Each man then worked back up the other side of his ‘natch’ until he had another half sheaf, which he bound to the first in a single movement. The women, coming behind their menfolk, stacked the finished sheaves together into shooks to cure, until the field was covered in neat rows of the tiny stacks.
Catherine propped herself on a large stone near the gate and watched. Sometimes one of the women paused to dash a hand across a hot forehead or rub at an aching back, but no one stopped, not even for the normal break times. Even the children toiled the same long, hot hours in the baking sun.
Devil Dagonet was right: the people were worked too hard. Why were extra hands not hired to help?
Clouds of dust rose from the field and the lanes were powdered with fine dirt. In spite of her parasol and bonnet, Catherine felt as if she were being slowly roasted, but she couldn’t bear to go back into the house. Instead she walked thoughtfully up past the lake and followed Rye Water into the cool shade of the woods.
She soon arrived at the little grotto, carved out between low cliffs. Part of the stream had been diverted so that it ran over the blunted curves of a stone nymph and flowed unendingly into a pool from her upturned urn. Between the base of the cliff and the edge of the water, the patch of short turf was intermingled with moss, yet a briar rose had managed to take root on the face of the rocks and still held a few late flowers.
The pool shimmered invitingly in the dappled light.
Catherine took off her bonnet and dabbled her fingers in the water. It felt delicious.
The temptation was overwhelming. She knew the routine of every member of the household. Lady Montagu and her offspring would be gone all day. No one would come here.
She hesitated only another moment, before stripping off her half boots and stockings. Why not?
* * * *
Water splashed, like a musical accompaniment. Someone was in the grotto, singing an old folk ballad in a soft soprano.
“We lingered where the water flows, sweet promises her eyes did make; I gave her but a single rose, but she my heart and soul did take.”
Dagonet walked out of the trees and up onto the rocks above the grotto.
He looked down at the pool. Desire, pure, forbidden, pierced him like a lance.
Miss Catherine Hunter had flung aside bonnet, shawl, and parasol, and left her boots and stockings on the grass. Her green-striped muslin dress fell straight from the high waistline just below her breasts. Puff sleeves bared her arms. She was paddling thigh-deep in the pool, her skirts gathered up in one hand, while she splashed water over her neck and shoulders with the other. In the sun-dappled light she seemed ethereal.
Yet her naked legs gleamed. His attention riveted on the smooth white of her thighs, her calves and ankles, the tender step of her feet. Cold water ran in rivulets, tracing the curves of her neck and breasts. The wet fabric of her dress was almost translucent.
Damnation, damnation, damnation! Reverend Hunter’s innocent, lovely daughter—impossible! Never, never for him!
She was totally oblivious to his presence. He should leave.
Instead, he climbed silently down the cliff face, leaned back against the rock where it met the short turf, and softly took up the song.
“I am a knight without a grail, I am a tower without a dove; I am a ship without a sail, and lost am I without my love.”
* * * *
Catherine spun about and felt color rush to her cheeks.
Devil Dagonet!
He looked perfectly relaxed, as if he came across young women losing all sense of propriety every day. His jacket was flung over one shoulder. Broken sunlight mottled white shirt and tan riding breeches, and struck dull lights in his dusty boots. His dark hair fell over his forehead, disordered, as if he had just run his fingers through it, but a wicked smile lurked at the corners of his lips.
“What?” she asked. “Only an old folk song? No pertinent quote from the poets, sir?”
He dropped his jacket on the grass and crossed his arms over his chest. Carefully banked desire shone in his gaze, yet with a touch of yearning—as if for something deeper . . . the right to even be there?
“I’m struck dumb, Miss Hunter. Pray, don’t let me disturb you! You present such a charming picture, I shall be desolate if you don’t go on singing.”
“Then be desolate! How dare you stand there and watch me? Any true gentleman would have left without making his presence known, before so embarrassing a lady.”
“As I thought you were already aware, dear Kate, I’m not reckoned to be a gentleman. Don’t you believe me a thief and a rogue? Besides, what well-brought-up young lady would splash around barefoot in a woodland pool with such recklessness?”
Heat flooded her cheeks. “If you would be kind enough to leave, sir, so that I could recover my shoes without further impropriety, I would rectify my foolish behavior this instant.”
