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She rose sputtering, her cheeks darkening, eyes narrowed. Water dripped from her hair, and some of the tendrils snaked from her plait. She looked too damn appealing. Submerging himself fully into the water did nothing to curb the ardor she roused in him.
“You cretin.”
Her feminine outrage growled at him, only inflamed him further. He dived deep, swimming toward her, and pulled her legs from underneath her. She moved like a dream under the water as she twisted, sliding against him to rise to the surface. Her eyes widened, and then a shout of laughter slipped from her. Her laughter was charming, impossible to resist, and he found himself responding. It was also the most enjoyable sound he had heard in a long time. But he had accomplished something. The doubt that had lingered in her eyes, even when she spoke so boldly of taking him, had melted away.
“I am to your left.”
She swam toward him before he finished speaking. Her sense of hearing and perception amazed him.
“I can see from your playfulness you have no intention of indulging in pleasures today.”
He grunted, and she grinned.
“You love the water, being outdoors. Why did you stop swimming?”
She went silent, gazing at him in that piercing way as if she could see him. Her shoulders relaxed, and she swam lazily to him. “I did not stop. My parents stopped me. I think it was from fear of losing me.”
He met her halfway and drew her to his side, drifting with her along the currents. An ache filled his chest as she complied, seamlessly gliding through the water beside him. It meant she trusted him.
A rueful smile curved her lips. “Pray do not believe I did not wallow in self-pity for years. I did. For two years, I hardly left my room, closing myself off from everyone. The horror of what I had lost drowned me for a long time.”
“Then what happened?” he asked quietly, imagining the pain and isolation she must have endured.
She flipped on her back and started to float. “I got irritated with myself. I was a bear to everyone. In the first few months, I yelled, and I threw tantrums. I refused to eat
, bathe, everything was a battle to those people who only wanted me to be happy, as happy as I could be given my circumstances. I emerged from my self-imposed prison, and then I realized how much my wings had been clipped. While I had the freedom to roam the house, which I did so many times that I can walk now unassisted, the fear my mother felt at me moving beyond the garden has grounded me to the estate, away from our lake,” she ended wistfully.
He glanced at her as she lazed on the surface of the water, the sun glistening off her skin. A deep need to please her scythed through his heart, and he pushed away the desire. If he allowed himself to care for her, it would be a disaster. Though he enjoyed himself more than he could recall in his life, he never forgot that he must wed an heiress. His mother had presented him with several candidates before he left Westerham Park.
His intentions today were simply about being in Willow’s presence. He was startled to realize most of his anger had faded away. Knowing how she suffered, made Alasdair felt tormented. He cared. He had only to look at her and his pulse raced. He liked it. He felt something other than loneliness, a fatal sense of duty, and obligation. “Will you tell me how you lost your sight?” he invited, desperately wanted to know.
She was silent for the longest time. “I fell from a horse. The blow to my head detached my retinas. The doctors said nothing can be done.”
Fell from a horse? She was an expert horsewoman. He had even taught her to ride without a side saddle. “How did—”
“No. I told you how. No more.”
She twisted, sliding against him before he could say more, and found his lips with unerring accuracy. It was a fleeting kiss, one filled with more teasing than real passion. She trailed her lips to his jawline.
Her womanly fragrance overwhelmed him, intoxicating his senses. She turned her face into his neck, inhaled his scent, and then pressed a lingering kiss there. He swore. Need rocketed through him from that simple caress. What in damnation was he doing? She was wholly unsuitable to be his bride, yet he was taking liberties. It hardly mattered she was the one doing the touching. He would never really make love to her and then abandon her. It certainly made no sense to linger on the memory of her taste or the lushness of her lips. If only he could burn from his mind what her face looked like suffused with pleasure.
She deserved more. She spoke of only wanting passion, but he instinctively realized it was fear that pushed her to such thoughts. In the past, laughing and frolicking with each other by this very lake, she had confessed to wanting a large family.
“How did your accident happen?”
She stiffened and moved with graceful strokes away from him. He did not allow her to retreat but sliced through the water, deliberately crowding her space, guiding her to lean against a rock near the embankment.
“Willow?” he prompted at her continued silence.
“I was acting foolishly and pushed my horse too fast.”
Her face was a cool mask, but he detected something painful in her tone.
“I am deeply regretful you felt such pain.”
She nodded and offered him a wobbly smile.
“When was this?”
