Chapter Nineteen

" I f we take a stroll, perhaps I can tell you what I was thinking, and you can tell me what was keeping you awake," Clarity suggested, hoping he didn't start to squawk about impropriety and chaperones. Not here on her family's estate.

Alex blinked, seemed to relax, and finally nodded. They fell into step, going along at a quick pace, her because she was trying to get him as far from Miss Brambury as possible and him because he had long legs.

When they had gone through her mother's flower gardens, nodding to other guests, and then past the vegetable gardens and through an arbor, they were on the path to the wooded copse.

She grabbed for his arm. "Can we slow down a bit now, please? I am not a brown hare."

"My apologies. It felt good to strike out without the others."

"Like the old days," she said.

He slowed a little. "You don't really believe both my aunt and Miss Brambury have indigestion and are lying side-by-side recuperating, do you?"

A bubble of hilarity escaped her lips at the picture he painted.

"Of course, not side-by-side," she said.

"Not at all," he affirmed.

"Perhaps not. I wished to speak with you."

"All right," he agreed. They were in the middle of the woods, and he began to look around him. "I recognize this area."

"You should. There's the climbing tree." She gestured to an elm that wasn't really any different from any of the other elms.

"That tree is taller than I recall," Alex said. "Are you sure that's the one we climbed? The one you fell out of?"

"I didn't fall so much as get pushed," she reminded him.

"God, I was a terror. I could have broken your neck."

"Nonsense," she said. "I think children bounce."

He looked at her as if she were a different species. Then he shook his head. "I'm not convinced it was this tree."

"It was," Clarity promised. "We ran from over there" — she pointed back toward the stables — "toward that hill where my kite finally took flight, and then as we were heading to the pasture, the wind wrenched it from my hands and took it into this tree. See, there are the two hazel trees. Remember collecting the nuts?"

He nodded. "I suppose you're right."

"After all," she said as she patted the elm's rough gray-brown trunk, "we have grown up, too."

"You have become a lovely lady," he blurted.

She felt her cheeks warm with pleasure.

"And you have become a handsome man," she said, wanting to lean toward him and kiss him before recalling his earlier compliment about her not using her feminine attributes. Friends first and foremost.

"But you are also now a viscount with a head full of responsibilities and worries."

He nodded, looking suddenly morose.

She touched his arm. "I would take some of your worries if I could."

His eyes widened and he wrinkled his nose. Shocked, she realized his eyes were glistening. However, when she would have wrapped her arms around him and consoled him for whatever pain was torturing his thoughts, he turned away and looked up at the tree.

"A good solid tree," he proclaimed, also touching the fissured bark.

"It was," she said, "until it was struck by lightning. You can't see from here, but there are a lot of dead branches on the other side." She looked up into its jagged, hairy leaves. "We discovered the best view that day when we went up and reclaimed my kite."

He nodded, still not looking at her.

Clarity was determined to help him regain his good humor before she asked him about his heart's true intent.

"Come along," she said, "give me a hand up to the first branch. I've got my boots on, so I can climb rather well. I need merely a helping start."

"No," he said. "Children might bounce, but grown-up earl's daughters most certainly do not."

She laughed. "We most certainly do. Remember the hedge in Hyde Park? I bounced right over it."

She heard him chuckle, and her heart gave a painful squeeze. How she loved the sound! How she wished she could coax it from him more often.

"A leg up, my lord."

"No," he repeated but less sternly.

"Please. I will sit upon the first branch and enjoy the view. What harm is there in it? And you'll keep me safe. That is, if you'll join me?"

He hesitated, then she watched him strip off his jacket and flex his arms.

"Easier to climb when unencumbered," he declared. Stooping low beside her, he laced his fingers together and looked up at her.

She clapped her hands. "Thank you." With that, she put her booted foot upon his gloved hands and launched herself onto the first low branch. "As easy as mounting a horse," she avowed.

Pulling herself up to standing, she put her hand over her brow and surveyed the countryside.

"Good but not good enough." Looking up, she found the next branch was within easy reach, almost like a step. In the next instant, she was a few feet higher. "That's better."

"Stop right there," Alex said as he leveraged himself into the tree. "You said you would only ascend the first branch."

"Did I?" Without hesitation, she went higher. "This is the perfect tree for climbing because the branches are evenly spaced. Come up, Alex. It's beautiful."

