Chapter 9
Gideon whirled as he heard the cry and was just in time to see Catherine fall from the hillock that overlooked the lake, hitting the water with a splash.
He responded instinctively, leaping from the rock, snapping his body straight in the air, and arrowing into the water.
He surged toward the spot where Catherine had fallen, knowing that her dress and underclothes would quickly become waterlogged and drag her down.
Even if the impact from a dozen feet didn’t knock her unconscious, those sodden layers could drown her in seconds.
Through the murky water and waving tendrils of vegetation, he spotted the pale shape of his wife. She was struggling, which was good. Provided she didn’t inhale.
He reached her in a dozen strokes, kicking hard. He slipped one hand beneath her chin and an arm about her waist, driving upward with his legs.
She bit him.
Gideon cried out in surprise, and lake water surged into his mouth, triggering a coughing fit. He broke the surface in an explosion of spray, Catherine still clutched about the waist, fighting tooth and nail to free herself.
“Will you desist, woman!” he roared. “Do you not know a rescue when you see one?”
Her struggles eased. She coughed and spluttered, letting her arms rest on his shoulders. Then she looked down, and her eyes went wide.
“You’re naked!”
“I am. I find clothes hinder swimming. Clearly, you disagree.”
“Release me!”
“I cannot until we reach the shallows. Your clothes will drag you under.”
“But—but you’re unclothed!”
“Yes, damn it! I noticed. Now hold still!”
Gideon began stroking for shore. There was a sheltered, sandy beach beneath the hillock, shielded from view by tall ferns and the hill itself.
His body remained pressed against hers as he swam, and he tried to think only of reaching shallow water.
But he couldn’t ignore the feel of her. Her softness.
Her curves pressing against him with each stroke.
It stirred an immediate, undeniable response.
He gritted his teeth and swam faster.
When his feet finally kicked into shingle, he released her. She staggered upright and stumbled onto the beach, collapsing onto the stones. Gideon stayed in the water, using it to conceal himself. She looked back at him, wiping wet hair from her face, still coughing.
“Thank you,” she rasped. “I’m glad you overcame your fear of water.”
His hand stilled mid-stroke through his hair. “As am I, or I would have had to stand by and watch you drown.”
He ducked beneath the surface, coming up with a spray of droplets that caught the sunlight. The words echoed in his mind. Aaron’s fear of water. His brother had never learned to swim, too terrified after their father had hurled him into this very lake as punishment for some forgotten transgression.
Christ. A slip.
A small one, perhaps. Aaron might have overcome his fear in adulthood. It was plausible.
But still. He ought to be more careful now.
Catherine sat shivering on the shingle, her arms wrapped around her knees. The wet fabric of her dress clung to every curve, leaving almost nothing to imagination. Gideon forced his gaze upward, to her face.
“The water’s warmer than the air,” he said, keeping his voice even. “Take off those wet things. They’ll dry quickly in this sun.”
She stared at him, lips parted. “I have nothing else to wear.”
“Neither do I.” He gestured at the water barely concealing him. “The lake cares very little of propriety.”
Her gaze dropped, tracing what she could see of him through the rippling shallows. A foot of water separated his body from the open air, but it was clear near shore. Only the constant movement of wavelets provided any real concealment.
Heat crawled up his neck. Not embarrassment—he’d long ago lost any shame about his body—but something far more dangerous. Awareness. The water wasn’t nearly cold enough to disguise his body’s response to having her near.
A small voice whispered that he was taking unnecessary risks, flying too close to the wind. But he silenced it. Unlike his timid, fearful brother, Gideon had a rebellious streak a mile wide. One that cared more for the pleasure of the moment than for consequences.
It was the rogue in him that loved drinking and gambling. Indulging. It stemmed from years of having little with which to indulge.
“Turn your back,” Catherine said at last, her teeth chattering audibly.
“No.”
Her eyes flashed with indignation. “Aaron!”
