Chapter 5

While a few of the other couples disappeared into the gardens, Lenore led Rhys back into the house. The Newstead library was a handsome room, with shelves of leather-bound volumes lining the walls and Uncle William's desk, piled high with various papers and correspondence.

They made a thorough search of the room, but no colored flag could be found, and Rhys finally turned to her with a sigh.

"Either someone's already beaten us to it, or the flag is in the library at Trellech, not here."

"Let's move on to the clue about wine instead, then. Should we check the pantry? There might be some cooking wine in there. Or the wine cellar?"

"Cellar first."

They stepped out into the hallway just as Lenore's older sister Caro emerged, giggling, from the steps up from the wine cellar. Will, her husband, was tickling her as she ascended the stairs.

"There's no flag down there," Caro laughed as she caught sight of Lenore, and batted Will's hands away so she could catch a breath. "We've already looked."

"Nothing in the library, either," Lenore said, ignoring the way Rhys elbowed her in the ribs and hissed, "Don't tell them anything. They're the enemy!"

Lenore rolled her eyes and went to follow Caro back out into the garden, but Rhys caught her waist and turned her gently in the opposite direction.

She ignored the swooping sensation in her stomach at his casual touch.

"Don't let them see where we're going!" he scolded. "They might not have cracked the clue about the butterfly house yet. We need to use a different exit. Where?"

"This way." Lenore led him through the music room, then the drawing room, and together they slipped out of the tall French windows and onto the terrace.

She lifted her skirts so she could move more quickly, and they hurried across the narrow patch of lawn and ducked behind a tall yew hedge.

"It's this way, through the orchard."

Lenore told herself she was breathless because of the pace, and not because she was suddenly alone with Rhys Davies.

A few laughs and shouts from the other couples could still be heard as they weaved between the apple trees, but they became fainter as their distance from the house increased.

"Let's hope we're the first to crack that particular clue," Lenore said, silently impressed by the way Rhys matched her steps by shortening his naturally longer strides.

Sunlight glinted off the hundreds of glass panes that made up her father's pride and joy; the glazed butterfly house he'd commissioned while they were in Brazil.

Rhys let out a whistle when he saw it. "Impressive."

Lenore smiled. Her father, Rollo, was one of England's foremost lepidopterists, and he'd dragged his long-suffering wife and children all around the world to study his beloved butterflies. Lenore wouldn't have changed a thing about her slightly unorthodox upbringing, but she was glad to be back in England now, after so many years abroad. It was lovely to have creature comforts like baths, cake shops and modistes so easily accessible.

She'd also been getting restless, keen to start pursuing her own passions, instead of taking part in someone else's. And now she had her chance.

Rhys looked around in interest as they reached the glazed door. The structure was huge, with hundreds of panes of glass supported by an elegant framework of cast iron. The inner surfaces of the panes were foggy with condensation.

"Prepare yourself," Lenore warned. "It's going to be extremely hot and steamy in here thanks to all the tropical plants. In fact, you might want to remove your jacket."

Rhys raised his brows and sent her a cheeky grin. "Trying to make me undress, Montgomery? How scandalous."

Lenore fought a blush. "Not at all. I'm only thinking of your health. I'm used to the oppressive heat of the tropics, whereas you might find it overwhelming. I'm not likely to catch you if you suddenly faint on me."

"We'd both end up on the floor in a tangle of limbs," he agreed, and the twinkle in his eye proved how much he was enjoying the double-entendre. "Can't have that."

He shrugged out of his jacket and rested it on a nearby bush, and Lenore drank in the sight of him in shirt sleeves and cravat. In the ton, a gentleman would never remove his jacket in the presence of a lady, and she sent up a silent thanks to her aunts for engineering this more relaxed atmosphere.

She pushed open the door and stepped inside, and the blast of hot air was still a shock, even though she was expecting it.

"I have an interest in tropical plants," she said over her shoulder. "I sent Uncle William a detailed lists of all the ones that would be good to grow in here to help the butterflies flourish."

She started along one of the brick paths, then turned to see Rhys's reaction. Hundreds of brightly colored butterflies were flitting about, or sunning themselves on the foliage.

"Amazing!" Rhys said, his tone genuinely awed.

"Most naturalists and collectors simply pin dead specimens to a card." Lenore wrinkled her nose at the thought. "But a dead butterfly doesn't give a sense of the living beauty of the creature—the way they flutter and glide and flap. Father's made it his mission to breed as many of these exotic species as he can, and to educate people about them. He disagrees with capturing them just to put them in a collection. And I agree. They should be allowed to live a full life."

"These are all butterflies you brought back from Brazil?"

