A Million Different Ways (Horn Duet 1)

That was one of the things I loved most about Charlotte, her inexhaustible enthusiasm for life. It was refreshing. Resigned to my fate, I capitulated, “All right, tonight it is.” She jumped up and down with glee. I couldn’t help but laugh at her unabashed joy, her spontaneity––something I lacked altogether, life shaping me into someone measured and deliberate. “I’ll be by your room at nine,” she yelled as I walked away.

I cut through the garden and marched past the tulip and iris beds. I kept walking until I reached the well-worn path behind the conservatory and the manor was well out of sight, until I came upon a wisteria tree that belonged in a fairytale book. The base of the trunk was knobby and wide, a dark burnt umber color. It twisted around itself and reached up into the warm, blue sky. The branches held long columns of clustered, lavender blooms that hung down like the tumbled curls of a little girl.

With a ridiculous smile on my face, I stepped under the enormous canopy and closed my eyes, the columns of flowers brushing against my head and shoulders. An overwhelming sense of excitement raced through me as I stood under that magical tree. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something big was about to happen.

I kicked off my espadrilles and spread the blanket at the base of the tree. Flopping down, I yanked on the elastic holding my ponytail together and my hair fell silky and straight below by breasts, my scalp happy to be free of it. I needed a haircut. One the many things that had been neglected over the last couple of years; I had been trimming my own hair.

Inside the basket were sandwiches stuffed with full crème Brie and smoked Parma ham, a cluster of red grapes, and a couple of freshly baked madeleines. I popped a grape in my mouth. Bursting, it spilled its sweet treasure on my tongue.

I flipped open my book with every intention of reading a couple of chapters as a refresher. But as I lay down with my knees hitched up and my feet on the ground, a lazy feeling stole over me. The wind whispered a lullaby in my ear and sunlight broke through the canopy of flowers, dappling my face. Swaddled in a deep sense of serenity, I closed my eyes and floated somewhere between fantasy and reality.

I’m not sure if I heard him or felt his presence. In any case, my eyes crept open to find him a few paces away, standing rigid, his face taut with apprehension. Even from afar, I could tell he was struggling with something. My stomach sank with a thud as all hope for a peaceful afternoon fled.

He was wearing a white, v neck t-shirt that outlined the power of his broad shoulders and the width of his chest. However galling, I had to admit his beauty seemed to increase exponentially every time I saw him…and his virility. My newly resurrected libido snuck that one in.

When he stepped forward, I scrambled to sit up and banged my leg against the trunk, flopping around as graceless as a fish out of water. He came close enough that I was forced to look up. Shoring up my defenses, I pressed my back up against the tree and wrapped my arms around my bent legs.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said, looking up at the tree, his eyes narrowing at the sunlight peeking through the canopy. His silky hair rustled in the wind and fell over his eye. Deep in the back of my mind, where the dark, shameful part of me lives, I saw myself pushing it aside with my fingers.

“You didn’t. I was only resting my eyes.” I looked away, a flash of heat tickling my neck.

“Is that what you call it?”

He was exceedingly good at obliterating my self-control. Good sense would dictate that I did not get into yet another argument with the man that paid my salary, but why start using good sense now––that train left the station the minute I met him.

“Shouldn’t you be at the office? What are you doing skulking around the property? Or are you so obsessed with provoking me that you walked all the way out here to get your daily quota in.”

The side of his sensual mouth curved up briefly before he trained it back into a firm line. “I do own the property so I’m not sure you can call it skulking. I’m working from home today––and I didn’t have to come all the way out here to provoke you, I could’ve just waited ‘til you came back to the house.”

The silence stretched on; neither one of us hurried to fill it. And yet, instead of it being awkward, it felt…strangely comfortable.

I noticed he was leaning a little more heavily than usual on his cane. He tipped his beautiful face up towards the sun and closed his eyes. There was an extra tightness around them that indicated his injury was causing him pain. An overwhelming urge came over me. I wanted to take his pain away, soothe him.