He did as she said, not seeming to mind that she kept going higher, with him following a bit below her. Either he didn't notice their rapid ascent, or he was enjoying it too much to put a stop to it.

Then abruptly, she was stuck, held fast by a small twig of a branch that snagged her hat.

"I think I am going to forego hats entirely after this, both for riding and for climbing. They are more trouble than they're worth."

"Stay still," Alex ordered.

"I have no choice. It's a good thing this branch is sturdy. It will easily hold both our weights. I think." She snickered.

"Why is that funny? If you were alone, you would have a devil of a time getting yourself free. Eventually, when it was winter and all the leaves had drifted off, they would find your skeleton clinging to the trunk."

She laughed harder. "Stop. When I laugh, I close my eyes, and that's not good in this situation."

He climbed closer.

"Besides," she said when he joined her on the branch, "I wouldn't do this alone. I am not a lunatic."

"Truly?" He grinned at her, and the breadth of his smile seeped into her like sunshine to a flower. Then he looked out over the land behind her. "The view is worth the climb. I agree."

"I would agree," Clarity said, "except I cannot turn my head and see it. Please, Alex, free my hat."

"Please, Lord Hollidge ," he corrected.

She laughed again, closed her eyes, and swayed. Naturally, his arms went around her.

"Ow," she said. "The hat pins are tugging my hair. It's most uncomfortable. Please, Lord Hollidge, Viscount of the Hollidge estates, won't you free me?"

"I shall." And he did by snapping off the small twig and drawing it out from under her hat.

"I am eternally grateful." She gazed out around her family's land. It had been a long time since she'd seen its beauty from such a lofty vantage.

"Isn't it lovely?" she asked.

"It is," he agreed.

She turned to look into his jade-green eyes. One of his arms was still around her, while the other held the branch beside them for support. He drew her close against him.

"Are you looking at the view?" she asked, even though their gazes were locked.

"I am," he said.

Clarity went absolutely breathless with wanting him.

Lowering his mouth to hers, Alex claimed her lips in a searing kiss. Throwing caution to the wind, she let go her grip of the tree and put her hands upon his shoulders, able to feel his muscles through the fine lawn of his shirt.

Tilting her head, she fused her lips more firmly to his, and he groaned.

With her pulse quickening and her body beginning to throb with desire, she heard a strange sound. If she didn't know better and wasn't deliriously happy to be in a tree kissing Alex, she would think it was her heart cracking. Her eyes popped open.

Surely, if he broke her heart, it would sound exactly like —

"Christ!" he exclaimed as they dropped, nearly spilling off the old branch until it caught on the branch below.

Alex flailed his arms wildly, managing to catch hold of the trunk, anchoring them.

Rocking, she realized she was hearing the same cracking sound.

"The compounded weight of our bodies and the broken branch is breaking the next one," he said. "I think this whole tree was weakened by the lightning strike."

"Won't it keep happening all the way down?" Clarity asked as the branch they stood on creaked, groaned, and began to bend.

"What harm is there in climbing a tree?" he mimicked. "For God's sake, woman, let go of me and climb sideways."

For the first time, she felt a sizzle of fear. They were fairly high after all. And if something happened to him, it would be entirely her fault.

"Hurry," he urged. "This is not the time for the impetuous Lady Clarity to become a dawdler."

Doing as he said, she reached out and grabbed hold of another branch to the side, using it to swing down to the next closest one that could hold her. Even as she got settled, the branch she'd vacated broke, and Alex dropped down another few feet.

She shrieked.

"I'm fine," he said. "And also getting closer to the —" The next branch went down with the weight of the two on top of it. Alex disappeared, and she yelled again.

"Still fine," he called up after a moment.

She giggled, despite the somewhat dire circumstances.

"Poor old elm," she yelled to him.

"Poor, indeed! It withstood lightning but not you," he returned. "I seem to be stable now and almost at the bottom. Wait for me to stand beneath you, and then you can start your descent."

"Oh, pish! " she said and began climbing down.

"Blast it all, Clarity! Must you always be so blasted pigheaded?"

Not considering herself at all pigheaded, she continued making her way steadily from branch to branch until she was on the lowest one, with nowhere to go but a five-foot drop to the ground.

Glancing over, she saw him jump the last few feet, landing and stumbling forward before he turned back to her.

