Chapter 11

Both Miss Murray’s plans to dig in the garden and his own to survey the property were scuppered by a thick band of ominous grey clouds that settled overhead almost immediately after breakfast. The light but steady rain continued for the rest of the day, and the entire day following.

Beau had been eager see the land for himself, which according to Aunt Veronica, was a good fifty acres of rolling hills, bordered by forest and a small tidal river. It must have had some potential, otherwise an exclusive college would not be offering him a small fortune for it. Frank da Silva might be dead, but Beau was still his son, and he’d become rich doing what the da Silvas did better than nearly anyone—taking the land and harvesting it for whatever it was worth and then selling it.

What worth did this place have?

It was a question he’d often asked of himself, and came up wanting.

To occupy himself, Beau spent much of his time reviewing old ledgers and notes made by his grandparents. It was a fascinating window into a part of his story he’d been blithely unaware of. When he’d first set eyes on The Grove, his curiosity had been tempered with disappointment. The place was solidly built but the interior would have benefited from a fresh coat of paint or some paper on the walls. The kitchen needed updating, including the addition of a modern stove instead of relying on an open hearth for cooking. And the privy… well, that just needed to be rebuilt. When he’d run a highly successful business bringing in wealthy Americans looking for excellent fishing in the Miramichi River, he prided himself on having the right mix of simple, rustic surroundings mixed with some basic refinements—good food, a comfortable bed, and modern plumbing.

Still, the investment of a little elbow grease had already done wonders. With every bucketful of dirty water he’d tossed away after wiping the place, Beau felt himself connecting with the faded beauty of the place. When he and Teddy Chandler had finished cleaning the chimney and had the fire burning properly, Beau felt a rush of accomplishment he hadn’t recalled in ages. Even Miss Murray had gifted him with a genuine smile which gave him far more pleasure than was rational.

The idea that she considered herself an old maid bothered Beau. What injuries of the heart had she faced that had left her without the promise of love? Not that love and sex had anything to do with each other—he’d lived a lifetime with a scarcity of the first and a respectable harvest of the second to know the truth. But Madeline Murray was a romantic soul. He knew it as surely as the sky was blue, despite her attempts to keep that sky hidden under a thick carpet of dark cloud and rumbling thunder. Because every time he’d seen a break in those clouds, it was dazzling.

After a day and a half of rain, and with no end to the cloud cover in sight, Beau climbed the narrow stairs to the attic to check the water tightness of the roof. Satisfied to find it dry, he’d turned his attention to a handful of his grandparent’s belongings, including a battered straw hat that once upon a time made a comfortable shelter for a small family of rodents, a box of odd buttons, and a weathered, hand-stitched volume full of the most bizarre recipes that should have been as dry as dust, but were in fact, fascinating. There were multiple notes in the margins, apparently made by his grandparents, and their own recipes added on scraps of paper stuffed between the covers. Thoroughly engrossed, he lost all sense of time, looking up only when he heard the creaking of the attic steps. He was gifted a view of Miss Murray, and was inexplicably pleased she’d gone in search of him.

“There you are,” she said, a line of concern on her brow. “Would you like some tea?”

“Miss me?” he replied, unable to help himself. Because he’d missed her.

She rolled her eyes, but Beau saw the hint of a smile on the edge of that delectable mouth of hers. Her expression turned from feigned irritation to undisguised curiosity.

“What is that?”

“I’m not exactly certain,” he answered, carefully closing the cover. “I think it’s part Mrs. Beeton, part Domestic Medicine, and part witchcraft.”

She stepped forward, looking from him to the book and back again. The movement was surprisingly tentative, as if she was fighting her own enthusiasm. Beau stifled a laugh. He’d wooed women with smiles, teasing innuendos, and any number of expensive trinkets. None of them had worked on Madeline Murray. Not that he was trying to woo her. But here he was, sitting in an attic in wrinkled trousers on an old dairy stool poring over an old book and suddenly he couldn’t drive Miss Murray away if he tried. And he didn’t want to try.

“May I?” she asked.

