Page 17 of The Boxer’s Belle

“She’s not uncomfortable. She’s just… Bella.”

West bit his tongue and brought the axe down on another log. “Regardless.”

“Eliza is still feeling poorly. I don’t want to leave her for long. She’s fretting something fierce about her festival.” Ben bent over to retrieve the half that fell and handed it to him for quartering. “I don’t suppose you would be willing to help. Once you finish not hiding, of course.”

“What needs doing?” West grunted with the swing of the axe.

“She needs holes dug all along the east field for her chrysanthemums. That’s where we’ll hold the festival. And there are some booths to build and signs to paint.”

“Ground is too wet for the holes today. What sort of signs?”

“Directions, that sort of thing. She has a list.”

“So everything still needs doing?” he asked, brow raised.

“Yes, essentially,” Ben said.

“Should’ve said so. When’s the festival?”

“A little over a month, on Michaelmas. Eliza is used to a bit more… help than we have here.”

A chuckle broke from West’s chest. “Leave your little booths with me. I’ll not paint the signs though. Eliza would never forgive you for allowing it.” Reading and, by extension, spelling had never been West’s strongest area. He knew precisely as much as he needed in order to navigate the world—no more and no less.

“Deal. Everything you’ll need is in the shed.”

West nodded, eyeing the remaining logs and the scattered ones he now had to stack beside the house.

“She’ll be well for a few minutes. Need a hand?” Ben asked.

“Wouldn’t turn it down. Mam’ll have my head if I leave it like this.” He gestured to the precarious mound.

Ben grabbed a small stack and hauled it over to the woodpile.

The afternoon saw West digging through the old shed for supplies. Arms full of shorn planks, he stepped onto the lawn only to stumble upon a vision in bronze ruffles.

An impossibly creamy expanse of throat, collarbone… and bosom tempted him. Her skin probably still tasted of crisp air and cloves. Bella’s neckline was practically indecent. It would have been perfectly appropriate on any woman who wasn’t Bella—but she was Arabella Sinclair, set on this earth to tempt West to sin.

And tempt she did.

Worst of all, she was well aware of it. Bella’s dark eyes held a self-satisfied cast, and her cheeks a pleased golden-peach flush.

“Bella,” he greeted, then waited for the inevitable set-down.

“Weston.” There was a warm, teasing note to the word.

He lingered a beat, giving her a chance to continue, to snap her title at him. When she didn’t, dread settled over him.

“He didn’t…”

“Send me to assist you? Of course he did. Well, his wife did.”

He couldn’t read her tone. It lacked her usual sharp wit. Nor was it tinged with the familiar exasperation. There was something breezy and unbothered about it.

West sighed, half dropping his armful of wood on the ground. “He’s fixing to borrow trouble, isn’t he?”

“You’ve just discovered that?” Even that comment—though sarcastic—was missing her usual bite. Long fingers caught a silky strand of hair that had escaped her pins and twisted it behind her ear before drawing those fingers down the lithe line of her neck.

This woman was set on ruining him. West swallowed. “And after everything I’ve done for him…”