Rescued By A Viscount(44)

He’d realized as he’d held her last night that he wanted Claire Belmont very much. Waking with her soft body pressed against his chest was exquisite torture, and the look of wonder in her brown eyes when she’d realized she had slept all night was something he would remember for a long time. When he’d turned her beneath him, his intentions had only been to make her smile, but that had all changed as he’d touched her. Suddenly he’d wanted to strip off that prim nightdress and fist one hand in her curls while he parted her thighs and drove inside her. He would need to be strong in the coming days, because Simon wasn’t sure if he had her in his arms again that he would be able to walk away.

In one day, he had learnt much about her. Her life was a play she enacted to keep the secret of her sleeplessness at bay. He admired her strength. Few could cope with so little sleep, yet she did so masterfully. Looking to the doorway, he saw it was still empty, so he made his way around the house and down the little path he knew so well to where the gardens lay. A riot of color greeted him. He felt the last of his tension ease as he walked down the path, studying the plants and shrubs he had bedded with his own hands. Bending occasionally, he pulled a weed or dead leaf, and then he stopped to inspect a rose he had planted not long ago.

“This is not the right place for you, my friend. We need to move you before you give up completely.” Simon bent to dig in the loose soil with his bare hands, making a wide trench around the plant. He then dug deeper and eased the roots free.

“Why do you have your hands in the dirt, Simon?”

His fingers stilled before he looked up at Claire, who was almost upon him. He had not heard her approach because he was focused on the rose. “Uh–”

“Why have you dug a little trench around that plant?”

“It needs moving. The light is not right for it here.”

He could feel her eyes on the back of his head as he continued to ease the plant free. Why did he suddenly feel as if he knelt before her, stripped of all his clothing? She had been vulnerable yesterday; today it was his turn, it seemed.

“The owner of this house is quite the gardener, Simon. Do you know him well?”

It was a simple question, yet Claire Belmont rarely asked a question without a purpose.

“The gardens here are beautiful,” she added when he did not answer.

“Yes they are.” Standing, Simon carried the little bush to where it would be happy and then bent to dig a hole to place it in.

“What type of rose is that?”

“Old Blush,” Simon said shortly, hoping she would simply walk back up the path and let him settle the little plant in its new bed.

“Does the owner not mind you digging about in his garden and uprooting his plants?”

He finished what he was doing, then patted the soil into place. He could almost hear the rose thanking him, sighing in relief. “Just ask the question, Claire,” he said, standing to look at her. Surrounded by his flowers, she looked like the most beautiful bloom of them all. Morning sun stood at her back, and he could see the outline of her long, slender limbs through the skirts of her pale rose dress.

“Sometimes when the moon is bright and I struggle to sleep, I go to our gardens in London and pull weeds. It helps to calm me, and often I take a blanket and just sit there and enjoy the peace the garden offers,” she said.

Simon didn’t tell people his garden was his passion because most would not believe him. He wasn’t ashamed; he just couldn’t be bothered with the questions he suspected would arise. Looking at Claire, he could see she was genuine in what she had said.

“Who owns this house, Simon?”

“I do.”

“And are you also responsible for the beauty that is all around us?”

He felt a rush of pleasure at the knowledge that she thought his gardens beautiful. He spent a few seconds brushing the dirt off his hands while he worked through his answer. “It is something I have always liked to do.” He caught her scent as she moved closer–a subtle blend of rose and honeysuckle, both flowers he loved.

“I would say you love doing it, Simon,” she added, looking around her. She then bent to pull a weed that had wound itself around the stem of a flower. Standing, she presented it to him.

“Why, Miss Belmont, how sweet of you.”

“I am all that is sweet, Lord Kelkirk.”

He snorted at the falsehood. “Of course you are. It was someone completely different who told me my waistcoat was better suited to hang in your windows than from my body.” He turned, making his way to the small shed at the rear, where he found water. Washing his hands, he then scooped some out in the old cup he left beside it and carried it back to where Claire and his rose waited. Dropping to his knees he poured the water around the plant.