Chapter 6
Calloused hands worked their way between her thighs, dragging them eagerly open. An impossibly hot mouth traced the line of her throat. Bella’s sex clenched in anticipation—
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Bella groaned, a hand dragging down her too-warm face.
“Lady Bella?” Tamsin called through the door.
“Just a moment,” she replied, voice tight, and a little graveled.
She hadn’t anticipated this side effect of West’s presence.
In all her fretting, the idea of waking flushed with thoughts of their long-forgotten encounter hadn’t occurred to her.
While it was infinitely more pleasurable than shooting upright on a petrified gasp, she wasn’t certain she preferred it.
With a sigh, she rose and donned her robe. “Come in.”
Bella’s lady’s maid slipped inside and pressed the door closed behind her. “Are you well, my lady? You’re never still abed at this hour.”
Bella bit her tongue against the instinctual snap; Tamsin had no way of knowing what she’d interrupted.
And Bella knew that nothing worthwhile lay at the end of that dream.
Well, it had been shaping up to be a rather pleasurable dream, but she already struggled to keep the blush from her cheeks in West’s presence.
“Perfectly well, thank you. How is the weather today?”
“Chilly this morning. But no hint of rain.”
“The moss velvet then, I think. With the russet trim.”
Tamsin nodded and pulled the dress from Bella’s wardrobe.
The velvet had worn thin in places, but they would take advantage of the weather to plant Eliza’s flowers that day.
She could excuse it as not wanting to ruin a newer dress.
That the neckline gaped when she turned in certain directions was an added benefit.
West may drive her to madness, but he was just as affected by her. It was astonishing how quickly her awareness of him had returned.
Once dressed, she slipped into the morning room to find the now-familiar cup of tea.
“Thank you for this, Tamsin,” she called out to the maid before taking a sip. The brew wasn’t piping hot, but it was still warm, boiled with a pinch of lavender and splashed with milk and a dollop of the dark, late-season honey, just as she preferred.
“Oh, I didn’t leave that, my lady. I think it was— Well…”
Bella’s tongue darted between her lips to lick off the final dollop. “Weston,” she finished.
The maid nodded before continuing her shuffle down the hall.
Bella set the cup back down on the table beside her favorite chair, contemplating it. She should have known—a part of her probably had—because no one had ever made her a cup of tea that perfect. Save West.
Ben stepped into the room, interrupting her conflicted contemplation—looking like death. Dark circles lined his eyes, and his hair was bedraggled.
“She’s still unwell this morning. It has been a week,” he murmured by way of explanation. “I’m sending for a physician tomorrow if she is not improved. She may be as cross with me as she likes.”
Bella privately thought Eliza’s plan to keep the truth from Benedict as long as possible was a good one—he would fret something fierce once he discovered she was with child.
The longer they could delay the inevitable anxiety, the better.
But her brother loved his wife. She could put him off only so long without another explanation.
Ben looked at her askance. Bella could offer only a raised brow and pressed lips for the besotted fool to interpret however he wished.
She took another unthinking sip of tea. Damn him, it was perfection. Precisely brewed and thoughtfully accompanied. She set it back against the saucer with a clank.
“What’d it do to you?” Ben asked.
She rolled her eyes as West stepped into the room.
“Is Eliza joining us?” he asked.
“No, she’s unwell again this morning, though she was improved yesterday evening. I’m sending for Pryor tomorrow if she’s not well.”
“Probably for the best,” West agreed, because he was also a nincompoop.
Bella bit her tongue and stood to take her place at the table, where she snatched a piece of toast and started buttering it.
“Does she have specifications for her plantings?” she asked her brother, studiously ignoring the impossible man now seated beside her.
“There are diagrams,” Ben mumbled between urgent bites. “She’s got chrysanthemums, dahlias, asters, marigolds, and a few others growing in pots in the greenhouse.”
“Very well. Leave it with me.”
“Are you digging, then?” West asked, interest laden in the tone.
Bella had to fight to keep the smile from her lips. “Supervising, obviously.”
“Obviously.”
“I’ll be painting the rest of your little signs,” Bella chirped as she speared a bite of sausage and brought it to her mouth.
* * *
The hours that followed found Bella with a paintbrush in her hands and Weston with a saw in his. Though they’d hoped to begin digging, the ground remained too wet after yet more rain, and they had to delay another day in favor of more booth assembly.
