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“You do? Can I see your work when we get back to the castle?” she asked curiously.

“I don’t usually…”

“It doesn’t matter.” She smiled brightly.

He seemed as though he were reconsidering his answer and then nodded.

She clapped her hands together. “I’m so excited!”

Then they fell silent. Arabella took that opportunity to admire the view. She wished to never go back. She let out a sigh that caused him to open his eyes.

“What is the matter?” Edward asked, concern lacing his words.

“Do we have to go back?” she asked. “I love how I can sit freely with you here. I love how at peace I am with you here. I… I’m tired of pretending I don’t have feelings for you. It’s all so complicated in my head that I forget why I never wanted to marry.”

“I understand. I feel the exact same way,” he admitted, sitting up and pulling her to his side. “But do you think we should try taking it one step at a time?”

“I would love that.” She beamed. “You know… I am curious.”

“What about?”

“You,” she said. “Why you never wanted to get married.”

He sighed and seemed to hesitate for a moment. “My father wasn’t exactly a paragon of manhood for me, and I saw how loving him dimmed my mother’s light,” he explained, his mood darkening. “I swore that I’d never subject a woman to the same fate in case I turned out like him.”

“That’s noble of you.” She smiled, squeezing his hand. “But you didn’t turn out like him.”

“I did.” He didn’t meet her eyes. “I have not lived a clean life, Arabella. I?—”

“Your past doesn’t matter to me, Edward,” she insisted, cupping his jaw. “What matters is what you do going forward.”

“But—”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Ara mine, you’re the smartest woman I’ve ever met.”

“After your mother?”

“Of course.”

They shared a laugh and smiled at each other.

“You make this friendship thing easy.” She sighed. “I never thought I could be friends with a man.”

“Why not?”

“I’m interminably shy, Edward,” she pointed out. “I might not look it, but I am.”

“You hide it well.”

“I do, don’t I?” Then she paused for a while, before asking, “Do you think it’ll get better with us?”

She didn’t know who moved first, but their lips met in a kiss that spoke volumes, his hands gently cupping her jaw then trailing down her body as their kiss deepened.

She felt rather than heard him moan when her hands touched his chest. He reclined her on the blanket so he was hovering over her, cradled between her thighs, the bulge in his breeches evidence of his desire.

His weight on her was delicious, and the way he rubbed his manhood against her core drove sensations through her that she’d never felt before.