Tempting by Hope Tarr

Author:Hope Tarr
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: england, historical romance, london, pretty woman, romance historical, victorian romance, pygmalion, cinderella twist, london 1800s, my fair lady, romance 1800s, romance british, british isles
Publisher: Hope Tarr

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Chapter Eleven

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

—Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ode to the West Wind,” 1819

* * *

Simon knew firsthand that a month of hobbling about would test even the mildest of temperaments. In the two weeks following her accident, Christine bore her confinement with uncommon good grace. A miserable bout of the sniffles accompanied her sprained ankle and, between the two ailments and the raw weather, she’d seemed content to bide indoors. Most of her free time she spent curled up on the library sofa, her nose stuck in a novel and her cat warming her feet. Simon had liked having her there. He didn’t much care whether or not spring ever came. But of course it did.

Midway through the third week of Christine’s convalescence the weather turned from lion to lamb. Gray skies gave way to blue, blades of green grass poked through the melting snow, and the wintry gales gentled to zephyr breezes redolent with the promise of spring. Christine grew snappish and restless, demanding to be allowed to take part in activities that, as she well knew, Dr. Barker had forbade.

“You treat me like a child,” she complained one Monday morning over breakfast after Simon had told her she wasn’t even to think of going near the stables.

Closing his ears, he unfolded his crisply ironed copy of The Kentish Observer. He’d just begun perusing the front page when the screech of cutlery against china set his teeth on edge. Lowering the paper, he looked overtop it to Christine.

“I’m not, you know.” She stabbed her fork into the mutilated remains of what had started out as a shirred egg. Looking up from the muck, she added, “I’ll be twenty in four more days.”

Concealing a smile, he folded his paper and set it next to his plate atop the week-old copy of The London Times that had just arrived that morning. “Twenty,” he repeated, striving to look solemn. “I suppose we should begin planning your retirement. Do you fancy Brighton or Bath?”

Eyes aiming daggers, she lifted her chin. “I’ll not stay to be made fun of.” She grabbed for the crutches she’d laid across the adjacent chair.

“Wait.” Reaching over, he touched her shoulder, the most physical contact he’d dared since the day of her accident. “Please don’t go off angry. I was only teasing.”

She unfurled her fingers from the crutch and sighed. “And I’m only cross.” Raising repentant eyes to his, she admitted, “This will be the first birthday I’ve ever spent away from my family.”

Simon felt as if his heart was fisting. “Make something of a fuss, do they?”

She answered with a small smile. “Liza always bakes a cake or burns one more like. Last year she fair near brought down the cottage.” She whisked the napkin from her lap and dabbed at the corner of one tear bright eye. “Jake and Timmy gathered a bag of stones, and the four of us spent the afternoon playing ducks and drakes on the pond. But that must seem silly to you.

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