Chapter Eleven #2
Focus on her, Henry tried to tell himself. Not yourself.
But there was something instantly warming about the idea she had come straight to him. She had been in trouble, and she had sought him out.
Despite himself, a smile crept across his lips.
‘Why on earth are you smiling?’ Ditty demanded.
Henry cleared his throat. ‘No I’m not.’
‘Yes, you are—well, you were,’ she amended, scowling at him and looking damned pretty while doing so. ‘What on earth am I going to do?’
It was indeed a challenge, Henry could see that. Brexley was not large, and though he loved the small town which had always been there for him, there were few options for a romantic…
A romantic…
No. No, he could not share that place. It was his, his and… But even as Henry thought that, his gaze flickered to Ditty. To the woman he was starting to care far too much about.
‘What is it?’
Henry froze. ‘What?’
‘That smile—you’ve thought of something, haven’t you?’ Ditty’s expression was still marred by tension.
Oh, God, he was going to do this. ‘I… I have a solution for you, but I don’t know if I should share it.’
Ditty perked up immediately. ‘A solution? A new plan?’
Henry hesitated. He had been speaking the truth when he said he wasn’t sure if he should share it—but probably not for the reason she would assume.
Taking her there…where he had proposed to Georgiana…
He hadn’t been there in a while. A long while. In fact, now he came to think about it, had he been there since the disastrous proposal?
‘Henry?’
Henry’s jaw had tightened, but he tried to loosen it as he rose. This would hurt, but it was the right thing to do. ‘Come with me. Let me show you the next best place—no, what am I saying? The best place for a proposal in all of Brexley.’
There was just a moment of hesitation in Ditty’s face as she considered his words. Henry’s heart skipped a beat. Was she willing to trust him? Was he willing to open this part of his life to someone who, he knew, would be gone in just under two weeks?
‘Fine, but this place had better be good,’ said Ditty in a warning tone, rising to her feet. ‘A better menu than Reg’s—no, what am I saying, how would that be possible?’
Henry snorted as he pulled on a pair of gloves and opened the door to the corridor. ‘There’s no menu at all.’
‘No menu? How does one order?’
‘It’s—it’s easier to show you,’ said Henry with a dry laugh, closing his study door behind them and striding down the corridor. ‘Just follow me.’
It was pleasant to have Ditty by his side once more. He had never noticed just how lonely living in a place like Brexley could be, especially around Valentine’s Day.
Especially around— What was he thinking?
‘The path to the woodland?’ Ditty wrinkled her nose. ‘In the woods, really, Henry?’
He laughed, breath billowing as they stepped outside the Lodge and toward the forest. ‘Can you just trust me for, I don’t know, more than two minutes?’
Ditty caught his eye and grinned. ‘I suppose I can try. For you.’
A flicker of warmth spread across Henry’s chest as he laughed with her, though his was slightly forced.
For him? It was starting to get ridiculous just how much he wanted her to look at him, smile, trust him.
Worse, he was going to feel even more ridiculous once she left Brexley and returned to London. Went back to her life.
Because this is not her life, Henry tried to tell himself as they walked along the path, deeper into the Brexley Forest. This is your life. She just happens to be in it for a few weeks. And then she’ll be gone.
His trepidation about showing her the place grew the closer they got, and Henry found his footsteps slowing.
‘Are we almost there?’ Ditty asked quietly. ‘This special place of yours?’
Henry swallowed. ‘Yes.’
After a moment of silence, she said, ‘It’s the place where you proposed, isn’t it?’
Stopping dead in his tracks, Henry felt his cheeks burn as Ditty looked up with calm and compassionate eyes.
She was not teasing. She was certainly not laughing. Instead, she looked concerned.
‘You don’t have to take me there,’ Ditty said softly. ‘I can find somewhere else, perhaps look at going to Marchester—’
‘No. Charles would want to get engaged here, in Brexley,’ Henry cut across her, his chest tightening. He could do this. For her. For his brother. ‘It’s just…’
His voice trailed away as his gaze flickered to the path ahead of them. He had not expected coming back here to be so odd.
But when he looked back at Ditty, all the hesitation seemed to melt away.
‘I want to show you—and you should use it for my brother’s proposal, if you think it’ll be suitable,’ Henry said in a stronger voice, striding forward. ‘It’s just around the corner.’
Just a few more steps, and they would be there.
He heard Ditty gasp as they stepped around the corner and she saw it. The most beautiful part of Brexley.
‘It’s…it’s…’ Ditty gasped.
Henry grinned. ‘I know.’
The waterfall was hundreds of feet high. Water soared down from the edge of the cliff across the chasm from them—but a trick of the light made it look as though they could reach out and touch it.
Rainbows glittered in the air. Birdsong echoed beautifully in the naturally made chamber, and it was at least ten degrees warmer than the rest of the woods, the curve of the cliff protecting them from the wind.
‘It’s…magnificent,’ Ditty breathed, staring around her.
