Page 48 of If I Loved You
“That is unnecessarily rude,” Emma accused. “Callum has been nothing but kind to me and you make it sound as if... as if he’s a dog, looking for a meal!”
“Exactly!” Zachary hissed at her.
Emma moved away from him, stalking around the prep table, until she faced him again from the other side. “And what does that make you, my lord?”
“Touché, my dear. But your argument is unsound,” he said in an oily, unattractive voice. “I believe that was you, responding so agreeably to my kiss for quite a few moments.”
Her bottom lip sagged in mortification at this reminder. She lied pitifully, “I did not...want you to kiss me.”
“I beg to differ,” he countered evenly.
All right, so she was not going to win this argument, she determined with a huff. “I think you should leave now.” And she took up the well-arranged bowl of vegetables and began chopping them ferociously upon the cutting table, pretending—hopelessly—that he was, indeed, already gone.
And in the next minute, he truly was. Emma heard the quiet closing of the kitchen door and she breathed again, dropping both hands upon the table in front of her to steady herself.
On a good day, having a clue what she was about making a stew, she might have been successful in this endeavor. Today, with that ugly scene playing in her head over and over—and still being without a true knowledge of what she was about in regard to stew-making—Emma was quite sure she was doing nothing more than wasting fine vegetables and a good cut of meat in an effort to keep her mind off what truly troubled her. She didn’t think they had successfully settled any matter between them and was not so naïve to think that these issues would not arise again.
Within a half hour, however, she did have what she guessed was a good beginning to her dinner coming to a boil in the huge pot hung over the open hearth. She wiped her hands upon the apron she’d donned—when she’d remembered to do so after he had left—and happened to glance out the window into the back yard.
She blinked twice, shock rooting her to the spot in the kitchen while she watched the Earl of Lindsey work in her barely tilled garden. Unmoving, she saw that he had found a larger shovel than the small handheld one she’d struggled with earlier, and that he was turning the earth over with much greater ease and speed than she had. As ever, Emma was captivated by the sheer beauty of the man and his form. He struck the hardened dirt with the shovel and then used great force to push it further into the ground before turning it over, and all the while the muscles of his upper body were clearly visible through the white lawn of his shirt. He withdrew the tool from the earth and repeated the process time and again, until the entire plot of land, perhaps being a ten by twelve piece, had been worked to reveal dark, fresh dirt, ready for planting.
When he was done, he leaned one forearm upon the top of the shovel, now struck firmly into the ground, and used the other forearm to wipe the sweat from his brow. His head then lifted, his eyes squinting into the late afternoon sun, charting the flight of a blackbird across the sky above.
Many thoughts flitted through Emma’s mind as she stared at Zachary Benedict, and she was surprised that at this moment not one of these ponderings were of a censorious nature. But there was, however, one troubling thought that crept into her mind.She wouldn’t let it complete itself, but the foundation of it was there. If only....
ZACHARY RETURNED THEshovel to where he’d found it on the side of the house, where Henry obviously stored many of the yard’s necessities. It was then that he noticed, over the top of the hedgerows, that many of the trees within the pear and apple orchard outside the hedges seemed to be in need of some attention. He considered the stack of tools and such at the side of the cottage and selected several different pruners and a saw and ventured out into the orchard to see what might be done for the poorly maintained grove.
Counting fourteen trees, two of which he could not identify, Zachary began trimming away at the closest pear tree, thinning the canopy as efficiently as he could without causing too much loss to the healthy branches and late spring flowers. Menial, physical tasks such as this were exactly what he needed to keep his mind off the fact that he wanted—indeed, had thought of little else for most of this day—to kiss Emma again. His mind and body seemed not to care that mostly they just annoyed each other, that often they were at odds. She spoke and railed and fumed, and while he did hear her words, he focused much of his energy upon her lips. Their softness was already met and well-proven, and likely there wasn’t a man who’d tasted those lips and then was able to think of much else when in her presence, and even when not, he imagined.
Naturally, this thought—another man kissing her—darkened his already unsettled mood. Here was an avenue he thought best not to travel. He recognized, although unhappily, that she had a past just as he did. Swiftly, shaking his head while his jaw tightened, he put an end to these unruly thoughts just as he spied Emma walking toward him.
She approached, if not stiffly, at least shyly, sticking out her hand, offering him a glass of cool lemonade. Zach ducked out from under the branches, watching her eyes, which watched anythingbuthis eyes, and took the proffered glass with a low, “Thank you.”
“You needn’t do this, you know,” she said, arms once again crossed over her chest—her protective or defensive stance—as she glanced around her orchard. “I’ll tackle these chores... day by day, I suppose.”
“I needed to work off some steam,” he said, only half-teasing.
At this, she turned her enchanting eyes upon him, gauging his seriousness. A half-smile teased her lips. Zachary, as ever, was instantly captivated. She could ask that the proverbial back forty be tilled and he’d likely trudge out that way. Never, in all his life, amidst all the women he’d known, had he ever been led so easily—yet by one who remained so unknowing. Inside, he cursed himself a fool but heard himself say, “I’m guessing you finally did something with all those vegetables. I hope it had something to do with a big black pot and some fine cut of meat, and—as you say—a ‘boiling of things’.”
She rewarded his small humor with a full smile now. Actually, she responded rather pertly, in good fun, “I’ll have you know that I have successfully put together a beautiful looking stew.”
“Congratulations.”
Hesitantly then, so endearing to Zach, she added, “Would...would you care to stay for supper?” She seemed then to hold her breath.
“Are you asking me because you would like my company? Or,” he said, unable to resist coaxing her into a smile again, “are you inviting me merely as your back-up plan, should dinner go awry?”
She responded as he’d hoped, grinning beautifully as she pronounced saucily, “I said dinnerlookedbeautiful; I haven’t a clue how it might actually taste. It might be necessary to have you around should the need arise for a late trip into Perry Green.”
That’s my girl, he wanted to say. He liked that so much about her. She truly was often angry and riled by him, some of it deserved, he allowed, but she was never of an unchangeable nature, and her mood seemed genuinely to be rather blessed by easiness. “I’ll be in shortly to clean up.”
She nodded, shy again and turned to retreat into the cottage.
It was easy then to imagine that she was his and that this was theirs. So satisfyingly easy.
Zach wrenched his gaze away from her and gave his attention to the suckers growing out near the base of the tree, not reading anything into her willingness to have him here.
DINNER WAS THEN, FORobvious reasons, a very informal affair, with the earl even helping to set the table, while Bethany, done with her nap, trailed after him wherever he went. Emma had changed from her working frock into a simple gown of pale blue. She’dcleaned herself up, and even dabbed a bit of vanilla from the pantry at her wrists and neck, not even bothering to dissect why she might want to do this. She hadn’t time to fuss overly with her hair and so only clipped up the sides at the back of her head and left the mass of it to fall down across her back.
