Page 21 of A Spinster's Guide to Landing a Lyon

“A muddy puddle is it?” Arabella smiled. “Well done, sister.”

Of course Arabella would know how to mix just the right amount of teasing with praise.

But then she walked over to Benedict’s painting, where the three now stood shoulder to shoulder. “Oh my. What happened?” Her voice cracked.

“—Paint spill!”

“—Rain!”

They said simultaneously. Arabella tipped her head up to look at the clear sky with the bright shining sun. There was that one cloud, though.

“It was an accident,” Amelia confessed.

“Yes. Quite so.” Benedict supported her. “All of this to show that, unfortunately, I do not have a painting bone in my body. I shall never paint again.” He was looking right at Amelia as he said it, and his face bore the goofiest grin she had ever before seen on a stuck up, arrogant duke. Or really, anyone.

“Never say never,” she said simply and then walked away.

How could one need air when one was already in the outdoors? She didn’t know. But she needed it. Now.

Chapter Thirteen

It wasn’t creepythat he was going to seek out Amelia at the pond. Not at all.

Her sister had mentioned that he could find her there, and she wouldn’t have mentioned that if it would be awkward for him to stumble upon her.

And yes, she casually inserted the information that Amelia would probably be swimming. But again, why would she have disclosed those kinds of details knowing that he was planning to go visit her?

And the sly look Arabella had given him was nothing like a bride-to-be would offer her potentially future betrothed. It was much more akin to the kind of look a younger sister would offer to an older brother knowing that he was heading into trouble.

Trouble, being the operative word here.

So, no. It wasn’t creepy.

But yes, it was certainly trouble.

But trouble was his main objective right now, wasn’t it?

He was tired of playing by society’s rules. It had gotten him nowhere. Alas, if only that were true. It was much more accurate to say that playing by society’s rules had devastated him. Though only a few knew it.

He wanted to keep it that way, but he wasn’t sure how long he could keep the gossip at bay. Even at the Lyon’s Den he had run into too many familiar, betraying faces.

His feet were moving him at a clipped pace across the lawn. Toward a splashing sound that echoed into the air.

The afternoon air was warm, so it only made sense that he was going for a swim. The fact that Amelia would be there was pure coincidence.

The fact that he stumbled upon her from underneath the shade of a tree branch was purely fortuitous.

And the subsequent fact of him staring at her float on her back, breasts raised, eyes closed…well…that was heaven.

Something had changed earlier this afternoon during the water coloring. They had shared a laugh.

But it was a laugh that was so much more than a laugh. It was a release. As though he had been holding onto a chain around his neck that prohibited him from laughter.

Seeing her muddy puddle and her reaction to the man with the cane had broken something loose in him.

He couldn’t hold onto the chain around his throat and laugh along with her at the same time. And to laugh with her was the strongest argument he had encountered yet to just let go.

So much resentment had built up within him, like a garden overgrown with weeds. And every moment he spent near Amelia was like picking out another patch of weeds. It was almost to the point that he could see a semblance of the garden that once existed.