“An impetuous action, once taken, cannot be rectified though, can it? Even if I were to leave this instant, you would still know that I had found you out.”
“Then you wish to mortify me?”
His glance swept over her. “It’s my humble opinion, Miss Hunter, that you have nothing to be ashamed of.”
She decided deliberately to misunderstand. “I’m all wet, sir! And I’m standing over my knees in water. If that falls within the bounds of what’s considered acceptable in polite society, then you’ve been moving in very different circles than I!”
“In Paris,” he continued blandly as if she hadn’t spoken, “the ladies of the court are deliberately dampening their muslins the better to display their charms. The custom has not yet, regrettably, taken hold in England. Perhaps you can start the new fashion?”
“I’m not interested in the fashions in Paris. Are you going to just stand there making small talk and leave me trapped in this pool?”
Dagonet walked forward to the edge of the water. “Of course not! I thought I might join you. It does look deliciously cool and inviting.”
Catherine backed away. “You wouldn’t dare!”
He smiled with real humor, as if her perception of his desire was nothing but illusion. “I would dare a great deal, Kate. But if you would never forgive me, the pleasure would hardly be worth it, would it?”
“My opinion of you cannot matter a whit!”
Surely he would not really step into the pool with her? Why must she do such crazy things? It had been a stupid risk to take. Such behavior could only invite the wrong interpretation. And to be discovered by Devil Dagonet! He was said to be a complete libertine. Hadn’t he already kissed her without regard to her feelings?
The memory of that sensation, sweet and desperate, was her undoing. Catherine blinked back sudden tears. She took one more step back and lost her footing. With a resounding splash, she fell back into the water. She came up gasping, pondweed streaming from her face.
Yet Dagonet had already turned away and was reaching for his coat. Only the splash arrested him. In one powerful movement, he flung the jacket aside and leaped into the water. He caught her by the hands and pulled her to her feet.
“Miss Hunter! You are too precipitate. This pool is hardly deep enough for swimming.” He swung her into his arms and carried her to the bank, where he set her down on the grass. “I wish you’d waited until I could have removed my boots. It’s hardly comfortable to ride with one’s feet swimming in pond water.”
He frowned with mock reproof, but his eyes were bright as he swept up the shawl that she’d left earlier beside her parasol and wrapped it carefully around her shoulders.
Catherine trembled. “If you hadn’t interfered, sir, neither of us need have got this soaking.”
Water ran from her muslin skirts to pool about her bare feet, turning the grass to mud between her toes. She was wet to the skin. She supposed she must be grateful for the cover that the shawl provided, but his shirt was also stuck to his chest, clinging to broad shoulders and strong arms.
Firm, smooth muscles, like a fine horse, like a wildcat, like a statue of a young, naked man
.
She bit her lip and looked away.
“Too true!” he said. “I’m amply rewarded for my disgraceful lack of sensibility. My breeches and boots are saturated. You’ve only to go back to the house and the sun is so bright you’ll be dry before you get there, but I must travel in the shade of the trees thoroughly stuck to the saddle. I’ve done it often enough before, but it’s not the most pleasant way to ride.”
“What?” she said without thinking. “Do you make a habit of rescuing women from pools?”
For a moment he seemed stunned into silence, but then he laughed.
“I was referring, dear Kate, only to the times that I’ve ridden soaked to the skin by the rain. A soldier cannot choose the weather in which he takes out his horse.” His voice changed only imperceptibly. “The only other time that I had a woman to rescue from a pool, I apparently botched it.”
The color flamed to her face. If she could have taken back her question, she would have done so a hundred times over. Poor Millicent Trumble had drowned not half a mile downstream from this very grotto. However guilty Dagonet might be, she hadn’t meant to deliberately refer to the old tragedy.
He swept her a formal bow and shrugged. “I can no more change the past than you, Miss Hunter, but my sins are of a different order entirely, aren’t they? I would escort you to the house if I were able, but it would only compound the problem for both of us. May I bid you good-day?”
He leapt lightly up onto the rocks that shaded the grotto. Just before he disappeared into the woods, he stopped and broke off a briar rose.
