Page 12 of Better Love Next Time
Something tickled the back of his hand. He started to smash it.
Squeeeeek.
He curled his hand around it and came up with a guinea pig.
Underbrush snapped. A wallop followed, like a leaping giant. “Fee, fau, fum, I smell the blood of an English man!”
Julian scrambled to the tree’s entrance, candlestick and guinea pig at the ready. “Stand back! Or I’ll?—”
Afternoon sun cracked through the trees, momentarily blinding him. A breeze blew the forest canopy shut, and the beast shifted into view.
His cousin Georgiana stood beside her massive chestnut, Turk. “Julian?” Her gaze lowered to his hands, back and forth between hisweapons. “Is that Daisy?”
Daisy snuffled and squeaked, not keen on being brandished. Julian snuggled the beastie to his chest, and the blasted rodent started cooing.
Georgiana grinned. “Ah, she likes you.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to see Kitty.”
“Kitty?”
“Yes. My friend. This is her home.”
“You mean the fairy?”
Georgiana lifted her face to the sky with a great belly laugh. “It’s not really her home, cousin. Notfelle is, but we play here.”
Kitty. She was a girl who played with his cousin. And what was funny about this? He had acted chivalrous for the first time in his life and might have rescued this Kitty. It was a sign he wasn’t meant to be the chivalrous sort.
The fairy, that is,Kitty,squeezed out between him and the tree’s archway and kissed Georgiana’s cheek. This Kitty touched everyone.
“Look what I found, Georgiana,” she said. “A lost boy. Isn’t he beautiful?”
“I’m not lost,” he countered.
“Not anymore. You haveus.” To Georgiana, she said, “Do tell him not to run away. He must stay and be our friend.”
Georgiana looked Julian up and down. “Hmmm. Let me think on it.”
Plucking Daisy from his hold, Kitty scooped up Julian’s right wrist and pressed it to her breast.“Please say yes, Georgiana. I shall keep him with me forever.”
Julian took in the amazing vision of his palm against white cotton.The first time my hand has ever touched a female’s breast.He needed to remember this, the exact date and time, to tell Anthony Philips who’d only touched one with an elbow, and had received a slap on the face.
Based on the dimples sparkling in her cheeks, Kitty had no plans to slap him. And she kept his hand planted on her breast—which weren’t actually breasts, more like a chest—but she was a girl, and therefore, it counted.
“Don’t you agree?” she asked Julian bold-faced. “We are fated for one another. Like Eros and Psyche.”
“More like Isolde and Tristan,” Georgiana said. “I say we keep him. We need someone to play the villain. Let’s go to the tower and play. My cousin will make an excellent executioner.”
Kitty dropped Julian’s wrist. “This is your cousin? Andrew?”
“Julian,” he bit out.
“Oh, what a beautiful name. For a beautiful boy.” Kitty sprang up on her toes and smacked a kiss to his jaw. “Welcome to Notfelle, Sir Julian. I am Lady Katherine.”
Julian warmed at the peck. In one day, a girl had: touched his face and hair, held his hand, kissed him, and willingly placed his hand on her breast.
