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“That wasn’t my intent,” she said calmly. “As I told you, I was simply wading for no other reason but the enjoyment of it. However, I do think you incorrect.”
“I…” He couldn’t follow her with her legs so alluringly exposed. “What?”
“What makes you think I can’t provoke you?” She arched an eyebrow and untied the knot that held her skirts up. They fell, shrouding her gorgeous legs to the ankle, and that did not annoy him at all.
“You’re not to go wading in my pond again,” he said.
She shrugged and picked up her shoes and stockings where they lay on the path. “Very well, Your Grace, but it’s a great pity. I should’ve liked to go swimming.”
She pivoted and glided up the path, bewitching bare ankles flashing under her skirts, leaving Maximus to imagine her swimming in his pond, gloriously nude.
All. That. White. Flesh.
For a second his mind seemed to stutter.
When he looked up again, she and the dogs were nearly into the woods again, her bottom swaying enticingly. He actually had to trot to catch up.
He glanced sideways at her when he did and saw her lips pressed firmly together.
“You know how to swim?”
For a moment he thought she wouldn’t deign to answer. Then she sighed. “Yes. Apollo and I were allowed to run mostly wild as children. There was a little pond on a neighboring farmer’s land. We’d sneak over there and after some trial and error, we both learned to swim.”
Maximus frowned. Craven’s report had been very factual—the date of her birth, who her parents were, her relation to Lady Penelope—but he found there was more he’d like to know about Miss Greaves. It was always prudent to learn all one could about one’s enemies.
“You didn’t have a governess?”
She laughed softly, though it sounded sad. “We had three. They’d stay for months or even a year or so, and then Papa would run out of money and have to let them go. Somehow Apollo and I learned to read and write and do simple sums, but not much more than that. I have no French, can’t play any instrument, never learned to draw.”
“Your educational lack doesn’t seem to bother you,” he observed.
She shrugged. “Would it make a difference if I were bothered? I have some other skills not usually seen in ladies: swimming, as I told you, and how to shoot a gun. I can bargain down a butcher to within an inch of his life. I know how to make soap and how to put a bill collector off. I can do mending but not embroidery, can drive a cart but not ride a horse, know how to grow cabbages and carrots and even make them into a nice soup, but I haven’t the least idea how to trellis roses.”
Maximus’s hands tightened into fists at his side at this recitation. No gentleman should let his delicately bred daughter grow to womanhood without the most basic instruction of her station.
“Yet you’re the granddaughter of the Earl of Ashridge.”
“Yes.” Her voice was terse and he knew he’d stumbled on some tender spot.
“You never mention it aloud. Is your relationship a secret?”
“It’s not.” She wrinkled her nose and amended her statement. “At least on my part it isn’t. My grandfather has never acknowledged me. Papa had a falling out with his father when he married Mama, and apparently stubbornness runs in the family.”
Maximus grunted. “You said your grandfather never acknowledged you. Did he acknowledge your brother?”
“In his way.” She strode along, the greyhounds at her side. It struck him that had she a bow at her back and a quiver of arrows, she could’ve posed for a painting of the goddess she’d been named for. “As Apollo was his future heir, apparently Grandfather thought it important he be properly educated. He paid for Apollo’s schooling at Harrow. Apollo says he’s even met Grandfather once or twice.”
He sucked in a breath. “Your grandfather has never even met you?”
She shook her head. “Not to my knowledge.”
He frowned. The idea of abandoning family was anathema to him. He couldn’t conceive of doing it for any reason.
He looked at her closely, a thought striking him. “Did you try contacting him when…?”
“When my mother was dying and Apollo had been arrested and we were quite desperate?” She snorted. “Of course I did. He never replied to the letters I sent. If Mama hadn’t written to her cousin, the Earl of Brightmore, I don’t know what I would’ve done. We were penniless, Papa had been dead less than a year, Mama was on her deathbed, and Thomas called off our engagement. I would’ve been on the street.”
He stopped short. “You were engaged.”
