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A perfect swim lifted Cordelia’s spirits. She still needed a plan to keep Viola from the castle, but she would think of something. Henry’s move meant that she and her sisters could take over the dining room and begin their work on the costumes, but sewing would not be enough to keep Viola occupied.

Cordelia was nearly to the top of the path when she smacked into Graymont. At a place where the steep path wound sharply to the right, she turned up as he came down. The collision unbalanced her. Her hands flew up. She staggered back. He caught her by the waist of Henry’s old skeleton suit and halted her fall, pulling her into his arms and pinning her against his solid warmth. Her heart raced, her body shaking with the abrupt halt of her momentum.

“Steady,” he said.

The deep voice vibrated in his chest against her ear. Her breath huffed against his shoulder. Her wet bathing costume clung like a second skin. She felt his touch through the cloth from her chest to her knees. The contact confirmed what her other senses had only intuited—the strength of his person.

When she could master her breath, she said, “We had an agreement.”

“You’re late,” he said. He did not relax his hold on her.

She made sure her footing was secure on the path, then lifted her head. For a disorienting moment, her gaze caught on the column of his throat against the white shirt, the edge of his jaw with a hint of roughness, his mouth, which she had not noticed before, with its full lower lip. He could not be much older than she.

“Got your feet under you?” he asked.

“Yes, thank you.”

He let her go and stepped back. The thin shirt he wore had turned translucent and clung to him, revealing the muscled symmetry of his chest.

“You really should remove those buttons,” he said, indicating the buttons on Henry’s old garment.

“You are not playing fair,” she said. “Offering my brother a room in the castle is a low move.”

“I’m playing to win.”

“Must you always win? Surely it won’t hurt you to let us have our ball.”

“You forget my prize.”

That stopped her. There was nothing in his expression to indicate what he had in mind. Really there was nothing more he could take from them. She steeled herself. She doubted that he would throw them out of the lodge. “Which you haven’t named.”

“Ah,” he said. “You may not like my methods, but you like a challenge. How will you keep the ever-curious Viola from going to the castle to see her brother in his new office?”

“Which should be his by rights!”

“Which was going to belong to someone else in any case because of your father’s debts.” He spoke, gently almost, but the thought of being in his debt rankled.

“Should I be grateful it belongs to a man who promises to tear it down?”

“Yes.” The grim set of his mouth surprised her. “In the East, you know, they believe in a destroyer god, who sweeps away old structures to make room for the new.”

The sheer lawn shirt clinging to his body bothered her. She needed to find somewhere to look that was not him. She needed to end the conversation. She looked round for the old coverlet she’d dropped when they’d bumped into each other and scooped it up from the path.

“Your attachment to the castle puzzles me,” he said. “As a girl you must have imagined leaving home. It’s a woman’s lot in life. What stopped you from marrying some titled fellow and ceasing to be Miss Staveley? By rights you should be Mrs. Tudor Manor or Lady Palladian Country House by now.”

Cordelia looked away. She had once imagined she would marry, but the husband of her imagination had been vague at best.

Graymont was watching her closely. “Ah,” he said, “You stepped into your mother’s shoes and took over her house without having to accept some man as your … lord.”

“Don’t be absurd,” she said. He had grasped something she, herself, had not put into words. “I am attached to the castle as anyone would be to the place of her childhood. We were happy as a family here. And because I did not marry—”

“Because you have not married yet,” he corrected. “The only cap you’ve taken to wearing is that knit one you swim in. You can’t tell me you are past all hope.”

She pulled the coverlet around her and drew herself up. “Whether I am or not is no concern of yours. My sisters, however, are not, in spite of our mother’s death and our father’s disgrace, and I will see that they dance at our ball this summer. Now you must excuse me, for I’ve things to do. The sea is yours.”

Chapter Ten

Cordelia passed through the lodge kitchen, where Cook was already at work on the day’s meals. Hector lifted his shaggy head, wagged his tail, and came to be petted, then returned to his position, watching Cook. In the dark scullery that was her changing room, Cordelia shed her swimming costume, put on her wrapper, and hung her wet things to dry over a bucket. Now that Graymont had pointed out the inconvenience of those buttons, she itched to change them, but removing them would mean admitting he was right. She would not do it. She had been getting on perfectly well with her own arrangements and no interference from him, and she would continue. She made her way upstairs.