The Accidental Countess (The Aristocrat Diaries 3)

“What do you say, Oly?” Adelaide asked, looking down. “Are you all peopled out, or do you want to go to the bookstore?”

“Bookstore, definitely.” Olympia nodded firmly. “I almost finished all my books, Papa!”

That was true. Almost every time I’d seen her since she’d arrived, she’d had a book attached to her person.

“All right, that’s that decided then.” Alex smirked. “Don’t wait for us. We’ll meet you back at the house.”

“Sure?” Matthew asked. “I don’t mind waiting until you’re ready to head back in case you get lost.”

“No, I’ll be fine. It’s signposted from here, isn’t it?”

“Mostly.”

“Don’t worry about it, we’ll figure it out.” Alex smiled at me. “See you later. Come on, you.” He wrapped his arm around Oly’s shoulders and the three of them headed off to the middle of the village.

I swallowed.

Great.

Now I was in the very situation I was trying to avoid.

I was alone with my husband.

Yay, me.

“Did you know he was coming?”

Matthew’s lips twitched. “No.”

“Liar.” I shoved my hands in my cardigan pockets.

He laughed lightly. “All right, I knew last week. He asked me to keep it a surprise, so I did. He wanted to look at… something… so that’s why I had you meet me here.”

Something?

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Look at what?”

“Nothing important.”

“Matthew.”

“Fine. A cottage.”

Gosh, he was dreadful at keeping secrets.

“He’s considering getting a little place up here where they can stay to visit us.”

I blinked at him. “I’m assuming Adelaide doesn’t know.”

“If she knew, I wouldn’t have had an issue telling you, would I?” His lips tugged into a half-smile. “But no, she doesn’t know, so don’t tell her.”

“I won’t tell her.” I looked around. “If I was only meeting you here because of him, why did you get me a ticket?”

“Because we need to talk.”

I was afraid he was going to say that.

He reached out and cupped my elbow. “Eva, we made a promise before we got married that we’d be open with one another. We need to talk about yesterday.”

I took a deep breath and slowly let it out through my nostrils. “You’re right. Is there anywhere other than the car park we can have this discussion?”

“Yes, come on. There’s a woodland path just through here.” He laid a hand on my back and guided me around the car park to where there was a brown sign with a little man. The sign was pointing into the wooded area, and I glanced woefully at my ballet flats.

Well, they were going to be ruined.

At least it hadn’t rained today.

There was a slim chance of survival for my shoes.

If not, he was going to have to replace them.

We walked for a few minutes in a relatively comfortable silence. Matthew always stayed a pace or two behind me, and I followed along the carefully laid out path until we reached a boardwalk.

“Keep going?” I asked.

“Yes, carry on. It’s nice.”

I stepped up onto the boardwalk. The planks creaked slightly under my feet, but it wasn’t anything that was remotely scary. And thank God for that, because I could swear I could hear the rushing of water nearby.

“Here,” Matthew said as we approached a bench. “Let’s sit down.”

I stepped over a rock and took a seat on the bench, wrapping my cardigan around me. The canopy of the trees meant the sun was struggling to reach the ground and put us squarely in the shade.

Matthew sat next to me and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He turned his head and looked at me, and the magnetism of his gaze had me tilting mine in his direction and meeting his eyes.

His lips pulled up. “I’m sorry if what I did has made things weird.”

“I was going to say that it’s not weird, but it kind of is. Kind of isn’t, at the same time.”

“I get that. And look, Eva. I don’t have a grand explanation for why I kissed you, except that I wanted to. I know that doesn’t help, and that we had an agreement that we wouldn’t have any kind of relationship outside of the necessary, so—”

I reached over and touched his arm, cutting him off. “I’m not annoyed that you kissed me,” I said softly. “In fact, I’m annoyed that I’m not annoyed.”

“Not to be a pain in the arse, sweetheart, but that doesn’t make any sense.”

“Yeah, well, neither does you kissing me, so at least we’re on the same page.”

“Excellent point.” He rested his hand on top of mine with a sigh. “I don’t want this to be weird between us, Eva, but I have to be honest with you. I assumed we’d be able to coast through the next few years on nothing but physical compatibility and a casual friendship.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, I didn’t think you were marrying me for my cooking, and I shan’t be offended that it was only for the sex.”