“No,” he said again, holding her gaze. “We are husband and wife.”
“In name only.” Her voice was sharp. “Your insistence, as I recall.”
The barb landed squarely. He sighed, turning onto his back and closing his eyes against the sun’s glare. “Fine. You have your damned privacy.”
Beneath the muffling effects of the water, he caught the rustle of fabric being peeled away. Then, the quick patter of bare feet across shingle. Then a splashing entry into the lake.
He opened his eyes a heartbeat too soon.
The image seared itself into his brain: pale, flawless skin, the elegant curve of her spine, the perfect swell of her derrière as she arced into the water. Then she was gone, engulfed by the lake.
Gideon sat up sharply, the water his loincloth. It dripped from his torso, running in rivulets down the contours of his body. When she surfaced twenty feet away, gasping, her hair slicked back from her face, their eyes met and held.
For a long, charged moment, neither of them moved.
She was exquisite. Even from this distance, even with most of her hidden beneath the water, he could see it. The graceful line of her neck. The delicate architecture of her collarbones. The way droplets caught the goosepimples on her bare shoulders.
His chest tightened with an emotion he couldn’t—wouldn’t—name.
With a wicked grin, he pushed his hands against the shallow lake bottom and drew himself up whole. Catherine squeaked and clapped her hand over her eyes. When he harpooned back into the depths, she ducked beneath the surface and kicked away, quick as a startled fish.
A grin tugged at his mouth. Without thinking, he dove after her.
The underwater world enveloped them in cool silence. Bars of sunlight cut through the murk, illuminating her pale form as she arrowed toward the rock. She was fast, her movements efficient and graceful. Just as his fingers brushed her ankle—
She twisted away with a powerful kick, surfacing near the rock’s base with a gasp.
By the time he came up for air, she’d hauled herself onto a low ledge behind a young willow, only her head and shoulders visible above the foliage.
“You are quite swift in the water,” he called, treading lazily. “Color me impressed.”
“I had excellent motivation.” Her chin lifted. “Given that you are the sort of man who ducks underwater to catch glimpses of a woman’s nakedness.”
“Can you blame me?” He began to circle, languidly. “You are my wife, after all.”
“A wife is still entitled to choose when and how she reveals herself.”
“Legally speaking, I disagree,” he drawled.
“And morally speaking?” She shifted position as he moved, keeping the willow firmly between them. “The contract you insisted I sign explicitly forbids marital relations. I intend to honor it.”
He circled closer, drinking in the teasing glimpses the willow’s branches allowed.
An alabaster shoulder, pale and perfect.
The upper swell of a breast. The elegant column of her spine.
Her feet were visible in the clear shallow water around the rock’s base—small, neat, surprisingly erotic.
Occasionally, his manhood throbbed as a thigh was glimpsed.
She is lovely. Damn you, Aaron, that she came from you. If she had not known you, then I would not need to care about what I say. Lord, but I want to just say dash it all!
“I am a duke,” he replied, injecting lightness into his voice. “Contracts are malleable to my whim. It is simply a matter of finding a… sufficiently talented solicitor.”
“Or,” she countered, “you could honor your word like a gentleman.”
The words struck home harder than she could possibly know.
Honor. The one thing Gideon Tarnley had left after everything else had been stripped away. His birthright, his name, his childhood—all gone. But honor? That remained. That was his.
Honor can go hang too!
He knew the feeling to be dangerous. It had to be ruthlessly throttled.
Throwing caution to the wind for the sake of a dalliance with a beautiful woman would cause bitter regret sooner than later.
He dipped his face into the water to hide his chagrin.
When he resurfaced, Catherine was diving for the lake.
He received a maddeningly fleeting glimpse of a sleek body, pert breasts, and pale, feminine skin—before the water swallowed her whole.
He ducked under, but she was too nimble, darting around him.
“I thought dukes were supposed to be dignified!” she called from over his shoulder.
