‘Ah, well, I wouldn’t say that exactly.’
She was an inexperienced virgin, after all. That had been her first kiss…
‘Picking me up and running like that. I know I am skinny, but I am quite tall. I must weigh quite a lot.’
‘Not at all. And in the heat of the moment one gets extra strength.’ Blake shrugged, trying for modesty and attempting not to feel ludicrously cast down by the fact that she had not mentioned the kiss. He deserved a boxed ear, at the very least, but he had expected some reaction.
‘And I believe that danger is also an aphrodisiac?’ Eleanor said seriously, making a question out of it and pronouncing aphrodisiac as calmly as she might have said potato. ‘Hence that kiss.’
‘That kiss,’ Blake said firmly, ‘had nothing to do with danger. We wanted to kiss—that is all.’
‘Oh, really, my lord. I am plain, and not the kind of woman that men want to kiss except in the course of attacking me or out of relief at not being gored by a bull. I am quite well aware of that.’
She stood up and began to brush down her skirts. Then, when he made no move to stand, picked up her bonnet and shook the grass off it.
‘It was very…interesting.’
Interesting?
‘Eleanor, you are perfectly kissable.’ He got to his feet. At least this conversation was having a dampening effect on his visible arousal.
‘But I am—’
‘Being a conventional beauty is not a prerequisite for being kissable,’ he said, thinking that he sounded a pompous ass. The bull stared at him, drooling slightly. It had ludicrously long eyelashes for something so male.
‘Oh. You are being kind, but thank you. What will you do now?’
‘What?’
Visions of marriage proposals, of what any respectable woman’s expectations might be after that little episode, of doing the right thing, flashed through his mind.
What the hell have I done? What does she expect? Look what happens when you let down your guard—you hurt someone else.
She was looking at him as though he was having trouble understanding plain English. ‘Do you want to walk any more or should we go back?’
‘Go back.’
Blake looked round for his hat, saw it was in the field, trampled, and sought for some kind of mental balance in the conversation.
He had just kissed Eleanor after a life-and-death flight from an enraged bull. He had been rolling about in the grass with her, damn it. She was completely inexperienced. And all she had to say about it was that it was interesting. The woman was extraordinary and, as for himself, he could not recall when another female had confused him quite so thoroughly. But at least she did not appear to be alarmed or expecting anything else.
She handed him her bonnet, took hold of her escaping hair in both hands and screwed it into a knot, then snatched back the bonnet and jammed it on her head before it could get free again. ‘Bother it. My hair has a life of its own.’
‘Cut it,’ Blake suggested as they began to walk back in the direction of the carriage.
‘I do cut it,’ she said. ‘The ends…to trim it.’
‘No, I mean cut it really short—it would make little curls then. Rather charming. Very fashionable.’
Charming little curls? Whatever is coming over me?
The sideways look Eleanor gave him was wary, as though she thought he was teasing. Or had lost his mind, more likely. ‘It would be easier to look after, I suppose,’ she said doubtfully. ‘Look, there is the carriage.’
She began to hurry, her limp suddenly more pronounced.
No doubt she will be delighted to get back to Polly, Blake thought grimly as he lengthened his stride and opened the carriage door for her with a word of thanks for their patient driver.
‘What is it?’ she asked after a few minutes. ‘Have I got grass stains on my gown?’ She fussed with her skirts.