“Of course,” he said. “Perhaps, you can help me decipher it.”

They went down to the kitchen and perched side by side on the wooden bench at the kitchen worktable. A teapot sat on the table, its precious contents wrapped in a linen tea towel to keep the pot warm. The smell of the woodsmoke mixed with the subtle scents of Miss Murray’s rose-infused soap, along with the scent of the old book in front of them. He pushed it toward her. In her eagerness to take it, her fingers brushed against his, sending a small shock of intense awareness through his veins. She pulled her fingers away, even as that familiar blush crept up over the collar of her cotton blouse.

It could not be his imagination. She’d felt it too. Beau stifled a smile of satisfaction, even as the echo of that brief touch lingered.

“It’s like two books were taken apart and restitched into one,” she said, as if the touch had not happened, even though she kept her eyes glued to the book, carefully examining the binding. “It seems like the last third of the book is completely handwritten.”

“What do you make of it?” he asked.

“I can’t speak for the witchcraft,” she said, “but your first assessment doesn’t seem too far off the mark. There are recipes in here for feeding the sick, tonics for any number of ailments, and a few for making soap. And—” She paused, her brow crinkling into a frown as she squinted slightly, clearly trying to interpret a passage that, if he had read her expression correctly, suggested either morbid fascination or disgust.

“What is it?” he asked, unable to help himself. Without thinking, Beau slid closer, holding out his hand. She opened and slid it back toward him, her finger pointing to the top the page.

“There’s a recipe for forcing mustard seeds into greens in the space of a morning,” she said. “With hot horse manure.”

“You don’t want to try it?” he said, genuinely curious. “Just to see what happens?”

“Would you eat salad that was pulled from a fresh pile of horse manure?” she asked in such a manner that Beau knew in a heartbeat Miss Murray’s answer to that question.

He shrugged. “I’ve been accused of worse things,” he said. “I’m curious enough.”

Miss Murray gave him a questioning look, and then shook her head. “You and Rimple could set up an experiment. Cow, Horse, Sheep. Which one grows it faster. Your grandparents would be proud.”

The casual way she talked about his grandparents sent a curious ache through him. What would they think of his discovery of this book? All through the volume, there were little snippets of writing in the margins. An echo of their lives in his hands. He flipped back to the front pages, where there was an inscription by Verner Redden, his grandfather, and a second by his grandmother, Maisie, whose hand was equally present in the margins of some pages where some of the ingredients had been scratched out and substitutions made.

“They must have had an interesting garden,” she said, gazing out the kitchen window to a spot that even to Beau’s untrained eye had been treated differently than the meadow surrounding it. “You can see where it was, though it’s frightfully overgrown. When the weather clears, I’ll take a look out there and see what’s salvageable.”

“There’s a bunch of tools in the barn,” Beau said, tamping down the urge to remind her that there was little point in salvaging a garden for a place where neither of them had any intent to stay. “I have no idea what state they are in, though if the Chandlers have been keeping up the outbuildings, the spade might even be sharp.”

Miss Murray poured them each a steaming cup of tea and added a bit of milk in each of their cups while Beau fetched a couple of biscuits and jam. It was, he had to admit, sort of pleasant, sitting here with her in this humble little kitchen with its large hearth that must be outrageously warm in the heat, despite the large windows. Meanwhile, Madeline Murray was too busy looking down at the book, studying every page, soaking it up as if she was deciphering an ancient manuscript, looking for some hidden secret. Her mouth moved silently, reading to herself, and then she looked over at him, pointing to the book. Her eyes widened with something that could only be excitement. Joy. And damn it all if it didn’t make him feel a little joy, too.

“This is very interesting,” she said, looking up at him, gifting him with an expression that lit up her entire face. “There are plants in here I didn’t know could be grown in our climate. Brugmansias, for example. You have to be careful with those. And—” She paused, her eyelashes fluttering in surprise before she schooled her features. She closed the book.

“Something wrong?” he asked. He’d been staring, he realized. Caught up in what he suspected was the rare occasion of Madeline Murray being happy. And something about that both elated and saddened him at the same time.

