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He watched, transfixed, as she turned about and swam toward him. Her shift drifted behind her like a bride’s veil, each kick of her legs sure and strong, her arms cutting through the water. She stopped in front of him, grinning.
“Goodness,” she said as she found her feet on the sandy bottom and sloughed water from her face, “so much for being prepared. But we’ll quickly grow used to the chill, as long as we keep moving.”
He set his jaw and nodded, trying his damnedest not to look at her breasts just beneath the surface. Thank God she was small in stature. As it was, the water played about her shoulders, lapped at her neck.As he wished to do. With his tongue. The thought careened through his mind, making his mouth water. He swallowed hard and forced himself to focus on her words.
“This area is quite even,” she was saying, “and is the perfect location for the particular exercises we’ll be performing today. The water will give you a buoyancy that you don’t possess on land, so you might work the muscles of your leg without the resistance of gravity.”
“I see,” he said. Though he really didn’t.
She smiled wryly at him. “You are a horrible liar. But you’re showing an impressive trust in my judgment, and so I shan’t hold it against you.”
A laugh rose up in him, wholly unexpected. And with it the band of tension across his chest eased.
The exercises started off slowly. It was unnerving, taking those first steps without his cane, feeling the sand shift beneath his bare feet. But he quickly came to the conclusion that she had been right, that without the added weight of his body his leg was able to move more freely and with little pain.
And he also learned that the more he focused on his movements, the less he focused on her. Which was a necessity just then. He had pointedly refused any offer of physical help from her in getting started—if he would not allow Wilkins to massage his leg, he sure as hell wasn’t going to allow this tempting woman to offer herself as some kind of living crutch. But that did not lessen the impact of her soft voice in his ear, or the faint drifting of her shift against him. Or, even worse, the occasional brush of her full breasts against his arm.
Thank God the water was cold.
At the end of nearly half an hour she peered up at the sky, shielding her eyes with her hand. Daniel swallowed hard as, for one dazzling moment, he saw the wet flannel of her shift outline her breasts in glorious detail.
“We’d best leave soon, or that sun will make our skin as red as tomatoes. But first,” she said, with a wicked grin his way. In the next moment she’d disappeared beneath the surface.
He watched, transfixed, as she swam the length of the tide pool, pushing through the water just beneath the surface. Her hair, which had come loose from the thick plait she’d secured it in, flowed behind her. She looked like some water sprite. And, God help him, he had the insane urge to follow wherever she might lead.
She finally resurfaced, grinning, at the far end of the pool. “Goodness, but that felt glorious,” she called to him. “Do you know how to swim, Your Grace?”
“Of course,” he scoffed. In truth he wasn’t certain, not even a bit; he hadn’t swum since he was a child and had no idea if he was capable of it any longer. But after an afternoon of putting the focus on how broken he was, he suddenly wanted nothing more than to have this amazing woman see him as whole.
“Well, then?” she prompted.
In answer he set his jaw and, calling on knowledge he had ignored for the better part of two decades, he started off toward her. And was almost overcome with emotion.
His legs moved easily, his injury no hindrance to his ability to propel himself forward. It was as if there was no injury, nothing holding him back. He felt strong, truly strong, for the first time in years.
A smile stretched his cheeks, overwhelming happiness flooding him. He did not realize he was crying, however, until he reached Mrs. Kitteridge. Her grin slipped away, and she reached out with chill fingers to wipe the moisture from his cheek.
“I am so sorry, I shouldn’t have pushed you. Does your leg pain you?”
“You misunderstand me,” he managed, his voice gruff. “It is exhilarating.”
The smile she gifted him was breathtaking to behold. So much so that he reacted without thinking, snaking an arm about her waist, hauling her against his chest, his mouth finding hers.
She went rigid in his arms. Ah, God, what the hell was he doing? He released her, retreating, letting the cold water swirl in that aching space between them, though he knew there was nothing on this earth that would cool his ardor. “I’m so very sorry,” he mumbled, gripping the rocky edge of the pool, the words coming in a rush of mortification. “That was unforgiveable of me—”
She reached out and gripped his shoulders, stalling the awkward apology in his throat. And then she drifted against him. He stared, uncomprehending, as the shock in her face was replaced with a nervous kind of determination. And then she did the last thing he ever thought she would do: she wound her arms about his neck and pressed her lips to his.
***
Kissing the duke was one of the boldest things Margery had ever done in her life. And for one horrified moment she feared she had mis-stepped. Yes, the man had kissed her. But he had only been caught up in the moment. He was on the lookout for a bride, not an affair.
But then he groaned, and his free arm came about her, hauling her tight to his chest. And all her doubts and fears melted away under the fire from his kiss.
Ah, God, how good this felt. To be held, to be kissed, when for so many lonely years she had thought to never experience this again. Her breasts, unhampered by either corset or layers of clothing, pressed against the broad width of his chest. The water swirled and eddied about them, adding another layer to the exquisite pleasure of it all.
But though he gripped at her wet shift, pressing desperate fingers into her lower back, his kiss was surprisingly chaste. Wanting to deepen the kiss more than she wanted air to breathe, she tilted her head, opening her mouth, and pressed her tongue to the seam of his lips.
He shuddered under her hands, his lips opening in a gasp. She took full advantage of it, thrusting her tongue into the hot recesses of his mouth, touching it to his own.
