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Maria came back in, something folded in her hands. ‘The neck cloth, Miss Hebe. Shall I wash it and iron it?’
Thank goodness. If the girl had intended mischief, surely she would have kept the thing. ‘No, thank you, Maria. Just give it to me.’ Hebe waited until the maid had gone, then folded the cloth and slipped it into the bottom drawer of her dressing table. After a moment she took it out again, laid it against her cheek and breathed deeply. Citrus, brandy, Alex.
Mrs Carlton and Hebe took a leisurely luncheon, both feeling somewhat heavy eyed and disinclined for much activity after their late night. Chatting in a desultory manner about people they had seen, flirtations observed, and some disastrous gowns, they eventually took themselves off into the garden. Sara had some lace to sew on handkerchiefs, Hebe a new novel.
She curled up in one of the hammocks while her stepmother took a high-backed wicker chair. ‘Look, Mama, Sense and Sensibility, I had heard it is very good, but I only found it at the bookseller the other day.’
‘Well, with a title like that, at least it sounds a respectable book,’ Mrs Carlton observed, threading her needle.
Hebe had hardly read more than the first few pages when Maria appeared. ‘Major Beresford, Madame.’
‘Ah! Show him through, Maria, and bring some lemonade.’ Thank goodness, whatever little tiff he and Hebe had had last night, here he was to make it up. ‘Major, good afternoon. I do hope you will excuse me, I have just realised I have not yet written to Mrs Forrester, and I must not neglect to do that. Hebe will be glad of your company.’
She fluttered off inside, passing Maria who put down the tray of lemonade, making exaggerated grimaces at Hebe as she did so. Hebe gave her a repressive frown. ‘Thank you Maria, that will be all.’
Hebe put down her book and looked up at Alex as he stood by the hammock; her mouth felt dry and a strange sensation seemed to tingle all the way up her body. It was extraordinary—until Alex had touched her she had rarely been conscious of her body at all unless she was ill.
His eyes appeared somewhat heavy and there were three parallel scratches down his right cheek. ‘Good afternoon Major. Do you have a headache?’
‘A damnable…I mean, yes, I have a headache, Miss Carlton.’
‘Would you like a Jameson’s powder?’ she asked with mock concern. ‘Or perhaps a glass of lemonade? Do you have a touch of the sun?’
‘No, I have a thundering hangover, Circe, as well you know,’ he replied with a grin. ‘Did you sleep well?’
‘I slept very well.’ She glanced up and met his quizzical blue eyes and blushed. ‘Surprisingly well.’
‘Well, I slept very badly. Can’t you guess why?’ He poured out some lemonade and sank into the hammock opposite her. ‘Ah, that’s better.’
Innocently Hebe was considering what he had intended as a rhetorical question. ‘Does kissing someone make it difficult to sleep?’
‘Damn it, you little witch! Do you really expect me to answer that?’
‘You asked me first,’ she pointed out reasonably.
‘Very well, just don’t tell me off for shocking you. Men find it very difficult to simply…er…stop when they have been kissing a woman. Our bodies are not made for flirting, they are made for—’ He broke off. ‘Stop watching me with those big, innocent grey eyes! This is the sort of thing your mother ought to be explaining to you. The long and the short of it is, when we stop like that, things…ache.’
‘Things?’
‘Yes things, and I am definitely not going to say another word on the subject.’
‘Very well, if I am embarrassing you.’ Hebe sipped her lemonade, the happiness and excitement fizzing inside her. This was the power she had felt last night. Somehow, something about her made this strong, tough, confident man unsure of himself, vulnerable. It was very exciting. But even more exciting was the certainty that today he was going to make her a declaration, and she knew exactly what she was going to say when he did. ‘Alex? What did you do with my stocking?’
He glanced across at her, and a faint colour touched his cheekbones. He did not reply, simply touched the breast of his coat. After a moment he said, ‘And my neck cloth?’
‘In the drawer of my dressing table.’
They lay in the two hammocks swinging gently, their gaze touching, caressing, breaking away and then joining again. The water in the fountain trickled and splashed, a Sardinian warbler scolded angrily from a tangle of bamboo and the sounds from the square drifted faintly into the shady courtyard.
‘Circe?’
‘Yes, Alex?’
Maria’s voice cut through their peace. ‘Miss Hebe, the Commodore is here and I cannot find Madame.’
‘Show him through, please, Maria, and go and find Mrs Carlton. She may have gone upstairs to lie down and rest, but she will want to know Sir Richard is here.’ Hebe swung her legs out of the hammock and stood up, beside her Alex did the same, straightening his uniform coat at the approach of the senior officer. She was disappointed, but after all, what did it matter, they would be alone again soon enough.
‘Good afternoon, Sir Richard, would you like a glass of lemonade? Mama will be down directly.’