She shook her head. “I’m sorry—this is your family treasure, not mine.”

She pushed the volume toward him and he responded by resting his hand on hers. He’d intended the impulsive act only to let her know he was in no hurry to end her enjoyment. But the moment his body made connection with hers, desire, excitement rushed through him, followed by a nameless wanting that welled from deep inside and made him go still. The only sound in the kitchen came the steady thrum of the rain and the pounding of his heart in his chest.

Her gaze brushed over his face, resting on his mouth. Was that his imagination, or did she part her lips slightly? They were soft and full, like the rest of her, and Christ, Beau wanted to taste them. If he’d been honest with himself, it was nearly his first thought when he saw her in the bookshop, and he’d dreamt of it more than a few times since. Those lips seemed to be the answer to a thousand questions he didn’t even know he had.

Should he kiss her? He sure as hell wanted to. Did she want to be kissed?

A soft, intoxicating heat rushed through Maddy’s body. Was she imagining the invitation in his gaze? Because her body seemed to be answering it. She was certain she’d been frozen to in her seat, but somehow their bodies had moved closer, her entire being prickling with delicious awareness of him.

Yes, she was a thirty-seven year old virgin. Yes, she read romance novels and romantic poetry until her heart and body ached. Still, Maddy knew how to satisfy herself. She learned more from books than just how to sow seeds or deflect the blow from a dagger.

But this… this was different. She suddenly didn’t need to imagine the tenderness of a man’s touch. She didn’t need to read about the way someone’s heart might drum in their chest so loud that even the heavens might hear it.

Did Beau hear it? Maybe he was trying, because he came closer—or maybe it was her—and somehow, his lips brushed up against her cheek close to her ear, and her body responded with a single word.

“Beau.”

The word flitted through the air, landing somewhere between them. As she realized what she’d done, panic barrelled toward her, like the scream of an oncoming train. Malcolm had heard her heart beating in her chest, too. Right before he announced to his friends that he’d won her hand. Did her heart break, or simply freeze that night? She couldn’t remember anymore. It had just seemed to stop working.

The memory intruded on the present like the guardian it had become. Deep in her heart, Maddy knew no one would look at a woman like her and a man as beautiful as Beau da Silva and think that there could be any physical attraction between them.

Well—on his side. Because Maddy did have eyes that worked and she knew how absolutely devastatingly handsome he was. Even the subtle marks around his eyes and along his brow that marked his age only highlighted his beauty. Whoever had named him, named him well.

She pulled her hand away and pushed herself to her feet. The act was clumsy, jostling the table so much her mug of tea shook, dropping neat little circles of liquid on the sturdy wooden tabletop. Maddy ignored what might have been a flicker of hurt cross his face.

“I’ve got a headache,” she said, clearing her throat, trying to keep her voice steady. “It’s probably the weather.”

Maddy forced herself to remember why she was here. The greenhouse of her dreams would nearly be funded with the proceeds of this job, which was to keep Beau da Silva safe from harm. But right now there was a greater danger, and it came from her own body. She darted out of the kitchen and upstairs to the relative safety of her room.

As expected, he did not follow.

If she’d been at Everwell, she would have retreated to the corner of the carriage house she shared with Gemma for training. There, while Gemma practiced on ropes above her, Maddy had a straw bag to punch and kick. Mats to flip over opponents. She even occasionally boxed with Jeremy Webber, Gemma’s husband, an accomplished pugilist in his own right. Once the rain stopped, she promised herself, she would find some private space to practice with her knives and the retractable cane, a gift from Lady Em. There was a barn and acres of land primarily occupied by trees, birds, and the Chandlers’ livestock. She would use it to put some space between them. She’d only been on the job for a week, and already she felt herself softening around Beau.

Beau.

She rolled her eyes as her stomach clenched at the way she’d uttered his name, breathy and wanton. And what was worse was the sharp intake of breath she heard when she’d put her lips to his ear. It had sent a bolt of heat straight to her core—and scared her to death. She’d nearly kissed him.

She’d never been kissed like that.

Never been kissed at all.