She stopped right before the water and ripped at the tapes fastening her gown.
“What are you doing?” he demanded, stepping out of the tree line.
She grinned over her shoulder. “Finding freedom.”
Hell. “Tessa, no.”
“Remmy”—she faced him, dropped her gown, her breasts heaving above her shift and stays—“yes.”
Stockings gone, ribbons fluttering in the wind, bare legs flashing beneath the sun, making him hard, filling him with as much lust as wonder and sheer bloody joy.
She strode into the lake, splashing with each step, and when she was hip deep and cursing and shivering, she dove, swimming out to where she could barely touch. Standing on tiptoe with only her creamy shoulders and head above the water, she bit her bottom lip and began contorting.
She’d gone mad.
He sat on the shore, leaning back into his palms. Might as well enjoy the show.
After a period of wiggling and grunting and one small duck beneath the water, she reappeared with a cry of victory while lifting a sodden, white pile of… something above her head. She tossed it, and it didn’t make it anywhere near the shore, hitting with a splat atop the water where it spread out like ice before sinking.
Her shift. Her stays.
She was entirely naked beneath the water.
Hell.
His cock throbbed.
She raised her face to the sky and shrieked, “Free!” The word a laugh slung at the heavens. She slung it again, and his heart leapt, trying to rise up and meet her joy.
“Join me!” she cried, waving him in.
“Someone will hear you!”
But she couldn’t hear him. She was under water, swimming out farther.
With a groan, he wrestled himself out of his cravat and waistcoat and all the other trappings until not even his smalls remained.
He’d regret this, most likely.
But he couldn’t stop it.
He swam toward her, slicing through the cool water, lifting his head to keep sight of her where she waited beneath the overhanging branches of trees.
When he reached her, he was breathing hard, as much from the beads of water rolling down her temple as from the exercise. He could stand with his shoulders just above the water, though she still treaded lazily beneath the surface. The boughs above cast shadows on her pretty face.
“You were right,” she whispered. “It is freeing. I feel wind-light and sun-clear. Adjectives, both. Meaning… how this makes me feel. How…youmake me feel.”
He felt light, too, his heart a kite. But certain parts of his body were tightening, becoming heavy and unignorable.
A droplet rolled down her cheek. He wanted to lap it up. He wanted to tie her around him so she could never float away.
“You will not feel so free,” he rumbled, “if we are caught, and you are forced to marry me.”
“You would not allow that. Think of what it would do to your rakish reputation.”
“Solidify it.”
“Banish it. You’d find yourself married to a staid spinster.”
