“You endangered yourself without a second thought,” he interrupted, his emerald eyes stared intensely at her, sparkling with something Eliza could not place. “You could have drowned. You could have died trying to save them.”
“The boys were in danger.”
“You don’t know how to swim that well. I could see it. You were struggling.”
“I had to try.”
He stared at her for a long moment. Then, quietly, he whispered, “Thank you.”
Eliza blinked. “Your Grace?” She asked, sensing there was something still unsaid, and so desperately wanting to hear it.
“For running to save them. For defending Miss Winslow. For being brave. Andfair.” He paused, then took a step closer to her. “You could have stayed inside. Waited for someone else to help. But you didn’t.”
“Anyone would have done the same.”
“No,” the Duke said, closing the distance between them. “They wouldn’t have.”
Eliza felt her cheeks warm. She was suddenly, acutely aware of how close they were standing, only inches away now. Her eyes were drawn to the way his wet shirt clung to his chest, outlining the muscles beneath. Of the intensity in his gaze.
She looked away quickly, her pulse racing.
“We should get back to the house,” the Duke said, his voice slightly rough. “Before we catch a chill.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“You go ahead. I’ll follow in a moment.”
Eliza understood. If they walked back together, the servants would talk. She curtsied and hurried toward the house, her wet dress heavy and cold against her skin.
She didn’t look back. She wouldn’t.
Yet something in the marrow of her cold bones told her he was still watching her. She could feel it as surely as if a hand rested between her shoulders, or on the curve of her hip. The heat of his gaze followed her the entire way across the grounds.
Even as she approached the entrance, the memory flashed through her mind again. His hand closing around her wrist, the strength of it. The closeness between them. The deepness of his voice when he spoke her name. Even now, after she had pulled away, the ghost of that touch lingered hot on her skin. Her heart stumbled in her chest.
It is ridiculous,she chastised herself.It is nothing more than adrenaline. Anyone would feel unsettled after such a moment, the shock of the cold water, the fear, the rush of being pulled to safety.
Yet, she closed her eyes and could still picture him standing there behind her when she turned away. Tall and commanding, the lines of his shoulders stark against the shore. There had been something in his expression she had not dared linger on, something intense enough to send warmth through her even now.
A duke.
The thought alone should have been enough to steady her. Instead, it made her pulse race all over again. Eliza tightened her grip on the folds of her soaked skirt and walked faster. The servants’ entrance door would be just around the corner now, and once she was inside, she could change, compose herself, and pretend none of it had happened.
But no matter how quickly she walked, she could not quite shake the feeling of his eyes on her, or the unsettling realization that,after the rush of fear and cold and pounding blood in her ears, what remained was something far more dangerous.
Attraction.
Chapter Eight
“It’s beautiful,” Eliza said one afternoon, accepting a particularly abstract piece from Philip. “Is this me?”
After the incident on the beach, Arthur and Philip became Eliza’s shadows. They brought her drawings, like sketches of baskets of fruit, flowers, or what might have been a horse—or a very large dog.
“Yes! See, that’s your dress, and that’s your hair!”
“Of course,” Eliza said as she smiled, tucking the drawing carefully into her apron pocket. “I’ll treasure it always.”
They brought her gifts, too. A smooth stone from the beach. An acorn from a nearby tree. A button they’d found in their room that they insisted looked like a tiny shield.