“Impossible when you look like that.” If she caught any word of that, she didn’t let up.
He whirled to face her again, but she squealed and dove.
He followed, eyes open despite the sting.
The underwater world was dim and distorted, but he could make out her seraphic silhouette.
She twisted like an eel, darting left when he expected right.
His fingers brushed her calf. Close enough to see goosebumps rising on her wet skin despite the warm water.
They both surfaced, gasping.
“You’re relentless,” she accused breathlessly, treading water, while hiding her femininity with her other hand.
“Darling, you have no idea.”
Her chestnut hair was slicked back, droplets clinging to her lashes. She laughed, and it transformed her face, made her look younger. Happier.
He reached her in a single, graceful stroke. “Caught you,” he murmured.
“Only because I let you.”
“Liar.”
Her breath hitched. He drew her closer, slowly, his hand slid down from her elbow to the back of her knee. She could have pulled away. Kicked free. Instead, she let him reel her in until only inches of water separated them.
The laughter had faded from her face, replaced by something that made his pulse thunder in his ears.
“Now what?” she whispered.
His hand glided higher, tracing the curve of her thigh beneath the water. Her skin was impossibly soft, impossibly warm. “Tell me to stop…”
Instead, her legs wrapped around his waist, pulling herself against him with a boldness that stole his breath.
Arms slid over his shoulders, her fingers finding purchase on wet skin.
The press of her body against his was overwhelming—soft breasts flattening against his chest, her nipples hard points he could feel even through the water.
She had to feel the rigid evidence of his desire pressing against her thigh.
A small sound escaped her throat.
His hands found her waist, spanning it easily, then slid lower to cup the curve of her bottom. He pulled her tighter, eliminating even the whisper of space between them. Water lapped languorously at their shoulders as they floated, suspended in sunlight and shadow.
“Catherine...” Her name was gravel and need.
She gazed at him, her eyes dark and dilated, gold flecks catching the light. This close, he could see everything—the flush creeping across her cheeks, the rapid flutter of her pulse in her throat, the way her lips had parted on shallow breaths.
One hand left her hip to slide up the elegant curve of her spine. She shivered, arching back, and the movement pressed her more intimately against his manhood. His fingers traced each vertebra, mapped the delicate wings of her shoulder blades, tangled in the wet silk of her hair at her nape.
Her head tilted back, exposing the long line of her throat. An invitation.
He shouldn’t. Oh, he absolutely shouldn’t.
His mouth found the hollow beneath her ear instead, just a brush of lips against fever-hot skin. She gasped, her nails digging into his shoulders hard enough to sting. The small pain only heightened his lust.
“Aaron,” she breathed, and the name—wrong name, his brother’s name—should have stopped him cold.
It didn’t.
His lips traced down her throat, tasting lake water and orange-blossom, a fragrance uniquely hers.
Her legs tightened around him, hips shifting in a way that made stars burst behind his eyes.
One of her hands slid from his shoulder to his chest, fingers splaying wide, feeling the hammering of his heart.
Then lower.
Her palm flattened against his ridged stomach, and he sucked in a sharp breath. She stilled, looking at him with wonder and uncertainty and unmistakable desire. Her hand trembled against his skin.
“Touch me—” he began roughly, then caught himself.
For a long moment, she simply stared at him. Then her hand drifted lower, achingly slow, until her fingers brushed the edge of where he needed her most—
“There you are!” Jeremy’s voice shattered across the water like a gunshot.
Gideon and Catherine were bobbing in the water, looking at each other. Neither speaking. Now they whirled, searching for the sound of the voice. Gideon groaned inwardly.
“Oh my!” squeaked the woman at Jeremy’s side.
“Sorry, old chap! My mistake! We’ll catch up later!” His friend called, turning his back.
“Dash it all!” Gideon growled.
Catherine had sunk until only her head was visible. Her face was scarlet and her eyes wide. Without a word or a backward glance, she swam for the shore and her clothes.