Page 39 of Ella’s Desire

“Bronson fell out of a tree.” Cat giggled.

“That isn’t kind,” Ella admonished her younger sister.

Leila looked up from Moppet. “What was he doing up in a tree?”

Ella’s cheeks burned at the very mention. “Trying something different, I suppose,” she answered brusquely. “What is going on here?” She bustled to the bench and picked up a blue ribbon. “This looks sufficient.”

“Sufficient?” Cat’s mouth dropped open. “You are the one who is full of the most romantic notions, and you are using ‘sufficient’ when describing your wedding decorations?” Concern replaced her shock. “Is it not going well with him?”

“Nay, it isn’t that.” Ella tried to laugh off her comment, but the sound was hollow and false. “I feel awful for what happened. He was up in that tree because of me.”

“You didn’t do anything to make him fall, I’m sure,” Cat protested. “Come, look at the flowers. We have daisies.” She lifted one of the fragile green stems and twirled the white and yellow flower enticingly. “I had Drake fetch them all earlier.”

Drake, Werrick’s Captain of the Guard, had several sisters himself and, being the model of chivalry, was always obliging with Ella, Cat and Leila’s whims.

“You made him go out to pick flowers so soon after returning back from taking Marin and Bran to Kendal Castle?” Ella asked.

Cat shrugged. “He said it was no bother.” She lifted the daisy higher for Ella to see. It was pretty. The petals pristine white, the center wide and as brilliant a yellow as the sun.

“We can’t use daisies,” Leila said from where she sorted through a tangle of ribbon on the window seat.

Ella took the flower from Cat and twirled the slender stem as her sister had done. “Why not?”

Leila pieced a blue and orange ribbon together and studied them together for a moment. “Because they make Lord Calville sneeze.”

Ella studied her youngest sister. “How do you know?”

“He comes to see me in the mornings when I’m going through my stock of herbs, to see Hardy.” The dog at her feet perked up and Moppet slowly crept back on the cushion, closer to Leila. She chuckled and patted Moppet’s head. This time, the stubborn little squirrel did not balk at her affection but nestled against her instead.

“He said they made him sneeze,” Leila said. “I saw it once. His nose went twitchy and he sneezed so loudly, it frightened poor Hardy.”

Hardy cocked his head.

“We could do peonies.” Cat lifted a heavy pink blossom from the row of other flowers. “Does he like peonies?”

Except she wasn’t asking Ella, she was asking Leila, who considered the question with earnestness.

The twist of guilt in Ella’s stomach knotted with further frustration. How did she not know about the daisies? Nor any of his affinities towards flowers.

“I think he likes them well enough as he hasn’t said they make him sneeze.” Leila discarded the orange ribbon, then lifted a white one and matched them together. “I say we go with blue ribbons. It’s his favorite color.”

“How do you know that?” Ella asked.

Leila and Cat both looked at her. Even Hardy shifted his adoring gaze from Leila to Ella.

“He hasn’t told me his favorite color.” Leila looked at the ribbon in her hand and slowly looped it around her forefinger. “It’s just that he wears blue often, and so I assumed.”

“It’s an excellent point.” Ella smiled to cover her own oversight. She ought to have noticed such a thing as well.

Except the smile was as false as her words. She had not once noticed him wearing blue, let alone on multiple occasions. She had noticed the plumpness of the bottom lip she enjoyed suckling, she was familiar with the stroke of his fingers at her most intimate place and she knew the length of his manhood exceeded that of her hand. But she had not known his color preference, nor that her favorite flower made him sneeze.

Ella thought of Bronson often, longing to be at his side, eager for his touches and his kisses. But the preparations for the wedding made her realize one thing with certainty: she needed to learn more about who he was.

14

Bronson adjusted the sling on his good shoulder. The thing was a nuisance. Fortunately, the pain had subsided almost as soon as Isla had made it pop again.

He strode through the castle with his arm locked at an angle in the sling. It would only be for a few days, or so Isla said.