Lenore nodded. "And a few from Madagascar, too."

"How did you get them back here? On a ship?"

"We brought almost five hundred caterpillars, from around fifty different species, and hundreds more caterpillar eggs. It's quite skill to rear butterflies from eggs. Father's writing a paper on it."

Rhys tipped his head back to admire the ones flitting above their heads, and the sight of his strong throat and angled jaw made her feel even more light-headed. What would his cheek feel like under her fingers? Would the slight dark stubble she could see there be rough? Or smooth?

She cleared her throat and forced herself to concentrate on less incendiary topics.

"There are butterflies in the Amazon that camouflage themselves so well they look just like dead leaves. And others, like the huge Caligo butterflies, that have markings on their wings that look like the eyes of an owl."

She pointed. "Do you see that bright yellow one? That's the cloudless sulphur. Phoebis sennae. And that red one is called a postman."

"What do they all eat?" Rhys asked.

"Nectar from flowers mainly, or the juice from rotting fruit. Each species has their own particular favorite. The Heliconius feed on passion flowers, which makes them mildly poisonous to predators. The bright coloring of their wings sends out a visual warning that they will be horrid to taste."

She lifted her fingers toward an enormous turquoise-blue butterfly that had settled on a nearby leaf. It was almost the size of her hand, its wings tipped in black.

"This is one of my favorites. A blue morpho, Morpho peleides. From the family Nymphalidae. Isn't he beautiful?"

"Yes. Very."

Rhys's voice was rough, almost raspy, and when she shot a look at him, she found him looking at her, not at the butterfly. Her skin heated even more, but the butterfly took off, breaking the moment, and they both watched it sail up toward the roof.

"See how he seems to float in the air? He hardly needs to flap its wings at all."

Lenore started along the path again, keeping an eye out for a colored flag. But every flash of red or yellow turned out to be another butterfly. The Aunts had chosen an excellent place to hide the prize.

"How did you know that butterfly was a male?" Rhys asked suddenly. "You called it a he."

"Only the male morphos are that lovely bright blue color. The females are well-camouflaged, a mottled brown and white. They're very dull in comparison."

"Like peacocks, then" Rhys said. "Do you think it's nature's way of letting the men show off? Or is it a clever ploy to put the more expendable males in danger by creating a distraction, so the predators attack them instead of the females?"

"I wouldn't say you men were expendable," Lenore said. "But that's effectively what you soldiers did, when you were fighting Napoleon. You put yourselves in harm's way to protect the rest of us. The country owes men like you an enormous debt. We'd all be speaking French right now if it wasn't for you."

"It was our duty. I'm just glad I lived through it, to tell you the truth."

Rhys ran a hand through his hair and looked charmingly uncomfortable with her admiration, and she turned away with a smile. His modesty was just another aspect of him that she liked.

"Morpho caterpillars defend themselves by producing a repellent smell." She said, mainly to lighten the mood.

It worked. Rhys chuckled. "I know a few members of the ton who use the same principle. I swear Lord Ashwood doesn't bathe more than once a year."

She loved his humor, too.

"I helped collect most of these caterpillars."

"You don't have a disgust of them?"

"No. Some are rather sweet, actually. And they come in all shapes and sizes. My favorite ones are hairy, like little wooly bears. They're very comical." She pointed to another butterfly. "That's a glass-wing, Haetera piera. Its wings are almost entirely transparent."

Rhys snorted. "Like Lord Bollingbrook's motivation for proposing to Violet Brand. He's sixty-two, with a crumbling estate and debts up to his eyeballs, and she's the beloved only child of a textile magnate. Unsurprisingly, Violet's father doubted his insistence that it was ‘true love'."

Lenore chuckled at his dry, cynical tone. "That's the ton for you. Violet might not have accepted him, but there are plenty of other society marriages that have been based on such a principle. Rich merchants ally themselves with impoverished aristocrats all the time; a fortune in exchange for a noble title."

"Alas, I have no noble title to tempt a lady," Rhys grinned, his eyes sparkling. "I am but a lowly second son, with no hope of acceding to the title unless something dreadful befalls Gryff. And knowing what a stubborn, perverse sod he is, he'll live to be a hundred, just to thwart me."

Lenore laughed. The bond between the Davies siblings was as strong as that between herself and her sisters, and she knew he'd be devastated if anything really did happen to his brother.

He glanced over at her. "But perhaps a lofty title isn't the most important criteria for a lady? You, for example, turned down the chance to be a duchess."

He raised his brows in question, and she glanced away, flustered by his probing. She didn't want to discuss her reasoning with the very man who'd brought about the decision. Not yet, anyway.

