It took her a moment to recognize the tenor, and when she did, she snapped her attention to him, looking at him with clear eyes for the first time.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Simon.
Disheveled and soaked to the skin, his blond hair turned dark with the water that dripped down his face, he looked the opposite of the poised, perfect duke she had come to expect him to be. He looked sodden and unkempt and winded . . .
And wonderful.
She said the first thing that came to her mind. “You came.”
And he’d saved her.
“Just in time, it seems,” he replied in Italian, understanding that she was not ready for English.
A fit of coughing overtook her, and she could do nothing but hold on to him for several minutes. When she was once more able to breathe, she met his steady gaze, his eyes the color of fine brandy.
He’d saved her.
A shiver rippled through her at the thought, and the tremor spurred him to action. “You are cold.”
He lifted her into his arms and carried her out of the water to the lake’s edge, where Carla was near hysteria.
The maid released a torrent of Italian. “Madonna! I thought you were gone! Drowned! I screamed and screamed! I was desperate for help!“ To Simon, still in Italian, “I curse the fact I cannot swim! If only I could return to my youth and learn!” Then back to Juliana, clutching her to her chest. “Mi Julianina! Had I known . . . I would never have let you out onto that log! Why, the thing is obviously the devil’s own oak left behind!” Then, back to Simon, “Oh! Thank the heavens that you were here!” The flow of words stopped abruptly. “Late.”
If Juliana had not been so cold, she would have laughed at the disdain that coated the last of the maid’s words. True, he had been late. But he had come. And if he hadn’t—
But he had.
She stole a glance at him. He had not missed Carla’s insinuation that if he had arrived on time, all of this might have been avoided. He stilled, his face firm and unmoving, like that of a Roman statue.
His clothes were plastered to him—he had not removed his coat before entering the lake, and the layers he wore seemed to blend together. Somehow, the sodden clothing made him seem larger, more dangerous, immovable. She watched a droplet of water slither down his forehead, and itched to brush it away.
To kiss it away.
She ignored the thought, certain that it was the product of her close encounter with death and nothing else, and redirected her gaze to his mouth, set in a firm, straight line.
And she instantly wanted to kiss that instead.
A muscle twitched at the corner of his lips, the only sign of his irritation.
More than irritation.
Anger.
Possibly fury.
Juliana shivered and told herself it was from the wind and the water and not the man who towered over her. She wrapped her arms about herself to ward off the cold and thanked Carla softly when the maid rushed to collect the cloak she had cast off prior to her adventure and place it over her shoulders. The garment did nothing to combat the cold air or the cold look with which Leighton had fixed her, and she shivered again, huddling into the thin twill.
Of all the men in all of London, why did he have to be the one to save her?
Turning her attention to a nearby rise, she saw a handful of people clustered together, watching. She could not make out their faces, but she was certain that they knew precisely who she was.
The story would be all over London by tomorrow.
She was flooded with emotion . . . exhaustion and fear and gratitude and embarrassment and something more base that twisted inside her and made her feel like she might be sick all over his once-perfect, now-destroyed boots.
All she wanted was to be alone.
Willing her shivering to subside, she met his gaze once more, and said, “Th-thank you, Your G-grace.” She was rather impressed that this close to having died by drowning, she was able to achieve cool politeness. In English no less. She stood with the help of Carla, and said the words that she desperately wanted not to say. “I am in your debt.”
She turned on one heel and, thinking only of a warm bath and warmer bed, set off for the entrance to the Park.
His words, spoken in perfect Italian, stopped her in her tracks.
“Do not thank me yet. I’ve never in my life been so livid.”
Chapter Six
Water is for boiling and cleansing—never for amusement.
Refined ladies take care not to splash in their bath.
—A Treatise on the Most Exquisite of Ladies
We’re told of exciting discoveries in our very own Serpentine . . .
—The Scandal Sheet, October 1823
Simon ignored the thickness in his tone, the anger that he could barely contain.
The girl had nearly killed herself, and she thought this was over?
She was very likely cold and exhausted and in some kind of shock, but she was more addlepated than he imagined if she thought he would allow her to trot home without a single explanation for her unreasonable, irrational, life-threatening behavior. He saw the combination of fear and desperation in her gaze. Good. Perhaps she would think twice before repeating today’s actions.
“You are not going to tell Ralston, are you?”
“Of course I am going to tell Ralston.”
She took a step toward him, switching to English. She was skilled at pleading in her second language. “But why? It shall only upset him. Needlessly.”
Disbelief took his breath. “Needlessly? On the contrary, Miss Fiori. Your brother most definitely needs to know that you require a chaperone who will prevent you from behaving with reckless abandon.”
She threw up her hands. “I was not behaving recklessly!”