Page 37 of Beguiling the Baron

Chapter 23

Hal’s heart contracted when Tia fell in. His feet flew across the turf, and he tore off his jacket as he raced to the riverbank, almost tripping over the kitten, who seemed to think this was some kind of game.

When he saw his daughter’s anxious face, Hal forced the fear from his own. “Polly, your kitten’s come down to find you. Pick him up, so he doesn’t fall in too. I’ll rescue Miss Wyndham. Don’t worry.”

Casting off his shoes, he slithered down the bank, then used the trunk as a guide to find Tia. By the time he’d waded out where it was deep enough to swim, she’d emerged, spluttering and disorientated. Summoning all his strength, he made a single lunge for her before she could submerge again.

After a brief struggle—and a few unwelcome mouthfuls of water—he set her upright and stabilized his own footing. He pulled her against his body and rubbed frantically at her back to ease her coughing.

“I’m all right, Hal. You can release me now. My feet are touching the bottom.”

Taking her by the shoulders, he held her away from him. Thoroughly soaked, her hair hung in black tendrils down her face, her thin gown plastered to her breasts like a second skin. His hands went up to her cheeks, brushing the hair away, and he rested his forehead for a brief moment against her brow. “Foolish, idiotic girl. Are you trying to drown yourself? It would surprise me greatly to learn you can swim.”

“I’ve seen it done. I know the principle.”

“But what on earth possessed you to crawl along the tree like that?” His hands slid from her shoulders down her arms, needing to reassure himself she was still all there. Her stubborn spirit hadn’t been dampened by her experience.

Unfortunately.

“I was picking a fern. It was perfectly safe—if you hadn’t suddenly bawled at me like that and given me a fright, I wouldn’t have fallen in.”

His fingers tightened. The urge to shake her was powerful, the desire to kiss her even stronger. She glared mulishly back at him until a small voice from the riverbank called, “Miss Wyndham?”

Hal glanced up to see Polly hovering anxiously above them, the struggling kitten in her arms. “It’s all right, my dear,” he called. “I’ll have Miss Wyndham out directly. She’s rather wet but otherwise, I believe, unharmed.”

“Polly, don’t worry. Hal,” Tia added in a softer voice, “you can let go of me now.”

“I certainly will not. Do you think you can flounder out on your own, in a waterlogged dress? You weigh a good deal more now than you did when you went in, and the bank is muddy. I’ll lift you onto the tree so you can work your way back along it.”

Hal kept an arm about her waist as they pushed against the sluggish current, and hefted her up onto the trunk, where he was treated to the sight of her delectable derriere wriggling about as she tried to settle herself safely.

His body reacted swiftly and decisively, catching him completely off-guard. He bit down hard on his lip, willing his painfully throbbing member into abeyance. He could not emerge from the water in his present state.

Tia had shuffled along the trunk until she reached level ground and now stood upright on the bank, trying to squeeze the water from her hair while Polly bustled about behind her, wringing out the bottom of her dress. The water had molded the muslin to Tia’s form so perfectly, nothing was left to the imagination.

He almost groaned aloud. With the white dress detailing every curve and dip of her body, and her arms uplifted to her flowing hair, her pert nipples pressing against the wet cloth, she was every inch the image of her namesake. Galatea, a marble statue of a woman so beautiful, King Pygmalion had fallen in love with it and begged for it to be given life.

His manhood jerked painfully against the constriction of his sodden breeches. “Miss Wyndham,” he called in a strangled voice. “Please cover yourself. Use my jacket—it’s on the ground behind you. Go straight up to the house and change.”

“Why? It’s warm enough for me to dry out here if I wring myself out. Anyway, we’re waiting for you.”

They might have a long wait. He cursed softly and started unbuttoning his waistcoat, steadying his footing against the river’s flow.

“What are you doing, sir?”

“Since I’m already soaked, I thought I might as well have my swim now. I missed it while in London.”

Both members of his audience stared at him as if he were mad, but he removed the garment and tossed it upon the bank, then leaned against the tree for support while he took off his ruined stockings. The shirt would be an encumbrance, but there were too many interested eyes upon him, so he remained inside it.

“I’m going to swim up and down for a bit. Go back to the house, both of you. Miss Wyndham, you really must change out of your wet things. I don’t want you becoming ill.”

Expecting to be obeyed, he reached for the middle of the river with long, powerful strokes, putting all his energy into the act of swimming to force his thoughts away from the act of making love.

Gradually the flowing water cooled and calmed him, both mind and body, as it always did. Here he was free, at peace, all his sins and guilt washed away by the current, along with responsibilities and cares.

When his limbs finally began to tire, he turned about and splashed his way back, heading for his usual bathing place by the willow tree, where the shallow bank was cleaner, and he was unlikely to be observed. But when he thrust out to avoid the dead tree at the site of the earlier near-catastrophe, he discovered the onlookers hadn’t gone back to the house.

Good God! Would Tia never do as she was told?

Was he going to have to teach her a lesson?