"Why don't you sit first," he asked, "and then jump into my arms?"

"If you insist. This gown is utterly ruined," she added, letting her exposed, stocking-clad legs dangle over the side toward him. "I am glad I'm too old to be sent to bed without supper. Cook is making my favorite roast chicken with a citrus glaze tonight."

And then she dropped onto him.

Alex didn't catch her as much as he broke her fall before they both toppled over. As a gentleman, he made sure to take the brunt, ending up on his back with her cushioned on his front.

"Thank you," she said, looking down at him, her hair cascading into a curtain on either side of their faces.

"Your hair has come down again. Maybe you should shave it like those last-century ladies with their wigs.

She laughed. "Maybe I will."

"No!" he said suddenly serious. "Your hair is glorious, like black silk, and you should never cut it."

His tone caught her attention, as did how delightfully warm she felt atop his strong, hard body, not to mention the way his hands were roaming up and down her back.

"What about when my hair has changed to gray?" She wanted more than anything for him to still be her friend to see it.

"Then it will be like a silver waterfall and still glorious," he promised.

"A silver waterfall," she repeated. "That's far too frivolous a thing for the Viscount Hollidge to say."

His fingers sank into her hair and drew her head down until their lips met again. With her heart thumping against his chest, she was a wild thing, sprawled atop him, able to feel the heat of his arousal pressing low against her stomach. This must be a dream!

Pulling back, she gazed down at him. She should tell him how she felt.

"What is going on here?" Lady Aston's voice was unmistakable. And she was not pleased.

Guiltily, Clarity rolled one way and Alex, the other. Raising her head, she looked at his aunt and his intended, who appeared more confused than perturbed.

Had their kiss been witnessed? Clarity guessed not.

Alex was quickly upon his feet, reaching down to assist her.

As soon as she was upright and brushing her gown, hopelessly dirty and torn, she shrugged.

"I fell out of the tree and landed on Al — on Lord Hollidge," Clarity explained, hoping to keep him out of trouble.

They were adults, but her need to protect the boy who'd always taken the brunt of responsibility for their antics was as keen as ever. There was no reason for his aunt to know he'd been climbing the tree with her.

"What were you doing in that tree?" Lady Aston demanded of her. "No doubt awaiting my nephew's passing so you could spring upon him."

Clarity should have taken offense. And deep down, she did. However, the notion of her waiting on a branch under the cover of leaves, in order to pounce upon her prey, tickled her tremendously.

"Like a big cat?" Clarity asked, glancing at him.

She couldn't tell if Alex recalled the time he put the large barn cat in the empty porcelain tureen in the middle of her grandmother's sideboard. The tabby had fallen asleep, giving the housekeeper a shock when she lifted the lid.

Yet he didn't appear amused nor reminiscent. All vestiges of the lighthearted man had disappeared. After all, the woman who would become his wife was eyeing him with a measure of disapproval.

"Lady Clarity's branch collapsed under her," Alex said, which was the truth. "Luckily, I was in the right place to be of assistance." Knowing how improbable that sounded, he added, "We had walked out together to see the view."

"But why are you in a state of undress?" his aunt demanded.

Alex glanced down, patting his waistcoat, and then looked around for his jacket, which he retrieved.

"You don't have to explain any further, my lord," Miss Brambury said. "I know you are covering for Lady Clarity's high-jinks. I have been warned." She looked meaningfully at his aunt.

"I say," Clarity began, then thought better of protesting.

While he ought not to have been kissing her, she should cease tempting and teasing him. And while she hadn't had a chance to ask him if he truly loved Emmeline, if Alex was choosing that lady and the life she represented, then there was no point in putting up a fuss about his aunt casting aspersions.

"I believe I shall leave the three of you to enjoy your walk and the lovely afternoon," Clarity said, feeling magnanimous and mature.

Turning to Alex, who appeared uncertain if she had to name his expression, she added, "I thank you again for saving me, and I apologize for involving you in my tomfoolery."

And she was sorry. For him!

As she strode away, feeling three pairs of eyes fixated upon her back, Clarity realized that any man who wanted Emmeline Brambury would never suit her. She only wished it didn't seem as if by abandoning the field of battle, she was condemning her good friend to a life of endlessly dull tedium. And a lack of passion, too.