Chapter 24 The Aftermath #2
The thrower shot clay pigeons in the air that Battle, Tempie, Hamish, and even Chassie shot out of it (if they hit it, and just to say, Battle definitely excelled above all the others in this, though Hamish wasn’t far behind and Tempie rocked it) while Prue and I sat on a thick blanket wearing ear protectors (Battle insisted—we all had them, then again, shotguns were loud) and looked through her sketchbooks.
Admittedly, it wasn’t super close to spending time with Battle in his bed.
Still.
Lawn croquet and trap shooting in the sun with all of these lovely people was second runner-up for how I liked to spend time at The Downs.
* * *
The chicken was under foil and resting.
The potatoes were done and in their pot of hot water waiting to be whipped.
I’d just put the Yorkshire puds in the oven.
And the pavlova smeared in thick cream, lemon curd and covered with berries was in the fridge.
This meant I could dash up for a drink before I had to come back down and finish everything.
When I made it to the plum parlor, I saw everyone was there but Prue.
The minute I stepped in, Battle pushed up from his chair.
“Drink, darling?” he asked.
“Please. Can you make me a Cosmo?”
“Of course,” he murmured as I made it to him.
I got a lip brush, a gentle shove into my chair, and he headed to the drinks cabinet.
“You sure you don’t need help in the kitchen, Vivi?” Chassie asked.
“It’d help if you’d go back down with me in twenty minutes,” I answered. “I can tell you how to mash potatoes while I whip up the gravy. Then you can help me carry everything up.”
“Oo, that’d be great,” Chassie replied.
I looked from her to Tempie and Hamish, tucked close together on the sofa opposite Chassie.
“Where’s Prue?” I asked.
“Somewhere,” Tempie said unnecessarily.
I gave her the side eye.
She smiled.
“Maybe I should text her,” Chassie suggested. “She’s usually always one of the first ones down.”
“She probably doesn’t want to be pressed into kitchen drudgery,” Tempie remarked.
Hamish chuckled.
“I’m going back to London with Hamish in the morning, dears,” Tempie said to Chassie and me. “Is that all right?”
“That’s perfect,” Chassie whispered.
I just smiled and transferred my smile to Battle who was heading my way with a Cosmopolitan in a martini glass.
He didn’t make it because he stopped dead, his eyes to the door.
I looked over my shoulder.
And I nearly burst out laughing.
Prue was walking in.
With Christian.
His eyes went right to Chassie.
Chassie emitted a panicked peep.
Prue spoke.
“I asked Christian to join us for our Sunday roast!” she announced superfluously. She looked to me. “I hope there’ll be enough, Vivi.”
“Oh, there’ll be plenty,” I replied.
She clapped. “Brilliant!”
Battle stopped scowling at her, put on his host’s face and said to Christian, “Good to have you, mate. Would you like something to drink?”
Before Christian could answer, Prue took his hand, dragged him to Chassie’s sofa, and all but shoved him in it.
Chassie’s face flamed.
I nearly snorted.
Tempie whispered something in Hamish’s ear.
Battle looked to the ceiling.
“Cider would be good, if you’ve got it,” Christian ordered, his voice deep and pleasant.
When it filled the room, Chassie’s face flamed harder.
“They have everything!” I peeped.
Battle gave me my Cosmo and a cool it! look then headed back to the cabinet.
“Hey, I’m Vivi,” I introduced myself.
He got out of the sofa just enough to offer his hand, I took it and found he had a nice, firm grip. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Hamish,” Hamish said after Christian and I broke.
They did the shake thing and then both sat back down.
After that, no one said anything.
Fortunately, by the time Battle handed Prue her old fashioned and Christian a pint glass of cold cider, Tempie came up with a conversational gambit.
“How are your studies going?” she asked Christian.
“The Downs have one of the most flourishing organic gardens I’ve ever seen,” Christian stated after taking a sip.
At his remark, I worried Chassie’s flesh would melt right off her skull Raiders of the Lost Ark style.
“I’m comparing your results to six other gardens in the area. They all use chemical compounds,” Christian went on. “You use nothing but organic compost. And the results are startling.”
“All our Chastity’s idea, you know,” Tempie drawled, gesturing to Chastity with her martini glass.
Christian turned his head to look directly at Chassie.
Chastity popped to her feet and asked me, “Is it time to mash potatoes, Vivi?”
“I—”
She slammed her daiquiri glass down, had to veritably leap over Christian’s long legs (and Battle’s) to latch on to me and tug me from my seat.
“It’s time!” she all but shouted, and as I desperately attempted not to spill any Cosmo, she dragged me from the room while I looked over my shoulder at the inhabitants of said room.
Christian looked crestfallen.
The room disappeared from view.
I left it until we were on the servants’ stairs before I pulled her to a stop.
“Get right back up there and send Prue down,” I ordered.
“But, Vivi—”
I cupped her face in my free hand and put mine in it. “Honey, I get you. This is scary. But you like him, am I right?”
