Royally Seduced - By Marie Donovan Page 0,33
a fever pitch. And to feel him under her mouth—wow. It had been incredibly arousing and she couldn’t stop thinking about the next time they would make love.
She knew it was just a vacation fling, but sex with Jack was more than scratching an itch—she was glad to be with him and get to know him in and out of bed.
Did the house he had mentioned have a nice bed? Anything would be better than the tiny one they’d shared last night, but they had managed just fine.
“Almost there.” Jack turned down a narrow unpaved lane saved only from tedium by a row of trees on each side. Their trunks were silvery-white and mottled, almost as if some avant-garde artist had sculpted them out of concrete and then sandblasted them to make them look old. The branches grew straight up with glossy green leaves.
“What kind of trees are these?”
He slowed the car to avoid kicking up dust. “Ah, plane trees—from what you call the sycamore family. These are very old and have been trained over the years to grow upward, unlike the ones in the village that grow horizontally.”
“Mmm.” Lily pointed her camera out the window and took several shots. It was like driving in a green, leafy tunnel, much nicer than the New York underground version. Then the tunnel opened up on a stunning view of a gigantic stone manor house with a fence surrounding it. Lavender fields grew in the distance, their purple rows stunning alongside the low-growing orange spelt crop. “Holy cow, Jack. Whose house is that?”
He smiled at the building. “Isn’t it beautiful? It’s been here several hundred years and the owners have enlarged it over the centuries.”
“This is your friend’s house, then. What’s their name?”
“The de Brissard family owns it.” He shifted in the seat. “The guesthouse is another couple kilometers down the road and past that are the lavender fields and the farm buildings. There is even an old lavender press dating from the early Middle Ages. The farm, however, now uses a more modern facility in a nearby town.”
“Hygiene and regulations suck the romance out of everything.” She shook her head. “And I suppose you can’t have the peasants crush grapes with their feet anymore, either.”
He laughed. “Not unless you want to make the bureaucrats faint from horror.”
They passed the main house and Lily craned her neck. “Can I have a tour of the mansion sometime? I’d love to see the inside.”
“The housekeeper would love to give you one. They are very busy this time of year with the beginning of the lavender harvest. Many migrant workers come and Marthe-Louise and her staff make sure they all have enough to eat and drink. We keep the best workers that way.”
“Oh. But if they’re so busy, they might not want us borrowing the guesthouse.”
“No, nobody is using it now and we are well out of the way of their work.”
“If you’re sure…”
“I am positive,” he said firmly. “Please do not worry that you are imposing because that is not the case. I would never put you into an awkward situation where you are not welcome.”
“Thank you, Jack.” She couldn’t reach him to kiss his cheek, so she patted his knee.
He smiled at her, his warm, relaxed smile that was appearing more and more frequently as they settled into Provence. “You are most welcome.” He covered her hand with his and steered around a corner with his left hand. “And here we are.”
Lily gaped at the guesthouse. It was smaller than the main house but no less impressive. Jack parked the car in the circular gravel driveway next to a limestone fountain. She hopped out to admire the two-story stucco building. It was a lovely weathered peach blush color with pale blue shutters and white trimmed doors. The roof was Spanish-style red clay rounded tiles. She guessed it was too dry to grow a traditional American lawn since the grounds were landscaped in beds of carpet-type junipers, silvery hedges and tall evergreens pruned into perfect slim columns.
“This is called la petite maison—the little house.”
“Little? How many bedrooms?” Her shoes crunched on the pure white gravel as she approached the fountain.
He hopped out of the driver’s seat and looked up at the house. “Four, five if you consider the den has a sofa with a pullout bed.”
“Oh, only five bedrooms—a real hovel.” She twisted her camera strap. “Jack, this is too much. We can’t just show up, even if they are your good friends.”
He caught her