Page 60 of Engaging Sir Isaac

She mimicked what Isaac had done, and he held his end of the net steady. Millie closed her eyes tightly, up until the moment she pulled her legs inside with her, reclining in the netting. She opened one eye, then the other, to see the canopy of trees above.

“There you are. Perfectly situated.” Isaac stood over her, releasing the side of the net slowly. “Comfortable?”

She wiggled her shoulders and her eyebrows raised. “Yes. What a surprise. Except for this.” Her bonnet folded oddly against the net. She pulled the pin out and took off the bonnet, holding it up.

Isaac took it from her, then walked to a tree a few feet away and sat beneath its shade. “Now you may nap, and I will guard your rest.”

“You will sit there. On the ground.”

“Yes.”

She frowned. “While I sleep?”

“Yes.”

Millie folded her hands over her stomach and watched as the leaves above her trembled in the breeze. “Why?” Her heart sped as she asked, though it had no reason for excitement. The question was simple. A good question, too.

“Because you face a hard thing.” His voice was quiet, carrying through the stillness of nature quite well. “And one should not face battle when tired. It impairs judgement. Slows reactions.”

“Were you tired when you went to battle?” she asked, eyes still open. The green above soothed her, the netting of the hammock holding her in a gentle embrace. One could sleep quite well under such circumstances.

“Most of the time.” He sighed, a heavy sound, the weight of all he left unsaid settling in her heart. How often had he marched into the night on a general’s orders? Or laid awake, anticipating battle the next morning? Had he feared for his life or thought himself immortal until he took injury? They were questions she had no right to ask. No man would answer such things, either.

“I am sorry for that,” she said instead. “Did you have nightmares for a long time after?”

“They have never stopped.”

She closed her eyes, aching for him. They said nothing for a time, and the birds in nearby trees began to sing and call to one another again. She did not sway much in the hanging bed, but the summer breeze caressed her arms and cheeks and brushed her hair away from her eyes.

When careful fingertips brushed against her forehead, moving her hair back, Millie blinked awake. Had she slept an hour or only a few minutes? She could not quite tell. The sun was no longer bright with the new morning’s light. Isaac stood over her, his hand upon her cheek.

Millie smiled up at him, warmth from sleep and from his touch mingling into a contentment she had never felt before. “Isaac. What time is it?”

There was a look, a warmth in his deep brown eyes that intrigued her. “Time to wake.” He withdrew his hand and held the net again. She saw her bonnet pinned between his left side and arm. “Be careful.”

Millie struggled to sit up, putting one leg outside the net most indecorously. “Getting out is more difficult—”

She gasped as the net seemed to give way, flipping her out upon the one leg unprepared to take her full weight while the other foot tangled somehow. She staggered forward, one hand holding to the rope and the other grasping Isaac’s arm.

Without quite understanding how it happened, Millie abruptly found herself upon the ground, one foot still caught in the air, and Isaac beneath her. Laughing. The man laughed, as though he had never laughed before.

She had certainly never heard him laugh like that. Deep, and long, and then gasping. His arm went around her waist, and she pulled her foot one last time. She freed herself from the net, but her knee came down with such force into Isaac’s leg that he cut off his laugh with a groan.

“I am sorry,” she said, pushing herself up with both hands. One of the hands was on the ground, the other on his chest, so she pushed the breath out of him as well. They were a tangle of skirts, arms, legs, and it was all the dratted hammock’s fault.

Millie looked down at him, uncertain if she dare try to move again. Their gazes caught, a wry smile upon his handsome face. “Millie.”

It was only her name. He had said it many times. She had heard it her whole life. But everything changed when he said it this time, with the way he said it, as though it were a precious word. A declaration.

Her lips parted, she meant to speak. To ask him something.

Then she bent and kissed him instead. Carefully. Tenderly. Asking him something after all, but without using words. He touched her face, accepted the press of her lips and returned each token she offered with one of his own.

Nothing else mattered. Nothing in the whole world. Just Isaac.

Then she withdrew, sitting upon the ground, looking down at him. Isaac kept his gaze directed upward when she moved away, staring up into the trees. He dropped his hand to his chest, just over his heart.

Did he feel it, too? That tugging, that longing, that made her want to curl into his side and stay forever.