“He’s really handsome,” she whispered. “And he likes plants, like me.”
“So why did you escape the room?”
“I don’t—”
“Listen, you know this is all about vibes and cues. And I don’t want to freak you even more, but you’re giving that man riotously mixed vibes and totally indecipherable cues.”
She blinked. “I am?”
I took my hand from her face and leaned back. “I know we want men to get what us wearing pretty sundresses to garden means. But let me educate you, men are clueless.”
“He tried to talk to me a little while ago,” she admitted something I already knew. “I made a fool of myself. I think it turned him off.”
“I’m certain you didn’t because he didn’t know a single person was in that room, but you.”
Hope lit her face.
I seized on it and kept at her.
“It’s going to be hard. I know it is. But you have to give him something to go on.
And I can tell you, racing from a room he’s been in all of five minutes is not the cue you want to be giving him.
Go back. Send Prue to help me. Or Battle.
Sit with him, and…I don’t know. Ask him what those sticks are that he shoves in the ground. ”
“But I know what they are. They’re soil probes.”
“Okay, then ask him what readings he’s getting on his soil probes…or something.”
“I could…maybe ask him what the title of his dissertation is,” she suggested.
“Go with that,” I encouraged.
She looked uncertainly up the stairs.
“Go, honey,” I prompted. “He’s into you. Trust me. And if he made the first move, and you froze him out, since now you’re giving him an in, I suspect, once you break the ice, he’ll take over.”
At least, I hoped so.
“I…okay,” she said.
“Okay.”
She didn’t move.
I gave her a gentle push, verbally and physically. “Go, baby.”
She gave me a wild-eyed look.
But then she went.
I watched her go.
Once she disappeared, I mumbled, “Fuck, I hope he’s not a dick.”
And I headed to the kitchen, chicken, mash, sprouts, pud…
Dinner for my people.
* * *
I was sitting cross-legged on Battle’s bed wearing nothing but the button-down he’d worn that day.
He was coming out of the bathroom in heathered gray pajama pants with a black drawstring.
He had a face like thunder.
I guessed the orgasm I gave him ten minutes ago wore off.
“Honey—” I began.
“Does Prue have some secret crush who’ll be coming to dinner next Friday?” he demanded.
I took a second to control my hilarity before I responded.
“Not that I know of.”
He stretched out beside me on the bed, head to the pillows, and lifted his hands to rub his face.
“It was good tonight,” I told him.
He grunted behind his hands.
I lightly slapped his abs. “It was good.”
He took his hands from his face and looked at me.
“I thought Tempie and Hamish were going to whisk the china and cutlery from the table so they could fuck on it, and Chassie and Christian got to the point, it was like no one else was in the room.”
One could say, Tempie and Hamish’s heated glances and more heated whispering in each other’s ears did not take body language experts to interpret.
And once Chassie and Christian got started on compost, plant anatomy, seedlings, algae (yes, algae!) and bioethics, I thought Prue, who was sitting close to them at the table, was going to nod off to sleep.
“We aren’t the only ones who get to have fun,” I remarked.
His eyes dipped to the gape in his shirt I was wearing, they heated, then what was probably happening, or already happened (like with Battle and me) and was inevitably going to happen again in Tempie’s room came to him, I knew, because he rubbed his hands on his face again.
I stretched out against his side.
And I did my own whispering in a hot guy’s ear.
“Everyone in this house, right now, is happy.”
He dropped his hands and turned his head to me again.
Then his whole body.
When I was in his arms, I asked, “Why’d you put on pajamas?”
“Because you’re obsessed with my chest, so I thought I’d help you out with some framing. If I give you too much, you get distracted.”
I rolled my eyes (even if he spoke truth, the distracting part was his pretty cock, also his muscled thighs).
He chuckled (he knew he spoke truth).
“Move to my rooms?” he asked.
My eyes rolled right back to his face.
“What?”
“I like the idea of knowing you’re sleeping in my bed when I’m away.”
I liked that he liked that.
However.
“Battle—”
He gave me a squeeze. “If it’s too much too soon, don’t do it. I’m telling you what I want. If you’re not ready…” He shrugged.
“But, the girls,” I said.
“And what’s the difference between you being here right now, and them knowing you are, and you being here when I’m not here?”
“You know there’s a difference.”
“I do? Really?”
Man, he was so into me.
And he didn’t give a shit who knew it.
Including me.
Another reason I was falling for him.
“I’ll think about it,” I gave in.
He brushed my lips with his. “Thank you, love.”
“Am I going to get another orgasm? Or are we going to sleep?”
“Do you want another orgasm?”
“You might as well ask if I want another scoop of ice cream in a hot fudge sundae.”
He grinned.
We rolled again.
And Battle Talyn, Duke of Burleigh, as was his way, set about giving his all so a woman he cared about would have everything she wanted.
And he did it splendidly.