Free Enchanting Pleasures by Eloisa James

“Now, sir, unless you are quite wedded to being mute, would you tell me the names of these plants?”
Quill looked at her as mutely as any rock. He still couldn’t take it in. He’d been unable to sleep because of pain in his leg and had come outside, to find mouse-gray trees brooding over the grass in an early-morning fog. He’d walked out the kink in his leg and finally sat down—and had the oddest dream.
A dream, God forbid, about Gabby. He refused to even think about the images his treacherous mind had woven. And when he awoke, there she was. Looking like the aftermath of his dream, with her hair falling freely back over her shoulders, escaping from a loosely tied ribbon even as he watched.
“Gabby,” he said in a rough voice, trying vainly to get a grasp on his imagination. “You should not be out in the garden in your night clothing. You should never, ever be seen outside your room in a state of undress.”
Gabby ignored him and jumped to her feet, tugging him up as well. “I think we are safe for another five minutes, Quill. Just five minutes—and then I’ll run back in the house.”
Quill was no match for Gabby when she wanted something, and he knew it. Especially not when her lips were flushed red, swollen from sleep, and her eyes looked at him so…so invitingly. Her skin glowed with rosy lights that made his blood throb and his fingers twitch to touch her, to push aside the thick night-robe, to—oh, God, to fall on his knees before her and bury his face in her creamy skin—
Quill started down the garden path with a choked curse, dragging Gabby behind him. “That’s a pudding-pipe tree,” he said, nodding to a small tree. “Those are pears growing by the summer house. And these are apple trees.”
“Oh, wait, Quill, wait,” Gabby cried. “I want to look at the pudding-pipe tree. The one with flowers.”
Quill reached out and snapped off a spray of golden blossoms. He shook it briskly, and a tiny shower of gleaming dewdrops flew from the plant. “Normally, it would be finished blooming, but it’s been a warm autumn.” He held it out to Gabby.
“It’s lovely.” Gabby’s face glowed with happiness as she buried her nose in the flowers. When she raised her face, the tip of her nose was incongruously dusted with buttercup yellow.
Quill reached out and brushed off her nose with his thumb. She had a small, straight, patrician nose that spoke of generations of Jerninghams, all breeding noble and true, at least in the nose category.
“How did your father meet your mother?” He didn’t know much about Richard Jerningham, although he was getting more and more curious.
“She was a French émigré,” Gabby explained, not seeming to find his abrupt question impolite. “My father married her within two weeks of meeting her. They were married less than a year, as she died giving birth to me.”
Quill was increasingly aware of the dappled sunlight that was now warming his back. Gabby seemed to have no idea what would happen if they were found together in the garden. He tugged her around and began to walk briskly back toward the house. Then he stopped. “You must enter alone,” he told her.
“Quill!” Gabby said, her husky voice annoyed. “We were speaking of something important. You are most impolite to ignore me. I said my mother died at my birth, and you should at least offer your sympathies.”
Quill looked down at her and once again stifled the impulse to kiss her into silence. “I would like to hear more about your father and mother,” he said, after a moment. “But I am worried that we will be discovered by the servants. They must be up and around the house by now.”
“Well,” Gabby said, “would that be such a tragedy? We are family, after all.” And she smiled up at him, her eyes as innocent and friendly as a babe’s.
“You are not married to Peter yet,” Quill pointed out. “If we were found in the garden together, people would undoubtedly think the worst. You would be