She went to the table and lifted the cover from the basin.
“Ah!” With a muted shriek, she dropped the cover. It felt back with a bang.
Oh Lord, oh Lord.
Several moments passed before she could bear to lift the cover again and peer inside. She hoped to see something different this time. But no.
There it was.
It wasn’t a fish.
It was an eel.
And it was still alive. Just angrily alive and now agitated, weaving slick, dark-green figure eights in its basin of murky water.
With a shudder, Diana covered it again. Then she drew out a chair and decided to sit and think for a while, about just how much she truly wanted this.
She closed her eyes and thought of Aaron’s kiss. The strength of his arms around her. The heat of his body, and the tender mastery of his tongue coaxing hers. She remembered their driving lesson. The joy of racing down a country lane, as fast as the spring mud would allow, with the top of the curricle down.
Then she pictured that eel, filling the basin with its writhing, slippery will to live.
She just couldn’t. Could she?
Diana opened her eyes and steeled her resolve. Some days, she decided, freedom meant the wind in your hair and the sun on your face and lips swollen with forbidden kisses.
And other days, freedom meant killing an eel.
She found the largest cleaver in the kitchen and gripped it in her right hand. With the left, she lifted the cover from the basin.
“I have nothing against you,” she told the eel. “I’m sure you’re a perfectly fine creature. But Aaron and I have something. And I’m not going to let anything stand . . . or slither . . . in the way of it.”
And just as she reached in to grab the thing . . .
It jumped.
It jumped clear out of the basin and—to Diana’s gasping horror—landed directly on her chest.
CHAPTER 5
Once Diana disappeared into the cottage, Aaron quickly lost himself in his work. He needed to get this piece right. If the jeweler was satisfied, it would mean a tidy sum in Aaron’s pocket—and more commissions in the future.
He did this finer work because he enjoyed it; the profit had always been secondary. He lived simply, and village smithing gave him more than sufficient income to meet his needs. But he was thinking about the future now.
Thinking hard.
He didn’t even realize how much time had passed until he looked up from the finished bracelet and saw it was midafternoon. Damn it. He’d left her waiting for hours.
He banked the fire, removed his apron, put away his tools, and locked the finished bracelet in his strongbox. Then he took a few minutes to wash at the pump before going inside. Wouldn’t do to go in all sweaty and covered in soot.
As he worked a soapy lather over his hands and forearms, his anticipation grew. This was like a dream come true. A day’s honest work at the forge, a well-made result, and Diana Highwood waiting for him at home, ready with a warm smile and a hot meal.
He ran his hands through his dampened hair to tame it, then entered the cottage through the kitchen door.
He found the place in shambles.
The room was cold. Every dish, pot, and spoon he owned had been turned out of the cupboards, it seemed. Peelings littered the floor. The acrid stench of burned potatoes hung in the air.
And Diana sat at his table, sobbing noisily, her head buried in her stacked arms.
“My God, what’s happened?” He crossed to her at once and knelt at her side. “What is it? Tell me.”
“It’s ruined,” she cried.
“What’s ruined?”
“Everything. Your meal. My life. Our chances.” She hiccupped. “The eel.”
“The eel?” He made attempts to soothe her, stroking her hair and back. “What happened to the eel?”
“It . . .” She squeaked out a little sob. “It got away.” A fresh burst of tears muffled the remainder of her reply.
“It got away?” He struggled manfully to contain his laughter.
“I had the knife . . . and it . . . it jumped. I didn’t know they could jump. Do you know they can jump?” She gestured wildly about her neck and head. “On my chest . . . in my hair . . . I couldn’t . . .” She coughed out an indelicate sob. “I flung it off me. It landed out the window, and then it got away.”
He glanced out the window she’d indicated. The weather had left the ground sufficiently wet and muddy that he could imagine an eel finding its way into a wheel rut and traveling a fair distance. It wouldn’t likely get far, but it could get away.
He laughed again. “I’d say that eel earned its pardon, then.”