Page 24 of Margins of Love
Fave looked at his lukewarm black tea. The rather harsh and heavy smell suddenly burned his nose.
“Would you care to try some?”
His heart flipped—she’d invited him to try her secret tea. The beats his heart skipped when he was around her could not be healthy. And yet, there was nowhere he would rather be.
“Come with me,” he said.
He looked around. Everyone else had left the breakfast room, and they were alone, just as he wanted. He took her hand and pulled her into a quiet side room in the west wing that was safe from the morning sun. Her hand firmly held his, and his palms began to sweat. He never wanted to let go.
“I am going to bring some hot water and cups. Meet me under the willow tree behind the orangerie in fifteen minutes.”
He impulsively kissed her on the forehead and dashed off.
CHAPTER18
Fave had already spread a blanket under the willow’s shady canopy when Rachel arrived. His grandfather’s old basket harbored a picnic set for two, the same one he had used in all those visits to Brockton House, even before his parents had allowed the dowager to take it over. Besides Lizzie, Fave, and Arnold, nobody knew where grandfather had hidden their picnic basket—and he didn’t want any of the servants to know about it. It held all the sentimental memories of their summers at Brockton House. Memories from when grandfather guided him and life was simpler made Fave smile. He looked down at the wicker handle of the basket he had kept at Somerset for as long as he could remember. Removing it from here would have stripped his grandfather’s lovely memories of so many leisurely summer picnics and Fave would not allow that. He had come here often as a child before his grandfather could no longer sit comfortably on the hard ground. Besides Lizzie and Arnold, no one else knew of this wonderfully private spot, hidden away from the purview of Brockton House and its sharp-tongued mistress.
The hellebores were in bloom and attracted a few eager bees. Fave picked a crocus and handed it to Rachel as soon as she reached the willow. Her face was flushed as she had been running. A few curls had escaped their pins, and she had to catch her breath, causing her chest to rise and fall, attracting Fave’s gaze. She twirled the delicate purple crocus between her fingers and licked her lips as if to say something. He was spellbound. She must have noticed because she blinked at him sheepishly. Her natural flush was becoming, and Fave liked seeing her like this in a less formal setting than the stuffy old dining room under his mother’s surveillance. He bowed to greet her—he was not perfectly composed, but he was at least able to maintain politeness.
In fact, he felt tongue-tied but mustered a “hello.” He pointed to the tin in her hand, an unlabeled container typical for storing dried spices and asked, “Is this the mysterious tea?” With a dented lid and chipped paint, this inanimate object spoke volumes about the girl. Fave suspected that she had refilled it often, never considering replacing it with some opulently decorated tea box, as many pompous ladies of the ton would. Rachel was grounded and had quizzical eyes that Fave could not stop looking at.
He unpacked the basket, laying out saucers and cups on the blanket.
“Ouch!” Fave cursed as a splash of hot water startled him.
Rachel bent down to inspect his hand. “Let me see.” She had gloves on, but he did not.
Fave reached out his hand. “It’s nothing,” he said in an unconvincing tone further undermined by the growing blister on his skin.
Rachel held on to his hand and, despite being the gentlest of touches, Fave was shocked by the spark of electricity between them. He forgot all about his minor burn, focused solely on Rachel’s proximity. As he gazed at her, a completely different heat raged through his body.
She timidly avoided his gaze, but he stared at her, agog at his reaction to her mere touch.
Rachel looked at his hands for what seemed an eternity. “Healthy people have a white lunula and a deep philtrum,” she said, like a medical student reciting her physiology readings from years ago.
Fave was confused by her odd statement, ready for her explanation.
She did not disappoint. “The lunula is the white half-moon shape at the base of a nail. It indicates general health.” She smiled chagrined, seemingly aware of her dictionary-reciting tone. “And the philtrum—the midline groove in the upper lip that runs from the top of the lip to the nose—has embryonic origins.” Her eyes dropped to his lips. “The deeper the philtrum, so people say, the better the person’s character.”
“And doI look healthy and upstanding to you despite the burn I recently suffered?” Fave asked teasingly. His voice sounded deeper than usual.
She gave a wistful smile, her cheeks resembling juicy apricots.
Fave lost all sense of the space between them when her examination of his fingers came up toward his mouth. He felt her gaze in his stomach. Unable to decide his next move, he deferred to automatism and made the tea. Although he regretted the moment he removed his hand from her touch, he was unable to withstand her heat.
“What is this?” she asked. He’d wrapped a linen napkin around a marmalade jar, fogged with hot water, and contained it within a larger pickling jar.
“A makeshift insulator,” he said, grinning, proud of himself for thinking of it.
Her puzzlement lasted only a second before she broke into a smile that would have warmed Fave’s heart even if it were frozen into an arctic glacier.
“You created a heat pocket with an air chamber,” she beamed.
“You’re brilliant!” he shouted, excited by her knowledge of physics.
Their eyes met and held.
“No, you did it. I just said it.” She bit her lip, feeling it tingling when her eyes found his, but something prevented her from holding his gaze.