Turning it in his fingers, he said lightly, “The single rose, dear Kate. Would you take it, I wonder, were I to give it to you?”
He began once again to sing the words of the old song.
“You’re impossible, sir!” she shouted, but he had left, the rose in his hand.
* * * *
Catherine hurried back to Lion Court wrapped in her light shawl without meeting a soul. She felt miserable. She bathed, washed her hair, and changed her dress with her head spinning. Dagonet obviously meant to haunt the house until he could speak with Mary about her sister’s death. What did he want to find out? He was known to be responsible for the girl’s drowning and he seemed to accept the blame without question. What could he hope to discover that could make any difference?
Well, it was none of her business and she would put him out of her mind.
Yet she was not to be allowed to forget about Devil Dagonet for very long.
Gravel crunched as the carriage pulled up in the drive. Catherine ran downstairs and found the family in the drawing room. Sir George was stomping up and down, his face suffused with indignation.
“. . .
and
Major Cartwright had the damned impertinence to ask me about Dagonet,” he said. “What do you think of that, Mama?”
“Oh, dear! I thought you were talking about horses . . .”
“The story is all over the village and it makes me look a dashed fool. Why the deuce can’t you keep your mouth shut, Charlotte?”
Charlotte Clay pursed her lips. “Well, I think the neighbors have the right to be warned that Devil Dagonet is in the country, George. Mr. Clay believed in plain speaking and I follow his example. I gave only the broadest outlines of what happened, after all, but if our cousin acts the common highwayman, he must expect his name to be dragged through the mud.”
“Oh, not a highwayman, surely?” Lady Montagu said tentatively. “We were in the drawing room when Dagonet came in and took the jewels. I don’t think we should indulge in calumny.”
“Calumny! He’s been a damned thief since he was a boy, Mama! Good Lord, don’t you recall how he tore out all my trap lines and released the rabbits out of the nooses? Father tied him to the post in the barn and beat him with the horsewhip, but he wouldn’t stop it.”
“Your trap lines were disgusting, George,” Charlotte said. “A low poacher’s trick. Why Papa should indulge you in something so unsporting, I cannot conceive. Mr. Clay would not have approved, I’m sure.”
“I didn’t set them where you or Mama could have found them. Anyway, it was just a boy’s game. Dagonet had no right to interfere.”
Lady Montagu seemed about to weep. She lay back on the sofa and waved Catherine to come to her. “Oh, Miss Hunter, I have
such
a headache . . .”
Catherine softly massaged her mistress’s shoulders, but she felt almost faint.
George had set cruel wire traps for rabbits, yet Charles de Dagonet had risked a beating to destroy them. As Papa had said, he hadn’t lacked courage, a boy who—whatever his athletic prowess—also wrote music and read the great poets. He must have hated to see suffering in a poor dumb animal to have risked intervention, knowing that Sir Henry Montagu would thrash him for his mercy like a common criminal. A terrible and bitter humiliation, surely, for the young pride that must have lain like an ocean behind those eyes. How else had he suffered with his violent uncle? She had never forgotten her own fear of Sir Henry when she and Amelia had encountered him in the grotto as children.
Charlotte sniffed. “Well, if Father beat him with a horsewhip, I’m sure he deserved it.”
Sir George laughed. “More than once! Mama would have stopped it if she could, wouldn’t you, Mama?”
Lady Montagu sat up and Catherine’s hands fell away. Her heart felt numb.
“Oh, my! I couldn’t really countenance it, my dears. How could I? It only made him the more determined, which your late father could
never
understand. Dagonet had an implacable will, even then. It was cruel treatment, yet the boy laughed at it and invited more. My poor sister’s only child!”
“Don’t be sentimental, Mama!” Charlotte said. “If you ask me, Devil Dagonet deserved far more than a horsewhipping. After he drowned that servant girl, he should have been hanged. A man who would take advantage of a poor maidservant in his own house is no better than a dog—”
“Miss Hunter!” Sir George Montagu interrupted his sister mid-sentence.
Catherine looked up, her heart pounding.
George was frowning at her. “Have you sent out the invitations to Mama’s dance yet? There’s some dashed boring names that I want to strike off the list.”