The scoundrels weren’t getting his message. Or they found it amusing to confound his efforts to turn his life around. Although the Horsemen weren’t on his sister’s guest list, they must have found out about her party and come to make trouble.
“I say, is that the Hadleighs?” Edgecombe came over, bowing to Arabella. “What a coincidence.”
Like hell it was.
“What are you doing here?” Ben’s words were filtered through his teeth.
“We were just in the n-neighborhood.” Thorne kissed Arabella’s hand, and she giggled.
“The better question is, what are you doing in the water, old boy?” Bollinger eyed the creek with a shudder. “It looks positively frigid.”
“Cold water is good for the constitution,” Ben said curtly.
“But you’ve left your pretty wife high and dry.” Edgecombe winked at Arabella. “And that is a crime.”
“Indeed, sirs, this day has been a dreadful bore,” she said with a pout.
“We are headed to town, my lady, to see a travelling troupe perform.” Bollinger made a leg. “Perhaps you would care to join?”
“I forbid you to go,” Ben told her in a low voice.
Shooting him a triumphant look, Arabella declared to the group, “That sounds like the perfect antidote to rustication.”
Edgecombe gave her his arm, and she headed off with the group. Ben could not chase after her without looking like a fool. As the party disappeared from sight, he punched the water in frustration. Bloody hell, why could nothing go right? Why couldn’t he control the simplest damn thing?
He felt as powerless to stop the wreckage of his life as he had been to save Griggs’s daughter. Disaster was approaching like an oncoming train. No matter how he tried to stave it off, he was destined to fail. To feel again her fingers letting go of his, to hear the whoosh of air as she’d fallen, dark triumph glittering in her eyes…
“Hadleigh?” a girlish voice called.
Devil take it.He’d forgotten about Livy.
He made his way back to her, the water swirling in agitated waves around him. She was still standing on the rock, and she looked down at him with child-like curiosity.
“Why did Her Grace leave? Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine,” he said curtly. “We should return to the house.”
“No…I want to swim.”
“You don’t have to.” He dragged a wet hand through his hair. He knew it wasn’t fair of him to be impatient with her, a mere girl, but his mood was ruined. “You’re scared, and it’s not my place to push you—”
Before he could finish, she took a running start off the boulder, landing with a loud splash several yards away in the deepest part of the swimming hole. Panic thudded in his chest when she did not surface, and he rushed toward the frothing spot where she’d hit the water…
Her head popped up, hair plastered over her eyes.
“Hadleigh,” she gasped.
“Right here, I’ve got you.” He caught her against his chest, where his heart was still hammering. With his other hand, he brushed the wet hair from her eyes. “Bloody hell, you could have given me some warning.”
She grinned at him. “I knew you would be there to catch me...ifI needed it.”
The knot in his chest loosened a little, and he couldn’t help but smile.
“Are you saying you don’t need my help?” he asked.
When she nodded, he let her go. She began treading water like she’d been born doing it.
“I just remembered,” she said with an infectious smile, “that I am anexcellentswimmer.”