A flash of red in her peripheral vision provided a welcome distraction, and she let out a little shout of triumph. "There's a flag! Up there. Look!"

Rhys followed the direction she indicated and let out a groan. The flag had been lodged high up in the fronds of a huge palm tree.

"That's at least twenty feet up! How are we expected to get up there?"

"There was a butterfly net by the door. We could use that."

Rhys dutifully went to retrieve it, but even when he stood on tiptoe, the flag was still out of reach. They both looked around for something they could use as a step, but there was none to be found.

"Could you climb the tree?" Lenore suggested.

"Not easily," he said, hands on his hips as he surveyed the problem. "Is there a ladder somewhere? In one of the gardener's sheds?"

"We don't have time for that. One of the other teams could come at any moment. What if I lift you up?" She threaded her fingers together to make a step. "I can give you a leg up, as if you were mounting a horse."

He sent her a scoffing glance. "You wouldn't be able to take my weight. I might hurt you."

"Well then, why don't you lift me up?"

"That wouldn't be much use. We'd only gain a few inches. Unless you sit on my shoulders."

"Let's do that then," Lenore said.

Rhys's eyes widened as if she'd said the most scandalous thing in Christendom. "You're wearing skirts, Montgomery. To sit on my shoulders, you'd have to wrap your thighs around my head."

Lenore rolled her eyes, even though the very thought of doing something so shocking made every cell in her body tingle.

"I know that. Breeches would be better, but it can't be helped. I'm game if you are. Don't you want that flag, Davies?"

The challenge was the perfect goad to poke him into action, but her cheeks heated as she waited for his response. Was she being too daring? Would he be disgusted by her wanton suggestion and call her a terrible hoyden?

And then his beautiful lips parted in a wicked grin, and her spirits lifted in relief. She'd always suspected he was as ready for an adventure as herself.

He crossed to stand directly under the tree, then bent down on one knee.

"Come here then."

Lenore's heart was pounding as she put her hand on his shoulder and looked down at him. If only he'd adopt this position to propose marriage to her.

"Right, now, put one foot on my bent leg, then hook your other knee over my shoulder." His tone was one he'd doubtless used to command his troops, but all she could think about was that without his jacket, only the fine cotton of his shirt separated her palm from his skin.

His muscles twitched beneath her hand as he shifted his weight, and her mouth went dry.

"I've done this a hundred times," she said, trying to focus. "On Caro or Lucy's shoulders. How do you think we picked bananas and green coconuts when we were in the jungle?"

Rhys nodded. "Fair enough. Up you go."

Her pulse rocketed as she bent her right leg over his broad shoulder. Her skirts hitched up, gathering in lilac pleats behind his neck, and he grasped the front of her shin to hold her steady. The heat of his strong fingers bled through the silk of her stocking.

She placed her right hand on his head and threw her other leg over his left shoulder, then let out a little shriek as she wobbled. His left hand caught her left shin, and he rose from his kneel with a fluid movement that was undeniably impressive. He was clearly much stronger that either Caro or Lucy—one of them usually had to help the other to stand with Lenore on their shoulders.

His hair was delightfully soft beneath her fingers, but her cheeks burned at the feel of his head nestled between her legs, so close to her womanly core.

The fabric of her skirts had ruched up to about knee-height, and her stockings were only visible to the knee—not even high enough for him to see her garters—but the knowledge that she was wearing nothing except her chemise and petticoats beneath her dress, that only a few layers of fabric lay between the skin of his jaw and the inside of her naked thigh, made her stomach somersault in dark delight.

A deep pulse of pleasure clenched her core.

"Reach up and grab the flag."

His voice brought her back to the task at hand. She carefully released her grip on his hair and tightened her thighs around his ears to steady herself, as he handed her the butterfly net.

He gave a soft grunt of exertion. She reached up, pushing her heels against his chest as leverage to lift herself, and finally managed to scoop the little red pennant into the net.

"Got it!" She shouted. "First flag for us!"

She kept her balance as he slowly lowered himself back down, and climbed off his shoulders with the most elegant dismount she could manage. She stepped back and twitched her skirts back into place as he stood and turned to face her. His cheeks were slightly pink, but he wasn't sweating in the heat. Perhaps he'd become accustomed to working in such warmer temperatures when he'd been in Portugal and Spain?

"Good job!" He grinned, and Lenore had to force herself not to throw herself into his arms for a celebratory hug. She handed him the flag instead.

"You hold this. Now, let's get out of here. I'm rather hot."

She fanned her pink cheeks, hoping he'd ascribe the humid conditions to her flustered state, and not to the thrilling excitement of his presence.