“Swim then,” he ground out, releasing her and wading away. “But I will be damned if I leave you out here alone, swimming in the nude, in the midst of the night. I will await you on the bank.”
But his maddening wife was still stubborn to the last. “I already told you, I do not need you to act the part of protector.”
“And I already told you that you do. I am your husband, Nellie, and I will be waiting for you on the damned bank.” With that grim pronouncement, he swam away from her.
NELL SWAM UNTILshe could not swim any more.
And then she caught her breath and swam another lap just to defy the lonesome figure of her husband awaiting her on the lake’s bank. She had hoped he would give in, or at least grow tired of standing about while she splashed in the lake. She had certainly hoped to avoid another confrontation with him.
Because she had made some more troubling realizations in the cool water, beneath the light of the big, glowing moon.
Swimming had neither cleared her head nor abated her need for Jack, which had been apparent before his arrival and had become positively undeniable from the moment he had taken her in his arms. Her cunny still pulsed with delirious want now, even as her lungs burned and her arms and legs began to feel as pliant as an aspic.
She was going to have to give in and swim to the shore.
Nude.
And if Jack touched her, she would be helpless to resist.
But the alternative was to drown herself from fatigue, and that was not nearly as pleasant a fate as drowning herself in desire was.
At long last, she made her way to the edge of the lake. She swam as far as she was able, until the water became too shallow, because the squish of the mud between her toes made her shudder. That was something else she had learned—she did not relish the notion of swimming in a dark, mysterious body of water with a host of other creatures nearly as much now as she had as a girl.
Some things did change. But, alas, the way she felt about the Marquess of Needham was not one of them.
She told herself she must act as if Jack were not there, seated on the grass in his dressing robe, looking like a regal sultan in the moonlight as he watched her. His right knee was drawn up, his arm draped over it. Quite as if he had not a care. He was beautiful even in the darkness, moonlight glinting off his wavy, dark hair, his face a study in shadows and secrets and unfair magnetism.
One deep breath for courage. She forced her gaze to the water, to the moonlight playing over her own body as she emerged from the water. Shoulders back, head high, she made herself think of something else. Anything else.
Except, she could only think of him.
Her thoughts were a sad repetition of themselves. Nothing could purge Jack from her mind. From her body. From her heart. From her very soul.
Even now, she could feel his gaze upon her, and when the wind rose, cool at this hour of night and cooler still upon flesh which had just been submerged in the chilly benediction of the lake water, she shivered. But the stiffness of her nipples, the gooseflesh rising, had nothing to do with the post-midnight air and everything to do with the man watching her.
“Birth of Venus,” he said calmly as she waded ashore.
The water clung to her hips now, her breasts already exposed. Soon, all of her would be on display. “What did you say?”
“You put me in mind of a painting I saw when I was traveling in Italy.” His deep, decadent baritone sent a fresh shiver through her. “Birth of Venus, by Botticelli. It depicts Venus arriving on the shores of Cyprus, rising from the water, golden hair blowing in the wind. She is beautiful. A goddess.”
His words ought not to make heat unfurl in her belly. Nor warmth pool between her thighs. But they did.
She steeled herself against his charm, his allure. A few more steps. The water reached her knees. She focused upon the soft squish of the mud, giving beneath her soles.Oozing.Thank heavens her blisters had healed with the use of his ointment. Else, they would be burning now.
“Save your gallantry for the next Lady Needham,” she advised him. “I fear it is wasted upon me.”
“There is only one Lady Needham.”
The certainty in his voice had her gaze flitting to him. His stare was dark and glittering, unreadable. He had not shifted in his pose, and she could not help but to note the manner in which his robe was parted. Her eyes devoured the sight of his bare, muscular thigh before she could help herself.
“But after the divorce, there shall be another,” she said, injecting a lightness into her tone she did not feel.
In truth, the notion of a replacement—another woman becoming Jack’s wife, another woman knowing his tender touches, his blistering kisses—felt rather like a sharp blade being inserted between her rib bones.
“Do I need to demonstrate once more why there will be no other Lady Needham, save you?” he asked calmly.
He was as unpredictable as ever, this man she had wed. Once, it had drawn her to him, the manner in which he was so changeable: at once laughing and charming and teasing, sometimes a savage lover and other times a tender swain, both the man who tended to her blisters and the man who had broken her heart. Now, it seemed his unpredictability would prove her downfall.
