Chapter 23
River discovered she could not sit still.
It was not Archer's fault, though he would likely take credit for it if she told him.
The trouble was that he had given her something to think about, and now every time her gaze drifted toward the pocket in her dress containing the unopened letter she had received that morning, she found herself imagining what might be written inside them.
For months she had been content to fear them from a distance.
Now, thanks to him, she could no longer do so quite as comfortably.
Annoyin’ man.
She plucked a blackberry from the small wooden bowl between them and tossed it into her mouth. Archer, stretched out on one elbow beside the blanket, watched her with obvious amusement.
The lake lay only a few yards away, its surface ruffled by a light breeze that turned the reflected sky into broken fragments of dark blue.
Along the opposite bank, a stand of pines climbed the hillside, their dark silhouettes disappearing as the sun sank lower.
Somewhere farther down the bank, hidden by a cluster of reeds, a bird called once and then fell silent.
River rose to her feet, but Archer did not move.
“Where are ye goin’?”
Instead of responding, she dusted crumbs from her skirt and began making her way toward the water.
The grass grew softer nearer the bank, giving way to patches of moss and smooth stones that had been worn pale by years of rain and wind.
She stepped carefully over them, then crouched beside the edge and dipped her fingers into the lake.
The water was cold enough to sting, the sharp, clean cold of water fed by streams running down from the hills. River glanced back over her shoulder to find Archer watching her.
“Did ye ever swim here?" she asked.
His gaze shifted briefly to the water. “Aye.”
“With Keir?”
A short laugh escaped Archer. “Aye. Mostly because he insisted upon it.”
"I cannae imagine him insisting’ upon anythin’,” River said sarcastically. If there was one thing Keir liked to do, that was deciding on something and seeing it through, no matter what.
Archer barked out a laugh. “He is a stubborn one.”
“Do ye still swim?”
“Sometimes,” said Archer. “If the weather is nice. But I havenae been here in a long time.”
River didn’t mind the cold. If anything, it helped clear her head, and now that they were there, the water seemed too tempting.
She could simply slide into the depths of the lake, into the dark waters, let them wash away every single thought from her mind until it was blank once more, free of worry.
She stood and began unfastening her cuffs. Behind her, there was only silence.
“What are ye doin’?” Archer asked, a hint of alarm in his voice.
River glanced over her shoulder at him, a mischievous smile on her lips. “What does it look like?”
“It looks like ye’re removin’ yer clothin’.”
The bluntness of the statement nearly made her laugh.
She didn’t respond to him. She only continued to undress, first shedding off her shawl, then her petticoat, then her stay and everything down to her shift, which she kept on.
The breeze hit her skin, drawing goosebumps from her, but River ignored the sensation.
Ever so slowly, she dipped her foot into the water, keenly aware of Archer’s eyes on her the entire time.
It was cold; freezing, in fact. River hissed through her teeth, and behind her, Archer laughed softly, sounding entirely too pleased by this development.
“Och, daenae sound so satisfied.”
“Ye appear to be sufferin’,” he noted.
“I am perseverin’,” River countered.
“Bravely.”
“Very much so.”
She took another step and the hem of her chemise brushed against her legs, the cold water glueing the fabric against her like second skin. She took another step, then another, and by the time the water reached her knees, she was beginning to question every decision she had ever made.
When she turned around to look at him, Archer’s shoulders were shaking. The bastard was laughing at her. In retaliation, River scooped up a handful of water and splashed it in his direction, but the distance was too great for it to reach him.
Her skin stung from the cold, but ever so slowly, she was getting used to the temperature. Perhaps it was a little colder than she had thought, but she was nothing if not determined—and stubborn—and so she refused to get out of the lake without a proper swim first.
If she was going to be in the water, though, so was Archer.
“Come in, then,” she called.
“Nay,” Archer was quick to say.
“Why?” River taunted. “Are ye afraid of a wee cold?”
Archer gave her a long-suffering smile, shaking his head. “Nay, I’m nae afraid.”
"Ye look afraid.”
“I look dry,” he retorted.
