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The tension in Lord Percy’s shoulders released.

“Good, good. Well, off you go. I shall be here—keeping the two of you within sight, as Laurent usually does.” His eyes narrowed just slightly before relaxing again.

“Good luck trying to talk to her, though, as she gets in these funny moods sometimes. Concentrating, she calls it. Never experienced the thing myself.”

He took a large bite of his apple and returned to his book.

Richard almost grinned. Perhaps if he had met the brother first, they would have been friends. As it was…

The grove of trees had sprung into leaf, and he had to push past a few heavy branches to reach the kneeling woman. When he approached her, Richard was not surprised to see she did not glance up.

Once again, it appeared, Evelyn had slipped into one of those bouts of intense concentration. During those times, it was almost impossible to get her to hear him.

That was why Richard was able to sit on the grass beside her and just look at her as she peered at the flowers in the bed.

Goodness, she was beautiful. It had been a while since he had been able to be this close to her and it was almost painful, the elegance in her features.

Richard had met plenty of pretty women; France was full of them, and there had been times when it had been convenient to cozy up to one or two to gain information.

But Evelyn?

Evelyn was different. It was the difference between the dough for bread and the finished loaf, the acorn and the oak.

She was the finished article.

All thoughts of a proper conversation forgotten, Richard leaned back on his elbows and watched her, transfixed. Was this how she spent her afternoons when they were not together in the art studio? What was she doing, now that he thought to wonder? It was most bizarre.

A notebook was in her lap, and a pencil in her hand, as it always seemed to be. Every now and again, Evelyn would lean back and add a few lines to the notebook, then she peered into the flowerbed again.

Richard cleared his throat. “Ahem.”

There was absolutely no response.

“Evelyn.”

She looked up for a moment, as though she had heard an unusual birdsong or her name being called by someone almost a mile away. Then she shook her head slightly, as though chastising herself silently for daydreaming, and returned to her notebook.

Richard quelled a grin. Well, she really is leaving me with no choice.

“Evelyn,” he said quietly as he placed a hand on her arm.

Evelyn jerked away as though he’d been stung, her arm lunging out, the pencil her only weapon.

“Good God!”

Richard scrambled back, the thrusted pencil a sharp dagger for the sensation it had given his arm. Thank God he was wearing his thicker jacket. “You stabbed me!”

“Oh, it’s you,” said Evelyn blithely with a smile. “Hello, Richard.”

“You stabbed me with a pencil!” he said in horror.

For some reason, she was giggling. “I do apologize, but you should have gained my attention in a less threatening way.”

“‘Less threatening’?” Richard stared, transfixed, at the pencil lead mark on his jacket. If that had been his skin… It really did not bear thinking about.

“Yes, if you’d said my name a few times, for example.”

He cast her a serious look. “I did.”

Evelyn’s lips formed an O . “You did?”

The trouble was, being angry at Evelyn was difficult.

Staying angry at her was almost impossible.

By now, Richard could see the funny side, and though he made a note to always approach the woman from the front in future, he chuckled as he leaned back on his elbows.

“You are a dangerous woman, you know that?”

“I was grabbed once by a lout after a ball in the dark,” Evelyn said quietly, a shadow passing over her face. “When I was with my cousin Lilianna—the Countess of Taernsby now.”

And all of a sudden, guilt swam through Richard’s veins thicker than treacle. “You weren’t hurt?”

“I was very much startled and did not appreciate the experience,” confessed Evelyn, her eyes averted and looking back at the flowerbed. “I admit, I have not been very good at allowing people to grab me ever since.”

The guilt turned to stone inside his heart.

Oh, hell. And what had he done? Grabbed her and pulled her into his arms, before bestowing an unwelcome kiss on her lips.

Richard felt like an absolute cad. God in heaven, he hadn’t known, he’d had no idea—but perhaps then he should never have done it? What man knew everything about the woman he wished to kiss?

“I… I am so sorry, Evelyn,” he said awkwardly.

When she turned to look at him, her eyes had that unfocused quality again. “Why?”

“For…” Hell, he had never had to apologize like this. “For grabbing you, that time in your studio. You know. That time.”

When I kissed you , Richard had wanted to say, but he could not bring himself to do so. When I kissed you passionately and you responded—or at least, I thought you had responded. Now I’m questioning everything and it’s all because of you.

“Oh, that.” Evelyn’s cheeks pinked. “Yes, well, it was a bit of a shock, but… but I liked it.”

She’d liked it.

Richard was ready to stand at the top of the Houses of Parliament and sing into the night—she had liked it!

“Not that that sort of thing can happen again, you understand,” she added hastily.

Deflating quickly, Richard said quietly, “Yes. Yes, of course.”

Of course he could not kiss her again. Of course he would never know the taste of Evelyn’s lips on his again. A moment like that, it was far too good to be true. Far too wonderful to be repeated.

Evelyn blinked, as though astonished to find him there. “But what are you doing here, Richard?”

“I… Well, I was in the area,” he said as casually as he could manage, deciding not to tell her that he had come purposefully to see her. “And so I thought I might sit for you.”

“I’m afraid I’m working on stamen today,” Evelyn said cheerfully before turning away.

Richard blinked. “‘Stamen’?”

It didn’t sound like a part of the body.

Admittedly, he was hardly a doctor—he hadn’t paid attention to most of his studies at university, in truth.