He’d set up another pair of sawhorses with the wooden signs he’d cut and assembled over the course of the previous days alongside her paints and brushes—because of course he had.
“Satisfactory for the supervising?” he asked when he arrived earlier that morning at the clearing, carrying a pile of lumber.
“Hardly, but I’ll make do.”
“You always do,” he said as he placed the wood down. Which was when Bella noticed his attire—or lack thereof. At least yesterday he’d worn a waistcoat. Today he’d donned only the thinnest of shirts, unbuttoned halfway to his navel, and those damn braces hung from his hips.
She whirled around to face her makeshift easel, her cheeks heating.
Bella had very little experience in undressing a man—just the one instance with just this one man.
But those braces—there had been something incomprehensibly satisfying about tugging those scraps of fabric and leather down his broad shoulders.
She could still conjure his protesting groan when she’d implicitly asked him to remove his hands from her body to free himself of them.
But West intended to taunt her with them as they swayed around masculine thighs—a matador with a cape. Her dress sat far too high on her bosom to serve as fitting punishment for those damned braces.
“Brought you one of Mam’s old aprons. Didn’t want you to ruin your pretty frock,” he said, voice low, thick, and right behind her.
Masculine, calloused hands urged the white fabric over her head. Her memory hadn’t done those fingers justice—long and strong, rough, with squared nails. And there was still a hint of bruising at the knuckles, whether from his fight or his practice the other day, she didn’t know.
She spun around, trapped between West and the wooden board, apron tangled between them. “Thank you.” Her voice was raw, with a tinny quality, but that could be attributed to disuse.
“It’s a very pretty frock. Surprised you wanted to paint in it.”
“It’s older. The fit isn’t quite right—”
“Oh, I’d say the fit perfectly achieves your aims,” he said, voice graveled, lips quirked up at one corner.
She fought to regain her footing against such an onslaught—with the braces, and the gravel, and the smirk. “What could you possibly know about my aims?”
His gaze flicked to her newly covered bosom and back to her eyes—a shade darker than the sky and so clear.
“You don’t need the dress, Belle. You’ve always had my attention.”
The diminutive slid along her spine before wrapping around her rib cage like a warm embrace.
“The day I do anything for your attention is the day the sun ceases to rise. And it’s Lady Arabella.” She snapped, a hateful, brittle note in the letters of her full name.
West merely nodded and stepped back, ripping the air with him. It made no sense, the way her lungs fought for air now that she was no longer sharing his.
He leaned back in and whispered, “Lady Arabella,” like a teasing caress. Damn him for turning those six syllables into something arousing.
West backed up another step, two, and turned for the shed, presumably for more lumber.
She dragged tremulous hands across her face before releasing a shaky breath and straightening. One minute was the only indulgence she allowed herself, then she reached behind her to knot the apron strings.
Her weak fingers got tangled up behind her back.
She barely covered her gasp when West’s warmth engulfed her again.
“Allow me,” he murmured. Her hands fell to her sides without permission. How she’d missed his return, she didn’t know. But sure fingers tied a quick bow behind her back.
“Thank you,” she mumbled before adding in a more certain tone, “But I’m perfectly capable of managing on my own.”
“Oh, that I know.” A heavy note filled his voice—critical.
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing, Lady Arabella.”
The urge to snap at him was overwhelming, but she couldn’t very well scold him for doing the very thing she’d asked. Instead, she bit her tongue and turned back to her paints dismissively.
He disappeared again, presumably to collect yet more wood.
Bella reached for her paint, but her limbs refused to cooperate, fingers too twitchy to begin.
West’s overwhelming presence threatened to tow her under.
It would be so, so easy to accept the little generous gestures, to allow him his playful sobriquet, to let him crowd her.
But each impertinence she granted left her more vulnerable to him. And she couldn’t have that.
Two days later, Bella saw her future demise: Death by arousal and the absurd sounds West made.
Because the ground had finally dried out.
With each thrust of the shovel, a huff of breath was followed by an entirely masculine grunt as he lifted his new mound of earth and tossed it to the side. Each and every one of his sounds trailed along her spine with a wanton awareness.
Mother Nature had felt it necessary to add to Bella’s personal crisis. The day was hot and unseasonably muggy. If Bella had been a betting woman—which she certainly was not; she knew all too well the dark side of gaming—she would have put her money on another storm.