Mary Balogh - Then Comes Seduction

He was wading into the water. A few drops splashed up onto her skin. They were cold. She laughed and clung to him and shrieked. He was surely not going to-

But he was.

And he did.

He dropped her.

She sank to the bottom like a stone and came up sputtering and fighting. She dashed the water from her eyes, gasped for air, and saw him still standing there, thigh deep in the water, his hands on his hips, laughing at her.

And looking so handsome and carefree that she could have wept.

Instead she doused him with water and, while he sputtered in his turn and shook the water out of his eyes, she dived under and swam as fast as she could out into the deeper water of the lake.

Two hands grasped her ankles and then slid up her legs until they reached her hips. They pressed her under. She performed some sort of somersault as soon as he released his hold on her, came up underneath him, and grasped one of his ankles and hung on.

It was not a good idea. The fight that ensued was an unequal one in which she spent far more time below the surface of the water than he did. She was soon gasping for breath in earnest. It did not help, of course, that she could not stop laughing whenever her head was above the water.

“You were right,” she said when the fight came to a natural end after ten minutes or so and they were both floating on their backs, side by side. “We have warmed the water.”

He turned his face and smiled at her and reached for her hand.

And it happened.

Just like that.

She fell in love.

Or realized that she had been falling in love with him for some time.

Or that perhaps she had always loved him, right from that evening in Vauxhall when she had thought that perhaps love was not safe, that perhaps it was the most dangerous thing in the world.

Love did not have to make sense. It did not have to be worthy. It did not have to be earned. It did not have to woo.

It just simply was.

She closed her eyes, held loosely to his hand, and floated beside him as the world changed its course and settled around her again.

And he was not immune. Surely he was not. He had shed a tear earlier at the thought of having children with her. And now for several minutes he had simply frolicked with her, simply enjoyed being alone with her. He had been laughing and carefree, not hidden behind his habitual mask of hooded eyes and ironical teasing.

Surely he was growing somewhat fond of her.

Surely there was hope that disaster might after all turn to glory.

He let go of her hand and turned onto his stomach and swam a lazy crawl. She swam beside him, reveling in the sights she had of well-muscled arms and shoulders and back muscles, of tight buttocks and long, strong legs.

He was an incredibly beautiful man. Not that she had anyone with whom to compare him, of course.

And then he swam close to her again, lifted one arm across her back, and rolled her under him, his other hand sliding beneath her buttocks. She wrapped her arms about him and rolled them over, so that she was on the surface, he beneath-until he reversed their positions. And they rolled over and under until they were both breathless again and both smiling into each other’s eyes.

They swam together to shore and emerged, dripping, onto the bank. Katherine squeezed the water out of her hair while he spread his coat on the grass, and then they lay down side by side, their hands touching. She was aware again of his beautiful nakedness as the initial feeling of cold at coming out of the water gave place to the bright warmth of the sun against her flesh.

He was her husband.

And she loved him.

And surely he loved her too. But that was foolishness. No, it was not. Surely he did.

She turned her head to find him smiling lazily at her.

“I have swum here a thousand times,” he said, “but always alone until today.”

“Your sisters did not swim?” she asked him.

“Goodness, no,” he said. “It was strictly forbidden.”

“Even for you?” she said.

He laughed softly. “Even for me. We will teach our children to swim here, Katherine-and then we will strictly forbid them to swim here alone.”

“They will not need to,” she said. “We will come with them whenever they wish.”

“Or if we cannot,” he said, “there will always be a brother or sister to accompany them.”

“Yes.” She smiled and draped an arm over her eyes. The sun was bright.

“Happy?” he said.

“Mmm,” she said. “Yes. And you?”

“Happy,” he said.

It seemed to Katherine that she had never been happier in her life. Just over a week ago she had walked into a marriage that she had expected to bring her nothing but misery. Yet now…

The sunshine was blocked, and she removed her arm to find him leaning over her.

“In love?” he asked. “Do you love me, Katherine?”

Of course I do. How the words did not escape her lips she would never know. But-

Do you love me, Katherine?

Not I love you, Katherine.

“Have you won your wager, do you mean?” she asked him.

He smiled slowly at her, knowingly, sure of her answer. Sure of her.

“Have I?” he asked her, his eyes full of amusement. “I will not hold it against you. But it is confession time. Have I won?”

She closed her eyes for a few moments.

She had been duped. He had been working hard today-just as he had worked hard that evening at Vauxhall. That mention of children, those few tears, their swim, this lying side by side in the sunshine-all part of an elaborate campaign.

And she was as green now as she had been that night.

This was not about love or even about affection and spontaneity and the enjoyment of a sunny afternoon and each other’s company.

This was about a stupid wager.

She rolled away from him, got unhurriedly to her feet, and dressed as well as she could without assistance.

He was still lying naked on the grass.

“Katherine?” he said. “Let’s forget that wager for a while. It was unsporting of me to mention it.”

She wrapped the ribbons of her bonnet about her hand. She would not put it on. Her hair was still wet. She set off alone back to the house without saying a word or looking back. He could not hurry after her. He had to get dressed first.

Perhaps he would not have come after her anyway.

He would be berating himself for jumping his fences too early, for asking her just a little too soon.

Had he waited, she might have volunteered the information he wanted. She might have turned her head and told him that she loved him.

How excruciatingly humiliating that would have been.

She was as miserable as she had been happy just a few minutes ago.

He would never change.

They could never be happy together.

All the warmth and brightness seemed to have gone from the sun. It seemed only hot and glaring, and the route back to the house seemed interminable.

DAMN him for an idiot!

In the game of seduction his skills and his timing were unsurpassed.

In the game of love he was the veriest dunce.

He had asked her if she loved him.

Instead of telling her that he loved her.

He was worse than an idiot. Even an imbecile would have known better.

It ought not to have mattered that he still did not know quite what he was supposed to have meant by professing love for her. He ought to have done it anyway. And he had been feeling an affection for her that he had never felt for anyone else his whole life. He had been feeling relaxed and even happy-whatever the devil that meant. He had been feeling that all was well after all, that marriage was not all that bad. No, he had been feeling more positive than that. He had been feeling that his marriage was a good thing, that it was going to bring him a contentment he had never yet known, that it was going to bring her contentment too.

He was going to suggest that they consign that wager to the devil. Instead…

In love? Do you love me, Katherine?

And then, even worse…

Did I say something wrong?

He was an embarrassment to himself. If Con could have heard him or Charlie or Motherham or Isaac… It did not bear even thinking of.

And the consequences were that for what remained of the week before Charlotte came home and all the guests arrived, they lived together like polite, amiable strangers, he and Katherine.

He could not think of a way of putting right what had gone wrong down at the lake. He could not suddenly blurt out I love you, could he? She might ask him what he meant, and then he would be left gaping like a fish with nothing to say. What would he mean?

And she made no attempt to put things right. She dived into plans and preparations for the house party and fete so that he hardly saw her. When he did, she was the vicar’s daughter-the sort of prunish woman who would not even have known the meaning of the word shift if someone had asked her, let alone cavort about in one by a lake and frolic and shriek in the water with nothing on but.

He busied himself with his steward. The man took to looking at him every time he hove into sight as if he must be suffering from a touch of sunstroke.

Deuce take it, but this marriage business was nothing but trouble after all. Not that she had done anything wrong. He might at least have enjoyed feeling aggrieved if she had. But it was him. He had been an ass.