“As long as it doesn’t involve getting shot, I shall happily grant you any favor you ask.”
He was trying to be amusing, but her countenance remained implacable. “Do you recall the conversation we had about the anticipation of marital vows?”
As if he could forget it. “I do.” Though that was not exactly what he wanted to be remembering at this moment given that he was trying to get his prick to calm down.
“You implied there was pleasure to be had in the act—for the female.”
Dear God. Archie was not the sort of person who blushed either, yet he’d be damned if he couldn’t feel himself doing exactly that. “Ah . . . yes.”
“I should like to experience that, and I wonder if you will help me. I propose that you and I engage in the anticipation of marital vows, except without the marital vows part.”
He fell out of the tree.
13
Clem Shoots Her Shot (Not Literally, This Time)
Clementine did not expect Archie to agree to her admittedly outlandish proposition. He would almost certainly decline, and she’d only asked because she was at least confident that herhavingasked wouldn’t change his opinion of her. He would almost certainly say no, but he wouldn’t mock her or express outrage or incredulity—at least not any more than he did over anything else. Her having shot him, for instance. She was never going to live that down. Oddly, though, she found she didn’t want to. Now that the urgency of the circumstances surrounding the business with Mr. Bull had faded, she rather enjoyed being teased. Well, she enjoyed being teased byArchie. That was the difference between teasing and mocking, she supposed. To tease someone, you had to truly know her: to know what she would find amusing, to know where the line was between far enough and too far.
Archie might be the only person in her life qualified to tease her.
As upsetting as the hunting had been, Clementine felt as if they’d come through a storm together and achieved an even greater understanding of one another. Their friendship had emerged from turmoil stronger than ever, akin to the way that, under certain conditions, time can turn wood into fossilized stone.
So when Archie responded to her question by hopping down from the tree—she’d thought at first he’d lost his balance and fallen, but he landed more or less on his feet—and merely said, “Yes, all right,” with the same mildness of tone as if she’d asked him to post a letter for her, she was astonished. Perhaps the shock she’d expected him to exhibit had bounced off him and refracted back to her.
“Are you coming?” He held out a hand as if making to help her down from a carriage instead of a tree—though since she was two boughs above him, the gesture was purely symbolic. “We ought to be getting back. Effie and Simon are expecting me for dinner, before which I’ve got to venture back out and find that bird, and who knows what the cook is preparing to suspend in aspic foryourevening meal?”
Attempting to disguise her discombobulation, Clementine swung herself down to the large limb below and paused. Archie’s hand was still extended, and now she could reach it. The prospect of taking it made her feel odd, as if the musculature of her legs had been replaced by the aforementioned aspic.
She was being ridiculous. They had just made an agreement to lie with each other intimately, and she could not even see her way through to putting her hand in his? She brushed her palm against her skirts to dry it off—for it was suddenly damp—and took his hand. She didn’t need his help: he had been correct in his earlier assessment that she did not require assistance in matters of tree climbing. And in fact, accepting Archie’s help was incapacitating as it effectively lost her the use of the one arm. But he made up for it by catching her as she leapt.
“Oof.” She exhaled involuntarily as she landed forcefully in his arms. He brought her to his side and held her there, her feet dangling a few inches above the forest floor. She thought he would lower her the rest of the way, but he didn’t. She was a hummingbird, hovering in place. Archie’s face was inches from hers, and she was unaccustomed to looking at him at such close range, not to mention in the full light of day. He was studying her with an expression she could not parse, something harder than kindness and softer than ire.
There was something about the intensity of his regard that made the aspic feeling intensify. It wasn’t just her legs that felt wobbly now, but her stomach, too. And her chest. She thought initially that Archie was holding her too tight: her breaths were short and shallow, and it was difficult to fully fill her lungs. But no. He was holding her fast against the firmness of his body, but his arm was around her waist; her chest, though very near his, was unconfined.
On he stared. Just as she began to fret that something was truly wrong, he said, “Your eyes are the color of a thruppence. Not a shiny new one, but one that has been worn by time.”
The comparison delighted her. Her eyeswerethe color of a thruppence, so it had the advantage of being true, but beyond that, hearing such an observation made her heart twist for reasons she could not articulate.
“Youreyes are . . .” She leaned in even closer, studying his irises. Archie’s eyes contained many different colors—green, brown, and a kind of yellow-gold. She had always known that. She’d never tried to describe those colors, though. She looked, and he let her take her time. Did not press her to speak. “Your eyes are the color of the moss that grows on that big beech tree we used to climb, the road to Hill House just after it’s rained, and the straw in the fields outside Mollybrook after it’s been bailed.” Yes, that was exactly right. “Your eyes are the color of home.”
Those eyes lit, as if he appreciated her inept attempts at poetry more than was warranted. But only for a moment, before, astonishingly, they grew . . . shy? That did not seem right. He ducked his head and lowered her to the ground, though the hummingbird found she did not particularly want to be set free.
“Let’s go.” He turned for the castle and she followed, reasoning that surely now he would begin raising objections to her proposal, or at least questions and/or points for discussion. After all,shehad questions and points for discussion despite the fact that the whole thing had been her idea.
Question: When were they going to engage in the act?
Point for discussion: They would have to agree not to tell anyone. Even their closest confidants couldn’t know.
Question: Would he remove himself from her and spill his seed outside her body as Theo had?
Point for discussion: She would have to ask him to, or, alternatively, to enlighten her as to one of the other methods he’d alluded to that prevented the conception of a child.
But Archie said nothing. Everything was the same as ever as they walked.
When the castle came into view, she was almost out of time. “I must extract one promise from you,” she blurted.
He shot her a quizzical look.
