“Just,” she waved her hand a little at the edge of the pond, “up and down a little. The movement will help dry out my gown.” It seemed a reasonable assumption, at any rate.
McAlistair gave a minuscule shrug—which annoyed her to no end—and took a seat on the ground. “Suit yourself.”
Sixteen
As Evie began her little stroll along the edge of the pond, McAlistair let out a long, quiet breath.
He was not quite as unaffected as he would have led Evie to believe. In truth, his heart and mind were racing—had been racing, since the moment he’d surfaced from the pond, a struggling Evie in his arms, and heard the sound of his own laughter.
He couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed. He honestly couldn’t recall when he had stopped finding joy in his life. It had been well before he’d arrived at Haldon, he knew that much. He could remember, clearly, pretending to laugh years ago at clubs and dinners, but that had been a means to an end.
For too long, everything he did and said had been a means to someone’s end, literally, which was, of course, the very reason he’d stopped laughing.
He looked to Evie and found her carefully nudging something brown and mushy-looking with her toe. Rotted wood, he imagined, or a glob of beached pondweed. She was no doubt disgusted and no doubt too curious to turn away. He smiled at the picture she made, walking along the bank in the sun—wet, bedraggled, and beautiful.
He’d smiled a great deal these last two days, more than he generally did in a year—a very good year. But he hadn’t realized how close he’d come to being happy until he’d laughed. The sound of it had stunned him. The idea of it still amazed him.
She’d made him laugh. She’d made him forget his shadowy past, his ambiguous future, and simply enjoy the pleasure of holding a dripping, sputtering, laughing woman in his arms.
He’d enjoyed it far too much.
He’d nearly kissed her when they had reached the bank. She’d been so close, so soft, so damnably tempting, he’d imagined indulging in more than just a kiss. He’d imagined laying her down, where the water lapped the edge of land, and peeling off her wet clothes to discover the soft curves he’d dreamed of a thousand times. He’d ached to taste, feel, and touch, to cover her soft form with his own, and forget himself completely.
Forget who he was, where they were, and what was after them.
A selfish act and a foolish mistake—that’s what it would have been. Bad enough he should overlook the danger she was in for a few moments in the pond, much worse that he’d remembered and still been tempted to overlook it for another hour or two.
Though it had nearly destroyed him, he’d set Evie aside and turned away.
She hadn’t been too pleased with his decision. Perhaps he was a little out of practice when it came to reading the moods of women—he certainly hadn’t seen that little dip in the pond coming—but he knew desire when he saw it, and he knew wounded pride and disappointment when they were staring him in the face.
He rolled his shoulders. It stung him to injure Evie’s feelings, but it couldn’t be helped. She was an innocent. She hardly knew what she asked for, surely didn’t realize of whom she was asking it. She knew too little, and perhaps he knew too much.
What he’d done was for the best. And she was the resilient sort—she wouldn’t let a few uncomfortable minutes sour her mood for long. By the time she was done with her little walk, she’d be smiling again. By the time they were on the horses, she’d be chattering.
In a few short hours, they would reach the cottage and she’d have Mrs. Summers to keep her company. As the only two women in the house, they would likely seclude themselves away to…well, he hadn’t the foggiest—to do whatever it was ladies did when they secluded themselves away.
It was possible he’d only see her for meals, or perhaps passing in the hall. The thought of no longer having her completely to himself tore at his heart, but not nearly as much as knowing he would one day be little more to her than a memory of passing adventure and flirtation. And that tore less than knowing that anything else would be a terrible mistake.