“Chrys—what?”
“Chrysanthemums. My favorite flower.” She wasn’t letting him take no notice of her, hang it. And truthfully, he hadn’t the heart to rebuff anyone who showed an interest in his flowers. “Come, I have mature chrysanthemums over here.”
She followed him to the other end of his conservatory, where dozens of them were growing in wooden boxes. “Oh, they’re beautiful!”
“Thank you,” he said, her obvious delight making him smile. He was very proud of his chrysanthemums. He had pinks and whites and greens and reds and purples and oranges. A few were two-toned; those were his favorites.
“I’ve never seen anything like them,” she breathed, circling the boxes to examine each color.
“They’re very uncommon here—in fact, I may be the only one growing them. They just recently arrived on the Continent from China.”
“How did you get them?”
She looked genuinely curious, which made him eager to tell her. “My uncle left England years ago, when King Charles first went into exile. Even as a small child I loved growing things, and he never had a son of his own, so he indulges me, sending me plants I cannot find here. I’m very fortunate.”
Finished with her circuit, she bent forward to inhale the flowers’ fragrance, her elegant red gown pooling around her. “Oh, their scent is strong, quite earthy and herby. Perfect to temper the sweeter flowers.”
He swallowed hard. Leaning over with her hands braced on her knees, the curve of her backside protruded from the depths of her skirts. He couldn’t seem to tear his gaze away.
His heart was pounding, his temperature rising. For a moment he felt nearly as out of breath as he had dancing the volta last night. Remembering the wooly tent of a gown she’d worn—complete with dowdy Puritan collar—he found himself longing for its return.
Because Chrystabel in a nice dress was apparently more than he could take.
When she moved to the next box, her hips swayed beneath the scarlet drape. His whole body clenched. “I wish I were going to be here long enough to make some of these into essential oil,” she said wistfully.
He backed away a step, struggling to refocus on the conversation. “Make chrysanthemums into oil? Why would you do that?”
“So I can use the oil to make perfume.” She looked adorable looking up at him. “I’m a perfumer.”
“That’s right, you mentioned it at supper. I’d never thought about someone creating all those fragrances people wear.”
He wasn’t thinking about that now. In fact, he was having a hard time thinking about anything but the lovely roundness of her—
No. He was not having these thoughts. He was marrying Creath in two days, for heaven’s sake. He might not fancy Creath, but that didn’t make it acceptable to fancy someone else!
Unable to stand it a moment longer, he took her elbow and pulled her upright. A little lick of excitement bolted through him at the contact, but he gritted his teeth and ignored it. “Did your mother teach you how to make perfume?”
“My mother taught me very little.” She frowned momentarily but quickly brightened. “My father’s sister lived with us when I was a girl. Aunt Idonea taught me how to distill oils from flowers and mix them to make perfumes.”
The discussion involved flowers, so even though he desperately wanted her to leave, he couldn’t help but continue it. “Which flowers do you use?”
“Every type I can find—all of those that are scented, I mean. Plus some plants that have scent but don’t flower. My favorite scent is rose, though.” She glanced around. “I don’t see any roses. I guess you can only grow roses outdoors?”
“I think I could probably grow them indoors in winter, but we haven’t any roses here at Tremayne.” Happily, he felt more in control with her standing. Her skirts were voluminous enough to conceal everything below the waist. “We do have roses at Trentingham. Or at least we did—I have no idea what Trentingham’s beautiful gardens look like now.”
An adorable frown appeared on her brow. “Surely your caretakers are sustaining your roses for you.”
“We have no caretakers at Trentingham anymore. Once we left, Cromwell commandeered it to use during the war.”
“Knave,” she muttered in a decidedly unladylike way.
She was refreshingly outspoken. And he was intrigued to find she not only loved flowers as much as he did, she actually used them for her craft. Her passion for perfuming seemed to be as strong as his for growing things.
All at once, he wished he were growing flowers for her.
And even worse, he wished he weren’t marrying Creath.
He wondered if he might be falling in love.
But that was absurd. He barely knew Chrystabel—a relevant fact in itself—but he knew enough to know they were wrong for each other. Here was yet another i word: incompatible. How could a fellow as cautious as he fall for a girl as reckless as Chrystabel?
And in any case, no one could fall in love in a single day. He wasn’t falling; he was having an understandable, male reaction to the sight of bare shoulders and a shapely bottom—and to the ideas Mother had put in his head. All her talk of delightful this and refreshing that was getting to him.
No matter what his mother said, Chrystabel wasn’t irresistible.
He was just finding her hard to resist.
But resist he must, because a frightened young woman was counting on him. He couldn’t think of anything that would be more dishonorable than abandoning his best friend.
“Strawberries!” Chrystabel exclaimed, drawing his attention across the chamber. It seemed while he’d contemplated love and honor and female anatomy, she’d been wandering his conservatory, examining the other plants. “I’ve been wanting to see where you grew them.” She paused in the middle of reaching for one. “May I?”
“Of course.”
She plucked it and popped it into her mouth. Strawberry red fruit between her strawberry red lips. “Mmm,” she hummed appreciatively. “I cannot wait for strawberry tart tonight.”
He couldn’t wait to watch her eat more strawberries.
And now he wanted