River looked at him as she dipped lower and lower into the waters, until all that was visible were her eyes.
She kept staring and staring, and Archer kept staring back, neither of them willing to back down first. It was a battle of wills, and River was willing to come out of the water and drag Archer into the lake herself, but then he sighed and stood, giving her one last, unimpressed look.
Archer hesitated for one more moment before he shrugged out of his coat and laid it across the blanket. Then he bent to pull off his boots, setting them beside it before rolling his stockings down.
There was nothing remarkable about the act itself; men removed boots every day. Yet River found herself watching far too closely, tracking his every movement, the way his fingers moved over the laces, the way his dark hair swept over his forehead.
The problem was that she had spent most of their marriage wondering whether Archer even noticed her existence, and now she possessed entirely too much knowledge about the shape of his hands, the roughness of his voice lat at night, and the way his hair curled slightly at the nape of his neck when the air was damp.
Where there had once been a vague idea of him in her mind, now he was solid, concrete, realer than anything else.
“By the time ye get yer boots off, I’ll have turned into a frog!” River called, just because she couldn’t handle the building tension. “Seems to me like we’re afraid!”
Archer glanced up and their eyes met. He seemed to pay her teasing no mind, though, as he walked into the lake without so much as flinching at the freezing water.
The lake reached just below his knees, darkening the fabric of his undershirt.
The evening sun caught against the water moving around him, turning each ripple bronze for an instant before it faded.
He stopped several feet away, close enough that she could see the droplets clinging to his forearms; close enough that she could see he was trying not to smile.
“Ye wished for company. Well…here I am.”
The breeze swept across the lake, carrying the scent of water and pine, and for the first time that evening River became acutely aware that they were alone—not in the way they were at the castle, where anyone could barge into any room, separated by corridors, servants, obligations, and carefully maintained distance.
Now they were truly alone, with no one near enough to interrupt them.
River had not expected victory to arrive so easily. The moment Archer was close enough, she bent, scooped up a handful of water, and flung it at him. The splash struck him squarely across the face, which was not exactly where she had been aiming, and for a heartbeat, he simply stared at her.
River only grinned as Archer looked up at his soaked hair that now hung over his eyes, then back at her.
“River.”
The warning should have concerned her. Instead, it made a shiver run through her spine.
“What?”
His eyes narrowed as he regarded her. "Ye have made a mistake.”
Before she could retreat, he thrust both hands into the water and sent an entire wave crashing toward her. River shrieked as cold water drenched her from head to shoulder.
“Ye brute!”
Archer's laugh echoed across the lake, startling her so much that she nearly forgot to be offended. The act, though, demanded retaliation, and River splashed at him again, only for him to duck and avoid the worst of it.
“Ye are enjoyin’ this far too much,” she said.
River opened her mouth to answer, but at that exact moment her foot slipped on a smooth stone beneath the water.
The world tilted around her and a startled sound escaped her.
Before she could catch herself, though, Archer’s hand closed around her arm, strong and certain, pulling her forward and flush against his chest. River froze, and for what seemed like an eternity, the two of them stood there, in the middle of the lake, staring into each other’s eyes.
Her fingers traced the lines of his shoulders, his chest. In turn, Archer’s hands held onto her waist, keeping her steady.
The kiss, when it came, was not a surprise, though River couldn’t say who started it.
Archer kissed her deeply, without urgency. There was need behind it, of course; there always was. But now there was something else, too, something deeper, something more fundamental—a desire to be close to each other, a desire for the comfort they could only give to each other.
River shivered, partly from the cold and partly from that kiss, from those hands that were so hot against her skin, a complete contrast to the water around them.
Archer pulled her even closer and began to move closer to the bank, half-swimming and half-walking them both there.
Once there, he helped River out of the water, and she was suddenly too aware of the way her shift clung to her body, soaking wet as the fabric was, leaving nothing to the imagination.
Archer noticed too, of course. His gaze fell on her curves, on the nipples that peaked through the fabric. Then, he was upon her in an instant, pulling her into another kiss, his hands closing around her rear as he pulled her close.