Just to Have You (Blackwood & Friends #3)

Chapter Eighteen

"Ben." She looked remarkably embarrassed at that and he grinned at her unrepentantly. "You need to read it and we can speak of it tomorrow," she urged.

He snorted, quite sure that whatever she had contrived he would find acceptable and heed at her request. Whatever she wanted him to do, however he needed to behave, he would do. For her. Oliver had made his mind up in London that Amy Griffiths was meant to be his wife and if she needed this time to adjust her own misgivings about the change in their relationship, so be it. He could be patient.

Thirty days, though.

"Very well," he sighed and tucked the parchment into the pocket of his coat. "Will you please join me on this side of the hedge, however? Why the deuce are you walking over there, anyway?"

Again that mysterious smile drifted over her lips and she gave him a very knowing look. "It is safer this side," she said simply.

"You'd be safer with me," Oliver muttered, irked that she would contrive to put a barrier between them as if she did not trust him to behave accordingly. Well, alright, he had been besieged with ideas of stealing kisses from her and running his hands over as much of her body as possible, but she hardly knew that.

"Oh, I do not even believe that you are safe presently," Amy said with mischievous grin that grooved her cheeks impishly.

What the hell did she mean by that? "Griff, you are being deliberately obtuse-"

As the narrow lane curved to the left and straightened out before him, Oliver suddenly knew exactly what she was about as some very angry hissing broke the silence of the night air and Mr Stuart's flock of belligerently hostile and violent geese blocked the rest of his path.

"You are the devil incarnate, Griff, honest to God," he growled and began to retreat, about twelve vehemently hissing geese following him.

"If you had been paying attention to what has been transpiring in Haventry, my lord, you would have noted that Mr Stuart is quite neglectful when it comes to containing his geese these days!" she called out to him, giggling, and continued on her merry way.

Never one to let a good prank go unpunished, Oliver knew he wanted to mete out his retribution and swiftly. The hedgerow was high and he would never be able to vault over it without either tumbling atop it direct or without a running start. Fortunately, he supposed, the geese were sure to see the latter was at least taken care of as they began to flap their wings aggressively and increase their speed towards him, disallowing him passage through their ranks to continue onwards. Unless he wanted to fall victim to those wickedly serrated beaks, and he had before- an experience he had no desire to repeat- Oliver had to run to ensure his escape.

He did so then, pivoting and falling into an easy, loping gait with feathered demons at his heels, flapping, honking and hissing in earnest now. Amy had known they would be loitering along the lane and had deliberately chosen to withhold the information from him while protecting her own hide... if Oliver wasn't running for the safety of his own, he would have laughed in appreciation of her deviously playful machinations, but as it were he had to pick up his pace dramatically.

After such it was easy enough to vault himself over the hedge a few yards back and the moment his boots thudded into the grass on the other side, he had pushed off and was sprinting towards Amy. The surprise on her face as she turned at his fast, thundering approach was testament to her disbelief at finding him this side of the hedge so suddenly. She had been giggling but stopped when she witnessed him bolting towards her, then she pivoted, shrieked, and began to run away from him.

"Ben," she said shrilly, laughing as he caught her about the waist and dragged her against his body, "it was a joke, a harmless-"

"Harmless!" he barked spinning her in his arms and dropping his mouth to the side of her neck. She shivered, a small sigh escaping her, and grasped the front lapels of his coat as she sank against him. "I could have been killed, violently mauled-"