He wanted to lick the rainwater from the hollow between her collarbones.
“You know, you looked just like that,” he said softly, taking her in from her water-logged slippers to the dripping curls of her tangled hair, “after I pushed you in the ocean.”
She narrowed her eyes, her smile twisting into a smirk. “Did I?”
He nodded slowly. “It was an awakening for me, in fact.”
Her brows rose, spiky and flat against her pale face. “Oh, for me as well,” she told him. “It awakened my ability to swim.”
He felt himself grinning, flashing his teeth at her, sharp and hungry. “And can you still swim, little Harriet?”
“I suppose,” she said, drawing her bottom lip between her teeth. “If someone tries to drown me.”
He mirrored her glare, his own eyes narrowing as he took another step toward her. “Intriguing…”
“Ah, Miss French,” came Julian Harcourt’s twice-blasted voice, startling the poor pig again so badly that she twisted nearly free of Elias’s embrace. “Oh! Thereisa pig!”
Elias cringed, managing to bend at the waist quickly enough to let her wriggle free, her hooves clattering on the tile as she fled back to the shadows.
“Well,” Hattie observed, “she’s had quite enough of you.”
He tossed her another glare over his shoulder as he straightened.
Mr. Harcourt was standing politely, hands folded in front of him, averting his eyes from the sodden and very visible body of Harriet French.
“Ruby!” Elias boomed, spinning on his heel and poking his head out into the hall. “Where the devil are those towels?”
“Yes, yes, I’m coming!” she cried back, her footsteps echoing as she hurried in their direction. “Goodness. You think you’re giving a pair some privacy!”
“Is that Mr. Harcourt?” came Monica’s voice, her pale-blonde head appearing down the hall. “Send him down, will you? I’ve a jacket for him.”
“Oh, God,” muttered Harcourt, flushing.
Elias felt oddly smug about that, for some reason. “The barrister wishes to know if we want to be married the day before or the day after the funer… the showcase,” he said briskly, turning his eyes back to Hattie. “What do you prefer, my dear?”
She gave him a lazy smile, her gaze lingering on his mouth. “Surely, you prefer to wait as long as possible, Lord Selwyn. Isn’t that what you’re always saying?”
“I’ve never said that,” he returned, a note of warning in his tone at her wandering attentions.
“He enjoys delays,” she said to Harcourt, who was still pointedly not looking at her. “The day after, I think.”
“The day before it is,” Elias snapped. “Before, Harcourt. You hear me?”
The barrister only sighed.
“Mr. Harcourt, if you please!” Monica called again from the hall, which, to Elias’s surprise, had the immediate effect of making the man turn and slink off where he was bid.
“Before!” Elias called again, making Hattie giggle from her place at the door as she clutched a towel to her body, running it down her throat.
He spun to glower at her. “You! Go dry off before someone sees you like that.”
“Perhaps I’ll wear my new dressing gown,” she cooed, floating past him as she went into the embrace of the house, leaving behind wet footprints in her wake.
He watched her go, his eyes fixed on the swinging detail of her soaked-through backside, until she faded from view, at which point he sighed and collapsed against the wall himself, pushing his fingers to his temples.
There was one blessed moment of silence before the doors slapped open again, and the exact same choreography that Ruby and Hattie had performed commenced, this time starring Rhys and Malcolm.
Elias only turned, head against the paneling, and watched this time.
