Just to Have You (Blackwood & Friends #3)

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Five

Ben: "I made this for you."

Griff: "That's a half-eaten apple core."

Ben: "So?"

(B & G conversation on gratitude 8 years prior)

Blanche was still giggling maniacally some ten minutes later after coming across Amy at the Late Harvest Apple Orchard Festival that same evening and keenly noticing that Oliver bore the same spots of pale white salve on his own face and neck.

It was quite evident to all present that whatever had issued the welts on their skin had been caused while they did the same thing together, and it had unanimously been inferred that that something had been decidedly lewd in nature. Even though it was true, Amy was hardly about to admit that to any of them as she fought off wave after wave of embarrassed blushes.

Oliver appeared rather impervious to it all and endured his friends' ribbing good-naturedly. Amy noticed him presently while she stood between Blanche and Nicola near to the cart and stall that bore all the wares she and her mother had tediously made over the last couple of weeks. He was casually amused, his hands deeply embedded in the pockets of his trousers, a smile of indulgence curling his lips upwards. It never failed to move her how roguishly handsome he looked, clothed in only his navy-blue waistcoat and having foregone his coat this evening. As if sensing her scrutiny, his gaze found hers and his smile turned intimate and warm.

Everything that had transpired that same morning between them flared through her memory and her body thrummed with awareness once more. She barely stifled the urge to fan her face and instead tore her attention away from him, focusing on her short friend having an apoplectic fit of hysterics beside her.

"Truly, Bee," Nicola admonished with a less than subtle roll of her eyes, "you needn't be so crude. Poor Miss Griffiths is obviously in discomfort from her encounter with the nettle bush."

That almost ended her entirely. Blanche began to wheeze and had to lean on Nicola heavily for support lest she topple over into the less than dry earth at their feet.

"It is quite alright," Amy said placatingly, though her cheeks were about ready to implode with the heat surging through them, "I was the foolish one to tumble into the bushes. And surely we are on less formal terms to be addressing one another as such by now."

Nicola's lips twitched but she was too proper a lady to outright insinuate how said tumble had occurred. "I am sure it is nobody's fault."

Blanche composed herself long enough to snort indelicately. "Knowing Lord Hollingsworth, it was his intention to lead Miss Griffiths astray, and he'd do it again!" she said gaily.

"Really, all the fault cannot be placed at Oliver's feet," Amy protested, recalling how she had placed herself at his feet. Not for the first time she felt herself flutter at her outward display of brazenness, the sexual audacity that had been appalling and thrilling at once. She would never thought herself capable of the familiarity she had shown Oliver, especially with matters pertaining to the act of intercourse. It was all his doing, she realised, to ensure she was comfortable with him in all matters, and after days of illicit and stolen moments, he had been insuring her responses in kind. "We are as bad as each other."

"You have to marry him! You are practically compromised." Blanche grinned before intoning with a dramatic flourish of her hand, "In order to remain in good-standing among your peers-"

"If that were so then I am afraid I have not been in good-standing among you for many years," Amy confessed softly.

Silence settled over Nicola and Blanche, who were considering her with wide eyes. It was almost palpable the manner in which the cogs of their minds turned in order to fit the most obvious solution into place, and when it finally did their jaws simultaneously slackened.