Henry’s chest swelled with pride, as though he had carved the place himself. ‘It’s amazing, is it not? People always think it’ll be too loud, but—’
‘How on earth can we hear each other?’ Ditty said in wonder. ‘I thought waterfalls were loud.’
‘They are—this is,’ said Henry. ‘But it’s a trick of the eye, the chasm is much farther out than you think. So you can look out at it, but still have a conversation. Still propose marriage, as it happens. That I can promise.’
He tried to put as much teasing laughter into his comment as possible, but Ditty was not so easily fooled.
‘So it was here…’
‘Yes,’ said Henry with a nod. ‘It was here.’
Only now of course did he realise, with a shock, that though his heart had been broken here, it was also now being mended.
In the very same place, but with a very different woman.
‘I… I am just astonished!’
Henry chuckled. ‘When the visitors arrive for the St Valentine’s Day Festival, we always make sure to keep this place quiet,’ he said, watching Ditty walk around slowly, gazing all about her. ‘It’s a special place for us Brexley residents, we don’t like sharing—’
‘And it’s not too much of a walk, is it?’ Ditty said eagerly.
Henry saw the light of passion in her eyes, her creativity rising to the challenge, and adored what he saw.
Who could help it?
There was something so intoxicating about seeing Ditty at work. She was a marvel. Just as much a marvel, in truth, as the waterfall he had known all his life. The same rush of power.
She was so beautiful—inside and out.
‘So I could get all the supplies up here myself, probably,’ Ditty said, eyes gleaming. ‘And the musicians—and perhaps even… No, that would need thinking about, the flowers…’
Her voice trailed off and Henry watched with a smile as her mind continued to work it out.
No matter what she did, he could plainly see, she would come up with a plan. A plan that would work. A plan that was, in some small way, because of him.
Ditty turned and beamed. ‘Thank you.’
Before Henry could say a word, she had rushed toward him and pulled him into an impetuous embrace.
His arms closed about her and for a moment, just a moment, they stood there.
He swallowed, breathed in the scent of Ditty. She was small and warm in his arms, clinging onto him in evident gratitude—and relief.
And that is all, he tried to tell himself. This attraction, this affection you have for her—it’s all one-sided. She’s here to do a job, and that is all.
Still, he could not help but wish the embrace would never end.
Ditty pulled back and laughed with bright, shining eyes. ‘I have a lot of planning to do.’
Henry rolled his eyes as he tried not to pull her back into his embrace. ‘I thought you’d learnt recently the dangers of trying to plan?’
‘It’s not a plan,’ she corrected him with a smile. ‘It’s…it’s preparation.’
Henry smiled in return, and that twisting ache returned to his stomach.
Oh, he was in deep trouble.
‘I would have thought you’d learn not to plan too much,’ he said quietly, refusing to release her, knowing that he should. ‘I thought you had avoided that since arriving here.’
‘I tried to avoid you and your displeasure since arriving here,’ she shot back in a low voice, gaze unwavering.
‘And how is that going?’
Ditty bit her lip, and that was what did it. The restraint of weeks could no longer be held in—it was impossible. How could he prevent himself from tasting those luscious lips?
Henry had hardly realised he had done so until he was doing it. Leaned forward, pulled Ditty back into his arms and placed his lips on hers.
She did not fight him. If anything, she pulled him closer. Lips parting and a light moan in her throat, Ditty gave herself to him in a way he could not have predicted.
This was what he wanted—who he wanted. From the very moment she had stepped off that stagecoach, Henry had been fighting this instinct, these desires awoken that he had believed dormant.
But Georgiana had never made him feel like this, sink into a kiss like this, want to pull pins out of cascading curls like this, cradle a woman’s jaw and tilt her into him like this.
Desire throbbed in his body as Henry teased pleasure in her mouth, aching as he felt her respond. This kiss between them had been needed for so long, his fingers entangled in her hair, her palm splayed against his chest. She tasted wonderful, like fire and honey—
‘No,’ Ditty whispered, pulling back.
Henry stepped back immediately, heart pounding, hardly sure if he had heard correctly. ‘I—I beg your pardon?’
Her cheeks were pink and for the first time in their acquaintance, Ditty refused to meet his gaze as the roar of the waterfall continued behind them. ‘I… I just think…it was a mistake, that was all. A mistake.’
A mistake? How could she say that? Could she not feel how he wanted her?
Henry swallowed. But he was no rogue. He would not force her. He was not about to start arguing with her. He stepped back. ‘A mistake.’
‘Yes, w-we got swept up in the moment. I should go and tidy myself up before returning to Mrs Fletcher’s,’ Ditty said hastily, backing away from him. ‘Before it gets too dark.’
‘I could take you across town in my dog cart—’
‘No, no, the walk will do me good,’ Ditty said with a brief smile before slipping down the path, round the corner and out of sight.
Henry breathed out a heavy sigh as he staggered back to lean against the trunk of a tree.
Hell.