Page 79 of Meet Me Under the Mistletoe
Jimmy grinned at her as he cleaned the mud out of a pony’s iron shoe. Who was she trying to kid? All her friends and half the stable hands had watched Isaac sweep her into a Hollywood-style embrace.
She’d never been kissed quite like that before. Certainly not in public. All her most favorite body parts had instantly stood to attention. Even Jenna’s high-pitched wailing through the castle hadn’t fully cooled her ardor.
“I think he said he had work to do on the cold frames, over near the potting sheds through the gate.”
Jimmy winked at her, and Nory attempted a cool stare.
“Hey, you’re not related to Thomas Noel, are you?” he asked suddenly.
Nory laughed. “He’s my brother, why?”
“You looked just like him when you scowled.”
Nory cut through a gap between the stables and crossed a field where heavy-coated sheep eyed her suspiciously. She climbed over a stile and let herself in through a wooden gate that led to a section of the gardens not open to the public. Here were glasshouses and polytunnels, and tool sheds both wooden and brickbuilt. A network of vegetable patches and raised beds—where most of the produce for the castle was grown—ran along either side of a long path.
Most of Nory’s serious relationships had been measured, sensible choices: men she’d thought her dad might approve of—though of course he never did. Even her throwaway flings tended to be disappointing on the passion front. Was she really so hard to please? Was it too much to ask to find a man who could give her better orgasms than she could give herself?
She was still thinking about orgasms when she caught sight of Isaac. He was piling garden trimmings into one of several large wooden compost bins. His discarded zip fleece hung on a fence post, and he worked in just a T-shirt, despite the cold. Nory slowed her pace so she could watch him before he caught sight of her. Lord, but he was good-looking! The muscles in his arms flexed as he reached down into a wheelbarrow and scooped up another load.Andrew was right, I am turning into Lady Chatterley!At that moment, Isaac looked up and saw her. Nory smiled and waved as though she’d only just arrived and had not been perving over him.
Isaac smiled at her, his dark eyes glinting as her cheeks flushed. There hadn’t been time to discuss their impromptu kiss earlier. When Isaac had dropped Guy—somewhat roughly—into his room, he had left straightaway to speak to the marquis.
Suddenly Nory didn’t know what to say.
“Are you okay?” Isaac asked.
“Yes. Yes, thank you, I’m fine. How about you?”
“Good.”
“Good, then. Excellent.”
“I’m sorry I left in such a hurry...”
“Gosh, no, don’t be, I completely understand. I’m sorry about the things Guy said to you, about all of it, really.”
Isaac frowned and cocked his head to one side. “Why are you apologizing for him?”
“I’m not. I’m just saying thatI’msorry on my own behalf, that you had a shitty morning.”
“You didn’t make it shitty.”
Isaac turned his dark brown eyes on her, and her hand automatically went to her mouth. The pads of her fingers brushed her lips, remembering where his mouth had been earlier, the heat in his kiss, the way he had held her so tightly... She blinked and tried to bring herself back to the present.
“No, but Guy did. Make it shitty, I mean.”
“I thought you weren’t apologizing for him.”
Nory was quiet for a moment. Was she apologizing for Guy? He certainly didn’t deserve it. Maybe she was so used to having to excuse herself she didn’t even realize she was doing it—apologizing to her family for her privileged friends and apologizing to her friends for her working-class family. It was exhausting. She’d spent her entire coming-of-age years trying to mediate between and reconcile the two parts of her life, and here she was in her thirties, still doing it. Isaac turned away from her.
“He thinks he’s a cut above,” said Isaac, steam rising from a compost pile as he turned it over with a pitchfork. “People like him are all the same. When it comes down to it, they think they’re better than everyone else. The rest of us are just here to serve them.”
“Guy’s an idiot,” agreed Nory.
“ ‘Just a fucking gardener!’ he said to me.”
“Yes.”
“Just a fucking gardener?How can you bear to be around these people?”
