With that, she stood.
She could take no more. She would prefer Miles’s stifling attention at a shoulder-to-shoulder crowded party (her definition of torture) to playing with puppies in a warm room in a stable with criminally handsome, seemingly very sweet James Bennett.
She took a backward step to the door as he straightened from his crouch.
“I should really be getting back,” she told him, looking behind her toward the door.
It was only a few feet away but the distance yawned behind her like it was a million miles.
The puppies jumped at her ankles.
James spoke and what he said made her head twist around to look at him.
“We haven’t finished the tour.”
“We haven’t?” she asked, wondering what he’d show her next.
Kittens?
Lambs?
An adorable baby rhinoceros?
He shook his head, moved forward, bending low to control the puppies at the same time his hand came to her hip, fingers hot through the fabric as he expertly manoeuvred her out of the room. Baron came with him. Gretl stayed put and James managed to get her and his dog out without any of the puppies escaping.
It was a minor miracle.
However, instinctively, Belle thought he was the kind of man who wrought minor miracles on a daily basis.
Once he’d turned out the light and closed the door, he took her elbow again and led her along the stalls toward the door they entered. He didn’t take them to the door. He took them to a ladder that led up to what looked like a hayloft.
When he had her facing it, she heard him say, “Up.”
Fear seized her and Belle stared at the ladder. Then her head tipped back to examine the open floor of the hayloft facing the stable. Then she looked at the ladder again.
Then panic coursed through her.
She didn’t do ladders.
She also didn’t do heights.
And she certainly didn’t do one full side of the floor opened to a neck breaking fall haylofts.
She turned and nearly collided with him, he was standing so close behind her.
“I can’t go up there,” she breathed.
He was looking down at her. “Why not?”
She blinked and looked over his shoulder. “I just can’t.”
“It’s safe, Belle. I wouldn’t take you up there if it wasn’t,” he replied.
Her eyes went to his ear. “I’m sure it is. I just don’t do ladders,” she admitted, paused then continued, “or heights.”
Or out of the way, scary haylofts with unbearably handsome men, she thought a thought that she would never, even if paid, speak aloud.
“You’ll be fine,” he assured her, his voice deeper and gentler and somewhere in her panic stricken brain it registered that he was genuinely trying to assure her rather than force her to do something against her will.
“I –” she started but before she could say more, his hands came to her waist, he got close and all panicked thoughts (indeed, all thoughts, panicked or not) flew from her head.
She looked up at him to see his face was close.
Very close.
Magnetically close.
She held her breath and barely controlled an impulse to lean toward him.
“I’ll take care of you,” he murmured and then his fingers tightened at her waist.
He turned her to face the ladder and before she knew what he was about, he actually lifted her clean off her feet. Reflexively her hands shot out to grab the sides of the ladder and her feet found the rungs. His hands slid down to her h*ps and he put pressure there, urging her to climb.
And she did.
Instantly, she felt him come up after her.
Not a few rungs after her but right after her, his arms around her body, hands moving along the ladder sides just under hers and his body warm against her back. She was sheltered from danger by his big, strong frame and her fear of heights (and ladders and haylofts, but not him) completely melted away.
She made it to the floor of the hayloft and stepped in, James coming right after.
Without hesitation, she moved to the safest area available, the centre of the loft, as he strode to its outer wall. She watched as he unlatched a pair of doors and slid one to the side then the other.
He turned to her and ordered quietly, “Come here.”
She didn’t want to. She really didn’t want to.
The doors were open to the night. She could easily fall out them and crack her head open. Or break her arm. Or sprain her ankle. None of which she wanted to do.
Even though she didn’t want to, she pulled his jacket closer about her and walked slowly to his side, stopping several feet from the edge.
“Belle,” he called again and she tilted her head back to look at him, her mind filled with thoughts of her broken body at the base of the stables, her knees feeling spongy, like they couldn’t hold her weight. “Look,” he urged and she watched him turn his head.
Her gaze went in the same direction and she caught her breath.
Spread out before her was his castle, huge and imposing on its cliff, many of its windows shown with bright lights, the sea and sky beyond it inky black. The white caps broke the waters and against the sprawling shoreline you could see the foamy surf pounding against the rocks.
It was magnificent.
It was way better than the view from the study.
It was even worth the torment of being in the company of wickedly handsome James Bennett.
Without thinking, Belle took a step closer to the edge and breathed, “I wish my grandmother was here.”
“What?” James asked, his voice holding more than a little amusement mingled with surprise.
She looked up at him and repeated, “I wish my grandmother was here. She’s a painter. She could paint this for you.” Belle looked back at the view and went on, “She might even pay you for the opportunity to paint this.”
Belle felt him get close to her side. “You’re grandmother’s a painter?”
“Yes,” Belle answered not taking her eyes from the vista. “She’s kind of well-known. You might have heard of her. Lila Cavendish?”
Something emotive stirred the air, emanating from James. It was strong enough for Belle to tear her gaze away from the seascape to look up at him again.
“Your grandmother is Lila Cavendish?” he asked when her eyes hit his face.
Belle nodded. “Do you know her?”
“I have one of her pieces in my office in London,” he replied. “She’s extremely talented.”
Belle felt a sudden, warm burst of pride and murmured, “She is.”
“So you come from a talented family,” he remarked and she kept staring at him and shook her head.