AllFreeNovel
Share Us
James regarded her with an amused expression. “Is it so very odd that she might wish to take a nap in the garden? The weather is fine.”
“Yes!” she said, concern making her voice overloud. “This is very strange.”
“Well, I’m sure she—”
“I tell you, it’s strange.” Elizabeth shook her head. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this one bit.”
He cocked his head and gave her an assessing glance. “What do you propose we do?”
She squared her shoulders. “I’m going to spy on her.”
“You’re going to watch her sleep?” he asked dubiously.
“Do you have any better ideas?”
“Better than watching an elderly woman sleep? Well, yes, actually, if hard-pressed I believe I could come up with one or two pastimes that would be—”
“Oh, shush!” she said irritatedly. “I don’t need your assistance, anyway.”
James smiled. “Had you asked for it?”
“As you so kindly pointed out,” she said with a lofty lift of her chin, “it isn’t so terribly difficult to watch an old woman sleep. I’m sure you have other, more important duties. Good day.”
James’s lips parted in surprise as she stalked off. Hang it all, he hadn’t meant to offend her. “Elizabeth, wait!”
She stopped and turned around, probably more surprised by his use of her given name than she was by his outburst. Hell, he had surprised himself. It was just that she had occupied his thoughts for days, and he’d begun to think of her as Elizabeth, and—
“Yes?” she finally said.
“I’ll come with you.”
She gave him a rather annoyed look. “You do know how to be quiet, don’t you? I don’t want her catching us spying on her.”
James’s lips began to twitch, and it was all he could do not to burst out laughing. “You may feel confident that I shall not give us away,” he said with full gravity. “I pride myself on being a rather good spy.”
She scowled. “That’s an odd statement. And—I say, are you all right?”
“Right as rain, why?”
“You look as if you’re about to sneeze.”
He caught sight of a floral arrangement and mentally latched on to it. “Flowers always make me sneeze.”
“You didn’t sneeze yesterday in the rose garden.”
He cleared his throat and thought fast. “Those aren’t roses,” he said, pointing at the vase.
“Either way, I can’t take you along,” she said with a dismissive nod. “There are flowers all along the perimeter of the garden. I can’t have you sneezing every two minutes.”
“Oh, I won’t,” he said quickly. “Only cut flowers do this to me.”
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “I have never heard of such an affliction.”
“Neither have I. Never met anyone else who reacts the same way. It must be something in the stem. Something that…ah…releases into the air when the stem is cut.”
She gave him another dubious look, so he embellished the tale by saying, “It gives me a devil of a time when I’m courting a lady. God help me if I attempt to offer her flowers.”
“Very well,” she said briskly. “Come along. But if you botch this—”
