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He remembered her been a strong swimmer when they were young and wild. Even in full dress, she held herself afloat.
“I… what are you doing here?” he asked, shaking his head and taking a cautious step toward her. She did not move away from him, her hair coming loose from its chignon and drifting around her in the clear water.
“I was just out for a ride to clear my head,” she said. “I am so very sorry I startled you.”
“Not so much startled as woken up,” he chuckled. “I suppose I’m wondering more why you were so close to me?”
“Well, I…” She paused, her expression clouding for a moment. “I thought you were dead. It was somewhat of an ordeal.”
He reached for her, taking her hand, and she managed to get her bearings as she found her footing on a rock far below the surface. She did not let go of him, though, and even in the warm water, her touch seemed to burn.
“Bridget, I am so very sorry,” he said. “With what happened at the lake, that must have been horrific.”
Her cheeks flushed the lovely shade of pink that so complimented her red lips, and he fought the urge to lean forward and kiss her.
“And yet, you are all right,” she said. “My nerves are merely a touch sensitive at present; I should not have reacted as I did.”
“One does not often see a man passed out by a lake,” Graham said. “And in such circumstances, it is often wise to assume the worst.”
She laughed. “I supposed you’re right.”
They stood in the water and stared at each other. Graham knew they shouldreallyget out; with Bridget in such a state of grief, and with him getting as little sleep as he was, it was very likely that one of them might catch a cold. But he could not seem to tear himself away from her, not when it seemed that this was a moment stolen out of time.
She drew ever closer, an inch at a time. Graham did not know if it was the subtle movements of the water, or if she willed it to be so.
“I did not know the lake would be so deep,” he blurted out.
Bridget shook her head with a laugh. “You have been swimming here before, though!”
“I know,” he said, giving her a sheepish smile. “Perhaps it is just that I was smaller when I swam here in the past—and maybe I was a better swimmer then.”
“You don’t swim anymore?”
“Not many places to go swimming in London,” he said. “Certainly not in the Thames.”
“Of course not,” she said.
He moved a breath closer to her, still gripping her hand. She was treading water, and he longed to ease that burden, to take her in his arms and hold her close.
He almost had an excuse to do so.
“You can hold onto me,” he said quietly. “I won’t let you slip beneath the surface.”
She gave him a curious look, then, as if he had said something quite horrible, or as if she knew some secret she kept buried deep within. But she reached out her other hand for his, their fingers weaving together. Graham could see their interlocked hands beneath the clear, rippling water, tinged green and shining like the scales of a mermaid.
“Do you remember swimming here when we were young?” she breathed. Her voice was practically a whisper; he could only hear her because they were so close, her mesmerizing eyes gazing into his. “We would run away from our mothers and chase each other over the hills on our ponies.”
“And Mary would always win,” he smiled.
Bridget’s lips curved in a sly smirk. “Because you let her.”
“Or maybe because I preferred to lag behind and talk with you of poetry,” he said. “You were always so bright.”
She licked her lips. He wanted to pull her to him, to capture her tongue between his teeth, to trail his hands down her back and find the delicate buttons of her riding habit. He wanted to undress her, there and then.
He was mad, surely.
“I think the last time I swam here was the day before you left,” she said. “Our picnic was just the three of us. I felt quite scandalous when Mary said we should strip down to our petticoats and swim.”
