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Now she felt guilty for hiding away in her room and focusing on herself. How incredibly selfish not to think about the woman who had been married to the man for over twenty years. Isabel knew she needed to do better. And she would do that once she got back from her walk. She was going to make sure Lady Dunley was not left alone.
Moving past the frolicking bunnies, Isabel carried on down the hill and reached the river. It twisted and turned through the trees, growing bigger over the years. Isabel was sure it had been far narrower when she was a little girl. She had played in the shallows with her father, giggling as she splashed him until he gave in. They would end up coming home soaking wet, and Lady Dunley would scold both of them. It wasn’t how a viscount and his daughter behaved. Not that Dunley had cared. He had just winked at Isabel with a sly grin.
She really did miss him.
There was a squeak in the air, and Isabel looked at her feet, half-expecting a dormouse sniffing at her skirts. There had to be a nest somewhere here as they seemed to be quite popular around the river. But there was nothing.
Then something in the water caught her eye, and she saw the source of the squeaking. It was a dormouse, and it was in the water. She could see it paddling desperately, but it was struggling. The poor thing must have fallen in.
She couldn’t bear to see it drown.
Shrugging out of her coat, Isabel took off her hat and stepped into the shallows of the river. She could use her hat as a basket if she leaned over far enough, although it did mean getting her skirt wet. It was worth it if she could rescue a tiny animal.
With the water lapping around her ankles, Isabel bent over and reached out. The current was barely there, which meant the dormouse was moving slowly. It was still struggling, shaking its head abruptly each time it ducked under the water. If she wasn’t quick enough, the defenceless creature was going to end up at the bottom of the river.
She couldn’t quite reach him. She would have to get closer, but there was a sudden drop just before her. It would take Isabel into deeper water, and then she would be the one who needed rescuing. While she could swim, she hadn’t tried with so many clothes on before.
Not since she was nine years old, anyway. And that hadn’t been fun.
Isabel shuffled a little closer, leaning over more to stretch as far as she could. She could almost get the mouse. Just a little further.
Suddenly, her foot was going down further than she expected, and Isabel found herself falling face-first towards the water. She screamed, which was abruptly cut off when an arm wrapped around her waist and hauled her away, slamming her into a strong, firm body. A male body. Isabel’s heart missed a beat. Oh, my. She had never been this close to a man’s body. And she could feel how solid the person behind her was.
“Come on, miss. Let’s get you back to shore.”
That voice. She recognized that voice. There was a slight lilt to it that wasn’t familiar, but Isabel was sure she knew who was holding onto her. She allowed him to take her to the shore and sit her down. Then he took her head in his hands and lifted her face towards him.
“You’re not hurt, are you?”
“No, I …”
Isabel focused on him. He seemed to tower over her, his hair as black as a raven and very unruly. It looked like he had never tamed it in his life. Dark eyes with a greenish tint searched her face, seeming to be searching for something as he frowned. There was a scar just under his lip, a thin white line that stood out against his tanned skin.
She remembered how he had got that scar. She had let go of a branch and hadn’t realized someone was behind her, which resulted in the branch smacking him in the face. Isabel had been in tears over it, but he simply shrugged and didn’t get upset about it.
Oh, God. It was really him?
“Richard?”
Richard blinked. Then his eyes widened.
“Oh, God. Isabel?”
How had he not realized who she was? Then again, she had been a girl when he left. Four years was a lot of time. And Richard was here. Alive. Tanned.
And better-looking than Isabel remembered.
The trickling water from the river had Isabel remembering what she had been doing. She gasped and sat up.
“The dormouse. It’s going to drown!”
“That’s why you were about to belly flop into the water?”
“Please, Richard, just rescue it!”
Richard arched an eyebrow, but he shrugged out of his jacket.
“One moment.”
