Free Lady X's Cowboy by Zoe Archer Page A

up.
    But the funny thing was that it hadn’t felt like fooling around.  It felt different than stealing kisses from the church-going daughters of the ranch owners, and it was a hell of a lot different from the rough tumbles he would get in town with more worldly women.  He’d felt a little something stir inside him when he and Olivia kissed, and it wasn’t just his John Thomas.
    Don’t think hogwash .  He kicked his toe into the path and sent a few stones clattering.  There couldn’t be anything going on with him and an actual lady.  Especially since the night was past and it was getting on for him to grab his gear and go.  He still had a lot of work ahead of him.
    “If we had met a few months earlier,” she continued, “you would have found my garden a much more beautiful place.”
    “I like it as it is.  It reminds me a touch of the public gardens in Denver.  Tidy but smart.  A little smaller, of course.”  He felt a bit like a giant, like that fellow Gulliver, towering over the trim hedges cut into refined blocks, and just as clumsy, though he suspected Olivia was more the source of his ungainliness than the garden.  Any minute, he felt he would go tumbling into a flowerbed.
    “Naturally.  Perhaps when you get the opportunity, you should visit Hyde Park.  You ought to find its wide-open spaces to your liking.  People even go riding there.  I do, when I have the time.”
    It pleased him to think she was a horsewoman.  He didn’t think he could really like a body who couldn’t sit a horse—it seemed unnatural, somehow.  He hadn’t ridden in nearly three weeks, a fact which made him almost sick with longing.  No self-respecting man could call himself a cowboy and be on foot for so long.
    “Maybe if I get the chance,” he answered. 
    “And you brought your own saddle,” she added.  “Which looks a trifle different from English saddles.”
    “That’s ’cause mine is meant for workin’.”
    She’d led him towards a little stone fountain, which was dry and had a few dead leaves resting in its bowl.  She picked the leaves out and scattered them on the ground, but she did this so diligently that Will suspected something was on her mind.  “This is one of my favorite spots back here.”
    “It’s powerful pretty,” he said slowly.  She wanted to tell him something, something she was having a hard time saying.  He had a suspicion what that might be, and it made him a bit low, though it wasn’t a surprise.
    “It dates from the eighteenth century.”  She kept looking at the fountain, which was a fine little thing, nicely carved with leaves and flowers, but surely not deserving so much concentration.  She avoided meeting his eye.  “It once belonged to Sophie, Viscountess of Briarleigh.  She was a famous botanist.  Some of her theories are still being used today.”  A small, melancholy smile curved Olivia’s lips.  “She was lucky.  She had a husband who believed in her and enough fortune to ignore society.  Things were different then.”
    “Sounds like a remarkable woman.”
    Olivia nodded.  She chewed on her bottom lip, and Will was torn between trampling all the pretty shrubs in order to flee and taking two steps around the fountain and laying his mouth right down on hers.  She probably wouldn’t cotton to him kissing her again, since it seemed she was readying herself to tell him he could never take any more liberties with her.
    “Lady Briarleigh could speak her mind,” she said darkly.  “I wish I had the same fortitude.”
    He knew what she wanted to say, though politeness or breeding kept her from saying it.  “Look, Lady Xavier,” Will burst out, tired of waiting, “I’m planning on leavin’ this mornin’.  You don’t have to tell me to go.”
    She looked up at him, shock and dismay in her eyes.  “No,” she said quickly.  “That’s not what I want at all.  I hope I didn’t...Lord, no!”  She gestured to a small stone bench.  “Please