Just to Have You (Blackwood & Friends #3)

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

Ben: "Reasons why Griff should steal the parish wine reserved for holy communion this Sunday. One- I asked her to. Really nicely. Two- I did not bring any brandy. Three- Haventry cider is piss. Four- It will surely shorten Sunday's service with Mr Bickens."

(One of B's many lists)

Something roused Amy from her slumber and she turned onto her back, rubbing her eyes. It took several moments for her to adjust to the shadows, blinking furiously as her mind struggled to resist the insistent and compelling pull of unconsciousness, but then the sound that caused her disturbance met her ears again.

A light skittering, a small rain of pebbles and sand, lightly rattled the glass of her window. Ah, she thought wryly though her lips were already curling into a grin at the prospect of seeing him again so soon after he left her. Amy propped herself up on her elbows and listened carefully as another scattering of light debris hit her window. She knew it was Oliver outside and anticipation flared up within her as she pushed back the blankets, swung her legs over the edge of the bed and tripped over to her window.

An icy breeze caressed the skin of her face as she leveraged the window open and peered over the ledge. There were a few hours yet until dawn so he was mostly shrouded with the shadows of night yet but the broadness of his smile was plain to see even at the height with which she peered down at him. Oliver wore only a crisp white linen shirt and a pair of dark trousers despite the coolness of the night air and then he held up his arms to the window and Amy realized what he was brandishing above his head.

"Behold!" he exclaimed dramatically. "I have tamed the beast!" Henevieve clucked indignantly from where she was clasped in his hold, her feathers ruffled.

Amy snorted. "What are you doing?" she hissed, barely resisting the urge to laugh at the picture he presented.

His arms lowered slightly so he could peer around Henevieve, who shifted irately, and up at her. Right then he looked so boyishly impossible with his hair ruffled and unkempt to one side, dark stubble shadowing his jaw, Amy could hardly resist the urge to smile in return. "Why, I am courting you, of course," Oliver told her in a tone that reflected he rather thought she should know that brandishing a disgruntled chicken at her window would imply as such.

"Really?" she quipped dryly.

"Naturally, the submission of your hostile beast that guards your wind-" Henevieve chose that precise moment to launch her next attack, flapping her wings furiously as she launched and squawked for Oliver's face. He swore, jumped out the way, and the chicken fluttered to the ground before lunging at him again with loud clucking protests of self-righteousness at being manhandled. With a few more aggrieved attacks, Henevieve settled into submission and cooed off around the other side of the cottage, allowing Oliver a temporary reprieve as he glared after her with his hands on his hips.

Amy couldn't help but laugh, catching his attention as he tilted his head back to regard her once more. "Madam," he told her off, smiling crookedly, "I assure you this is no laughing matter. My endeavors at wooing you are to be taken very seriously."

"Jus' let 'im up already," a drunken slur belted loudly from a hedge on the lane before Amy's cottage, "for a good rogerin'!"

Alarm made Oliver's face fell and he turned to regard the source of the inebriated voice, but it was well hidden under the safety of the hedges. "Mr Townsend found his way from the Lucky Apple," Amy explained laughingly, "and seemed to think the most comfortable place to lay his head was under that specific hedge."

At Oliver's horrified look, she added, "You needn't worry. I gave him a throw."

"That is not what I am worried about," Oliver grumbled, "but you have diverted my intentions."