kate leaned forward, attempting to peer out of the opening. She still wasn’t high enough.
“Is that better?” Nathaniel murmured in his sonorous voice.
“Not really,” she admitted. “Maybe if I—”
Firm hands seized her hips. The breath left her body as Nathaniel pushed her to her feet, moved to the center of the bench, and settled her on his lap.
“Can you see now?” he asked.
“I… yes.” And she could. The problem was that she could feel so much, such as Nathaniel’s firm thighs beneath her bottom, and his breath in her hair. Her ability to concentrate was shot to pieces.
“It will be better this way,” he whispered. “I doubt you would have been able to draw with your arm wedged up against the wall.”
She doubted she would be able to draw when she could neither breathe nor think. What was it that he smelled like? She couldn’t place the scent. It was fresh and fruity and slightly buttery at the same time…
She shook herself, recalling that he was expecting an answer. What had the question been again? “True,” she hedged, hoping she wasn’t agreeing to anything salacious.
He leaned forward, his hand searching for something in the darkness, and for a moment, his chest pressed against her back, almost like an embrace. Oh, how she wanted to lean back against him, to turn, to wrap her arms around his neck and press her lips against his—
“Look!” he hissed. “The badgers. They’re emerging!”
“Badgers?” Kate asked, momentarily confused. It took her a second to recall where she was and to what purpose. “Oh, yes! The badgers!”
She leaned forward eagerly, finally at the right height to see out of the hide.
Their only source of light was the moon, but the badgers’ striped, white faces stood out even in the dim light.
There were eight of them by Kate’s count.
Three disappeared into the darkness. Three more began nosing around the ground, no doubt looking for worms. The final two began tumbling around together in a good-natured bout of wrestling.
Nathaniel pointed to two of the badgers foraging together. “See those two that are slightly larger? That will be the breeding pair. The others will be the cubs of last year. Any cubs born this year will not emerge from the den for a few more weeks.”
Kate’s pencil was flying across her sketch pad, desperate to capture the fascinating creatures before they, too, wandered off to forage farther afield. Beside her, she could hear Nathaniel’s pencil softly scratching as he recorded his observations in his notebook.
As Kate had expected, after a few minutes, the young pair who had been wrestling disappeared around the far side of the haystack. That was all right. Kate had managed to fill three sheets with hasty sketches of their play.
She turned her attention to the three remaining badgers, the ones foraging for food. After a while, the smallest one wandered off, leaving only the adult pair.
Suddenly, the big male approached the female, reared up on his hind legs, and climbed onto her back.
It took Kate a moment to register what was happening. “What luck!” Nathaniel murmured behind her. “This is a rare sight.”
Kate swallowed. The male was just sitting atop his partner, motionless. Although Kate did not pretend to be wise in the ways of the world, she was a naturalist, and this was not the first time she had witnessed breeding behavior in animals.
She was almost certain that was going on. And yet, based on previous observations, she had expected there to be more… thrusting.
Perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps they were merely wrestling, as the juveniles had done. “Are they, um…”
“Copulating,” Nathaniel supplied. He nudged her with his shoulder. “Why have you stopped drawing? This is an amazing opportunity to document their breeding behavior!”
“Right,” she said weakly, turning to a fresh page. Could the situation be any more embarrassing? She was hiding in a cramped shed with the man for whom she had developed a tendre, sitting on his lap, watching a pair of badgers fornicate. And she was expected to capture the moment in a sketch!
Cheeks burning, she began outlining the badgers in flagrante. She was able to add quite a lot of details, on account of how still they were.
“Nathaniel!” she hissed.
The pencil scratching across his notebook paused. “Yes?”
“Is the boar all right?”
“I think so. Why do you ask?”
Kate could not believe she was about to ask this question. “He doesn’t seem very, er… vigorous.”
“Ah.” Nathaniel’s voice was rich with amusement.
“This is the first time I’ve witnessed badgers copulating.
But from what I’ve read, this is likely normal.
For many animals, breeding is something of a sprint, but badgers are the opposite.
Slow and steady wins the race. It is my understanding that their copulation can last for up to an hour. ”
Up to an hour. Perfect. She was going to be stuck in this box, sitting on Nathaniel’s lap, watching a pair of badgers fornicate for the next hour.
She would have time to create a veritable pillow book for badgers.
The male began making a soft whickering sound. Kate sat up, hopeful that he was close to reaching his satisfaction.
He slumped back down atop the female, making no move to dismount. No such luck, it would seem.
“Keep drawing,” Nathaniel urged. “This could be the making of your career!”
Kate attempted an enthusiastic murmur. It sounded weak to her own ears.
But she flipped to a fresh sheet on her pad, resigning herself to her new career as a wildlife pornographer.