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She blew out a breath.

“I am now going to transfer my gaze back to the sky,” he said, and she was flooded with fondness for this kind, careful man who was, in concert with her, being a bit transgressive.

Could a person be “a bit” transgressive, though? Were there not merely two states, transgressive and not transgressive?

With that in mind, she maneuvered herself so she was right in front of him and said what she’d wanted to so badly before. “Look at me.”

He remained frozen in place, his eyes on the horizon—she must have arrested him mid gaze-transfer.

She took his other hand. “I am beneath the water. There is nothing to see.”

That did it. His gaze found hers, and he said, incredulously, “Nothing to see? There is you to see.”

“Yes,” she said, and they looked at each other, fingers of both hands interlaced. They looked at each other and breathed. They looked at each other and let the cold water do its work.

They had done so much talking. So many words had passed between them these last days and nights. They had talked of monsters and ribbons, grief and rage, duty and God.

Now, it was time to set words aside. He must have known it as well as she, for he gazed evenly at her. He was looking at her now, and looking inside her. She wanted him to see everything.

She wanted to stay here forever.

He must have shared the sentiment, for they remained like that for quite a long time, longer than she’d ever stayed immersed.

“Diantha,” he finally said, “we have to get out.”

“I don’t want to,” she whispered raggedly.

“Your teeth are chattering. Come. It will turn dangerous if we remain any longer.”

He scrambled out ahead of her, and as with the coach, helped her out, though it was up onto land this time rather than down. There was no more polite averting of gazes or pretending not to look. As she came out of the pool, water raining from her drenched shift, she felt the weight of his attention.

She looked at him, too, shamelessly. His breeches were plastered to his body, and she could make out the shape of him beneath.

She blew out a breath, and with it a puff of steam. It jolted him into motion. He led her to the fire, which was very low now, and took up the blanket she had brought with her. She, like a silly girl, had hoped they might lie back on it again this evening and gaze at the stars. She had hoped he might hold her hand again. She could not have imagined what had transpired instead.

“You are freezing,” he said urgently, wrapping the blanket around her.

“I am,” she conceded, newly aware of the violent shivering of her limbs.

“Come,” he said, and, retaking her hand, he led her to the new, small structure Lord Harcourt had built in the garden.

“I am alone in here,” he said as he pushed open the door and gently prodded her in ahead of him.

“We stayed in the water too long,” he said urgently, lighting a branch of candles, leading her to a narrow bed and proceeding to lie her on it and pile its covers on her. Then he plucked covers from the room’s other two beds and added them atop. “Warm yourself, and I will start a fire. I need to run around back to fetch some wood. We’re all out in here.”

“No! Don’t leave me!” she said, and though she ought to have been sheepish about the vehemence of that outburst, she wasn’t.

“Please,” she added in a more measured tone. She wasn’t sure what had prompted the request, except that, as earlier, she was exquisitely aware of the impending end of the holiday, of her essential aloneness lurking around the edges of the scene, threatening.

“Of course I won’t if you don’t want me to,” he said, perching on the edge of her bed.

“You’re freezing, too,” she said, for the candles he’d set on the nightstand were enough to illuminate the gooseflesh covering the arms she had so often admired. She held back the covers, and he hesitated only a moment before he slid in next to her.

Whatever trepidation he’d felt before, he must have dispensed with, for once under the covers, he rolled over and took her in his arms, pressing their bodies together. They were both shivering.

“We stayed in too long,” he said again.

“I think we stayed in the exact right amount,” she said, and it didn’t feel like a bold declaration, so much as the truth.