“I’m not trying to renew some sort of filial bond,” she said under her breath to him, drawing his face down to regard her.
His happy expression flickered a little, displeasure tugging at the corners of his lips, which made her sigh.
“It’s complicated,” she said. “But I will explain it to you when there is time. I needed his signature on a legal form to assist Lem with something, and now I might not need it at all, which is a fine mess I’ve made for myself. Now I have to go, anyway, and make sure he keeps his trap shut about it.”
“I would ask for elaboration,” Malcolm said with a little frown, “but I expect I would not get it just now.”
“I’ll happily spill the whole stupid mess to you when we’re back home,” she promised. “I just wanted you to know it wasn’t what it looked like. I haven’t been pining to be his daughter again all of a sudden.”
“Fine,” he said, shrugging. “Even if you were, I suppose it’s not my business.”
She huffed, dropping his arm. “Well, if you’re going to act like that about it,” she said, “maybe I won’t tell you anything.”
“A blunted threat,” he returned, arching a brow. “Considering the default state of things.”
She made a face at him and turned to look for a different companion.
She turned directly into Jasper.
He caught her by the shoulders before she could break the bridge of her nose against his chest. His broad, firm chest, warm under the shirt and jacket. Freckled and dusted with golden hair under the shirt and jacket.
Goddammit!
“Lib,” he choked, using his grip on her to turn her back around. “We’re going this way.”
“Yes, Iknow,” she shot, slapping his hands off her. “Why are you here?!”
“B…Because I was invited?” he attempted, cutting himself off and pushing his fingers to his lips to stop a laugh at the way herhead snapped around to glare at him. “Malcolm wouldn’t takenofor an answer. He extorted me. Workers for Templeton-Rath in exchange for my presence.”
“Oh, of course,” she replied, knowing she sounded petulant. “All roads lead back to Templeton-Rath.”
He slid his fingers into the crook of her arm, tugging her gently so that she would slow her gait. It allowed some of the workers to fill the space between them and Malcolm, who had now called Errol into his thrall ahead of them.
Behind them, some ways back, Monica and Rhys were still chattering about colors and things that glinted in the light.
“Do I need to apologize to you?” Jasper asked after checking both in front of and behind them. “For this morning?”
“For this morning? No,” she replied, clenching her jaw. “For absolutely everything else? I’d say so.”
“That’s fair,” he replied with a sigh, lashes fluttering over those upturned, golden eyes. “That is fair.”
“So, are you going to?” she asked, raising her brows at him as they reached a set of wooden stairs that scaled the first chalky drop of the Downs. “I’m listening.”
“I am going to,” he assured her. “Once I’ve figured out the words. And the attrition bit. And… erm…”
She gestured for him to take the stairs ahead of her. She wanted to glare at his back. At his broad, strong back. No, that wasn’t helping. But the only place to look was even lower, and his bum was doing incredible things just now, scaling the steps.
She wondered if she had died sometime in the night and this was hell.
Had he always been shaped like this? Had there always been so very much to grab in his trousers and she just hadn’t noticed?
“Fairy circles,” Rhys called, once they’d reached the top, adjusting the green angora scarf around his neck. “Don’t step inside them!”
“What?” Jasper said, looking over his shoulder with a frown. “The mushrooms?”
“Don’t,” Rhys said again, his face dropping to a glower as he completed the knot in his ill-gotten scarf. “Walk around.”
“Ignore him,” Malcolm called back. “Nonsense.”