Come Near Me by Kasey Michaels

years of being half a person, having only
half a heart. “That’s just how I would have put it, Miss Victor.
Paradise. A veritable Eden. And not a snake in sight. Shall we take
that stroll now?”
    He was nervous, afraid he might frighten
her— would frighten her—if he moved too quickly, gave her
even the slightest indication that he wanted to kiss her, to hold
her, to crush her against him and never, never ever let her go.
    “Augustus—he’s our head gardener—told me a garden
like this only comes along once in every hundred years,” he told
Sherry, as they picked their way over the bricked path. “A proper
combination of a wet fall and a mild winter, followed by an early
spring and large quantities of sunshine. And his special soil
treatments, of course. Nature might be powerful, but without his
special treatments, none of which I encouraged him to describe, the
garden would simply be lovely, not extraordinary.”
    “Bone meal,” Sherry stated quite unromantically.
    Adam’s lips twitched. “I beg your pardon?”
    “I said, my lord—bone meal. That’s what my mama
swore by, and our gardens are always lovely, although not nearly as
grand as this one. I imagine that’s ground-up bones, or something,
but you can never be sure just by the name of something, you know.
I mean, just think about it. There are so many things we say that
don’t mean at all what a sensible person would think they
mean.”
    “Such as?” Adam asked, aware that, although he might
be falling in love, Sherry Victor seemed not to be noticing his
tumble.
    “Well,” she said, sitting down on a stone bench
beside the path, “I imagine Privy Councillor would be one such
description that comes to mind. I do believe I read, somewhere,
that in olden times the King retreated to the castle privy chamber
in order to speak privately with his counselors. The man left to
guard the door, allowing no one else entrance, even somehow got
himself the title of Privy Watch–out Person or something like
that.”
    “Something like that,” Adam agreed, his mind
whirling. He was sitting in the most beautiful garden in the world,
with the most beautiful woman in the universe, and they were
discussing castle privies?
    “But the King doesn’t meet with his advisors in a
privy anymore, now does he, my lord? I mean, you must have been to
his palace. They don’t meet there, do they?”
    Adam scratched at a spot just in front of his left
ear. “I seem to recall a large, vaulted chamber, and a quantity of
portraits. Perhaps velvet draperies.”
    “You see? And yet the King’s most trusted advisors,
undoubtedly most officious and yet privileged persons, go by the
title of Privy Councillors. They’re probably even proud to have
that title.” She subsided a bit on the bench, losing some of her
stiff, proper posture. “Well, I just know I could never look any of
those gentlemen in the eye without falling into giggles and quite
horribly disgracing myself.”
    “I believe I now share that problem with you,” Adam
said, conjuring up the faces of the Privy Council and imagining
them all stuck in a drafty castle privy, whispering secrets to the
King, who might have been otherwise occupied at the time. “I’ll
have to withdraw from Society, in fact, or else make a total fool
of myself.”
    He watched as Sherry’s cheeks colored attractively.
“I’ve done it again, haven’t I?” she asked, heartbreakingly
beautiful in her embarrassment. “Mrs. Forrest says I talk entirely
too much, and without ever first bothering to think my words
through. Please accept my apologies, my lord.”
    “Never,” Adam answered, taking her hand and lifting
it to his lips. “I find you refreshingly frank and honest, Miss
Victor, and most totally delightful.”
    She looked at her hand, being held in his, and then
into his face. “You do? How odd.”
    This particular bit of honesty tickled Adam so much
that he threw back his head and laughed, a hearty laugh that melted
any