Lily looked at the lake. She looked at her gown. She looked at the empty grounds stretching in every direction. Not a soul was in sight, and something broke loose inside her chest, something that had been clenched and careful for weeks.
She undressed. She folded her clothes on the bank beside his and walked into the lake.
The water was cold enough to steal her breath and warm enough to keep her moving. She gasped as it reached her waist, and then she plunged forward, and the shock of it gave way to something else entirely.
Freedom.
The kind she had not felt since swimming in the Aegean with Aunt Margaret five years ago, weightless, and unbounded.
“You can turn around now,” she called.
Hugo turned. His gaze found her across the water, and whatever he had been about to say died on his lips. He stared at her.
“You are staring,” she said.
“You are naked in my lake. Staring is appropriate.”
“It is impolite.”
“Many of the best things are.” He swam toward her. The water parted around his shoulders, and the late sun caught the drops on his skin. He stopped about an arm’s length away from her. “You are full of surprises, Duchess.”
“Do not call me Duchess.”
“Why not? You are one.”
“Because you say it the way you say everything. Like it belongs in your mouth.”
His eyes darkened. He closed the remaining distance between them, and his hand found her waist beneath the water. Thecontact of his palm against her bare skin sent a shudder through her.
“Everything about you belongs in my mouth,” he murmured.
She opened her lips to protest, and he kissed her.
Her feet lifted from the lake bed. The water bore their weight, buoyant and warm, and she wrapped her arms around his neck to steady herself as Hugo’s arms encircled her waist, drawing her against him until there was no space left between them, only warm skin, cool lake water, and the hard, steady beat of his heart beneath her hands.
Every sensible thought she possessed, scattered.
The sky, the trees, the fading burn of sunset all blurred at the edges until there was only his mouth on hers, the strength of his shoulders under her fingers, and the heat gathering between them.
She kissed him back with a boldness that startled her. Lily clutched at him as though he were the only solid thing in the world.
A deep sound left him, more felt than heard, and his hands tightened briefly at her waist. Then his mouth broke from hers and moved to her throat, slow and searching, lingering where her pulse fluttered wildly beneath his lips.
“Hugo.” Her voice barely rose above the hush of the water.
“Mm.” He kissed the curve beneath her ear, then lower, to the slope of her shoulder.
“Someone could see.”
His breath warmed her damp skin. “No one can see us.” His mouth brushed her again, and she felt the faint curve of his smile. “We are half a mile from the house, and I own every inch of land between here and the horizon.”
“That is not as reassuring as you think it is.”
“It should be.” His hands moved beneath the water, slow enough to make her shiver. “It means you are safe.”
The word slipped through her, undoing some final thread of hesitation.
Safe. Hidden.