There hadn’t seemed much point. He had been a viscount upon entering, he would be a viscount upon exiting.

Nothing he had done there would have much of a consequence.

“Yes, stamen,” said Evelyn happily. “See?”

She pointed at a flower with her pencil as though that solved all inquiries, and returned to her close examination.

Richard waited for a moment, then asked, “And what, precisely, is a stamen?”

When Evelyn straightened up to stare, it was with a look of incredulity. “You do not know?”

“It’s never come up,” he said honestly.

No, when one was a spy in France, the need to know about the anatomy of flowers had not been a vital skill. Perhaps it would have been useful, if he’d been asked to befriend a botanist or some such person. Who knew?

“Oh, it is a most fascinating study, the flower and its component parts,” Evelyn said happily, as though nothing could please her more than to explain it. “Look here.”

And she handed over her notebook.

Richard took it from her fingers as though it were a precious relic. Never before had Evelyn permitted him to see her artwork; she had told him several times, every time he had requested the honor, in fact, that as she was busy learning, her drawings were not for public consumption.

And now she had given him her notebook to look at?

Reverentially, Richard opened it to the most recently opened page. Upon it was a brilliant drawing of a flower, all the parts labeled in exquisite detail and with impeccable handwriting.

He gasped. He could not help it. It was the only appropriate response to Evelyn moving closer to him, much closer, and leaning over the notebook to point at different parts of her work.

They were so close. So close, Richard could breathe her in.

His gaze darted in the direction of Lord Percy, but the man—a distant figure, really—had his back to them, as if he considered his duty as chaperone fulfilled by merely reading somewhere within sight.

“Here’s the stamen, here—and stamen will look slightly different depending on the type of flower, so what you’re really looking for is the form, the purpose of it within the plant. That way, you can usually find it.”

“‘Purpose’?” Richard asked in a croak.

It was not possible for his voice to offer up anything else. Oh, it was powerfully intoxicating, being this close to her. Evidently, Evelyn was unaffected, for she continued to speak about the different parts of the flower.

“Yes, you see here? That’s the stamen, covered with pollen as one would hope, and scientists have examined them in their variety across a great number of different plants.

They are used for… well, propagation, as it happens—not a topic my mother would wish me to speak of, but there’s something truly artistic in the way it moves, isn’t there? Can you see? Are you concentrating?”

But Richard could not concentrate. How could he, when every second made him fully aware of just how close they were?

Almost as close as they had been when he had kissed her.

Richard swallowed hard, willing himself to have control over his body. He couldn’t just let himself enjoy the proximity. He had to at least pretend to pay attention.

“—you see?” Evelyn finished with a wide smile.

His own smile was forced. “I am impressed.”

“Oh, don’t be. It’s just a little sketch,” said Evelyn, though her cheeks flushed.

With pleasure at his praise, Richard wondered? Or mere shyness at having shown her work to another?

“You know, you are a true artist,” he said impetuously. “A free spirit with… with a brilliant mind.”

Evelyn raised an eyebrow as she leaned back. “You almost sound surprised.”

“‘Surprised’?”

“As though you thought my art may not be up to scratch,” she explained. “What did you think my art was like ?”

Richard hesitated. Not like this.

That was what he wanted to say. Not like this—bold and determined, a confidence visible in the sweep of the lead across the page. Not artistic and scientific, a blend of logic and creativity he would have expected in the hands of an older, more experienced artist.

“I don’t know,” he said aloud, fully aware it was not a sufficient explanation.

Evelyn’s face mirrored his own internal thoughts. “Hmm. Well, I am afraid as you do not have a stamen, I have no use for you today.”

Richard repressed a smile. “I don’t suppose you could use an audience?”

She blinked at that, evidently thrown. “I—a what?”

“An audience,” he said with a shrug, leaning back on his elbows and relishing the way he had confused her. “You sit there, looking at the stamen, and I sit here, looking at you.”

Her cheeks had started to pink, but now they were a deep rose. “And why on earth would you want to do that?”

Richard shrugged, amused by the way he had put her on the back foot. “I like to look at beautiful things.”

Evelyn looked over her shoulder, spotting Lord Percy off in the distance.

“My brother is nearby. I suppose he might act as chaperone—he thinks my lady’s maid has been doing so.

Or that is, he said as much, and I did not correct him.

” Her gaze lowered, for a fraction of a second, and Evelyn looked at him boldly.

“You’re not going to kiss me again, are you? ”

“Not today,” he said quietly, excitement in the flirtation soaring through him. “Not today.”

Evelyn bit her lip and Richard tried not to follow the swelling curves of the flesh, tried not to think about his last contact with them. Perhaps his last contact ever.

“Fine,” she said quietly. “I suppose that is not too scandalous.”

“Proceed,” said Richard with a wide gesture of his hand.

She smiled at that, the color still pink in her cheeks, but a restless smile now creasing her lips. “You are ridiculous, you know that?”

“I have been told, yes,” said Richard with a grin. “Go on.”

And so she did. Within a few minutes, Evelyn had slipped into that highly concentrating state that he so admired in her, and the bees hummed as they visited different stamen, and a bird sang in a tree, and Richard sat.

Strange. Sitting for hours in his study had bored him. Sitting here, staring at Evelyn for hours… now that was something quite different, indeed.