Page 89 of Frankly, My Dear

Just before he helped her mount his horse, James leaned down and murmured against her lips, in a voice so low she might have imagined it, “Thank you.”

Then he kissed her. A light, fleeting brush of firm lips against soft, like fiery butterfly wings. The bittersweet poignancy of the gesture reached into her very soul and made her yearn, beyond her grasp, for things only this man could give her.

“James, I lo—”

He put his fingertips over her lips and shook his head, halting words he refused to hear.

In silence, they rode back to the plantation house, trying their best not to touch. Each inadvertent brush of flesh against flesh, even so innocent as forearm grazing forearm, caused floodtides of emotion to soar through Selene. And she knew by James’s ragged breathing that he was experiencing the same soul-wrenching difficulties.

When he dismounted near the back of the house and tied the horse to a hitching rail, he helped Selene down brusquely, avoiding eye contact.

“Now what you done to Mam’zelle Selene?” Blossom demanded of James. Hands on hips, she stood on the back gallery off the kitchen, supervising two young girls in the snapping of green beans. Bob was pecking at some of the discarded ends on the ground, eying James with hostility as he wobbled along on his three legs.

“Me?” James said with a mirthless chuckle. All the time he watched the rooster warily, since he was often the victim of the bird’s sharp attacks. “What makes you think I’ve done anything? Why aren’t you worried about me?”

“’Cause her hair looks like you drug her upside down in a bayou hurricane.”

With a gasp, Selene put her hands to her wild hair, which had, not surprisingly, lost its ribbon. And, yes, it felt like she’d had her hair styled with a cement mixer.

“She always looks like that,” James commented idly, picking up a raw bean and munching on it.

“And her buttons are done up wrong.”

Selene’s face heated as she adjusted her shirt. Even James blushed. He actually blushed under Blossom’s sharp eyes.

“And her mouth looks like bees done stung it.”

His eyes shot to Selene’s lips, then shifted away guiltily.

“It does not,” he protested.

“Collagen injections,” Selene proffered.

“Hah!” Blossom said, having gained the information she wanted.

“Where’s Etienne? I need to talk to him,” James said stonily.

“In his room. Don’t you be too hard on the boy, now. He’s scared somethin’ awful.”

“He ought to be. Do you know what he did this time?”

“Yessirree, I do. This is the worstest ever. And he gots to have a whuppin’, I knows, but remember, he’s only a little boy.”

“No!” Selene ordered.

James and Blossom both turned on her with surprise.

Selene gulped. “It’s my responsibility to discipline Etienne about this incident. I was the one involved, and I should be the one to determine his punishment.”

James’s eyes narrowed and he was about to argue with her.

“This is something Etienne and I have to work out between us. Talk to him later, if you must, James, but let me go to him first.”

He hesitated, then nodded.

“The caboteur boat came by this mornin’ and left some mail,” Blossom informed James, then turned to Selene. “And there’s a package for you, too, missie.”

“For me?”