A stunning, goddess of a madwoman.
He cleared his throat.
Nevertheless.
“It was entirely reasonable behavior.”
He blinked. “You climbed out onto a tree trunk,” he paused, irritation flaring again with the words.
She was unable to keep her gaze from the tree trunk in question. “It seemed perfectly sturdy.”
“You fell into a lake.” He heard the fury in his voice.
“I didn’t expect it to be so deep!”
“No, I don’t imagine you did.”
She clung to her defense. “I mean, it did not seem to be like any lake I’ve ever encountered.”
“That’s because it’s not like any lake you’ve ever encountered.”
She looked back at him. “It’s not?”
“No.” He said, barely able to contain his irritation. “It isn’t a real lake. It is man-made.”
Her eyes widened. “Why?”
Did it matter?
“As I was not alive for the event, I could not hazard a guess.”
“Leave it to the English to fabricate a lake,” she tossed over her shoulder to Carla, who snickered.
“And leave it to the Italians to fall into it!”
“I was retrieving my hat!”
“Ah . . . that makes it all much more logical. Do you even know how to swim?”
“Do I know how to swim?” she asked, and he took more than a little pleasure in her offense. “I was raised on the banks of the Adige! Which happens to be a real river.”
“Impressive,” he said, not at all impressed. “And tell me, did you ever swim in said river?”
“Of course! But I wasn’t wearing”—she waved a hand to indicate her dress—“sixteen layers of fabric!”
“Why not?”
“Because you don’t swim in sixteen layers of fabric!”
“No?”
“No!”
“Why not?” He had her now.
“Because you will drown!”
“Ah,” he said, rocking back on his heels. “Well, at least we’ve learned something today.”
Her eyes narrowed, and he had the distinct impression that she wanted to kick him. Good. Knowing that she was furious made him feel slightly more stable.
Dear God. She’d nearly drowned.
He’d never been so terrified in all his life as when he’d come over the ridge—berating himself for allowing this fiery, emotional Italian to direct his afternoon, knowing that he should be at home, living his orderly life—and seen the horrifying tableau below: the maid, shrieking for help; the unmistakable ripples on the surface of the lake; and the billows of sapphire fabric marking the spot where Juliana was sinking.
He’d been certain that he was too late.
“I told you.” Her words stopped the direction of his thoughts. “I had every good reason to go out there. If not for the wind and these heavy clothes, I would have been just fine.”
As if to underscore her point, the wind picked up then, and her teeth began to chatter. She wrapped her arms around herself and suddenly she looked so . . . small. And fragile. The utter opposite of how he thought of her, bright and bold and indestructible. And in that moment, his anger was thoroughly overpowered by a basic, primal urge to wrap himself around her and hold her until she was warm again.
Which of course, he could not do.
They had an audience—and the chatter would be loud enough without his adding fuel to its fire.
He cursed softly, and the sound was lost on the wind as he moved toward her, unable to stop himself from closing the gap between them. He turned her to ensure that he caught the full force of the gale—protecting her from the cold gust.
If only he could protect himself from her.
When he spoke, he knew the words were too rough. Knew they would sting. “Why must you constantly test me?”
“I do care, you know. I do care what you think.”
“Then why?”
“Because you expect me to fail. You expect me to do wrong. To be reckless. To ruin myself.”
“Why not work to prove me wrong?”
“But don’t you see? I am proving you wrong. If I choose recklessness, where is the failure? If I choose it for myself, you cannot force it upon me.”
There was a long pause. “Perversely, that makes sense.”
She smiled, small and sad. “If only I actually wanted it this way.”
The words settled, and a hundred questions ran through his mind before she shivered in his arms. “You’re freezing.”
She looked up at him, and he caught his breath at her brilliant blue eyes. “H-how are you n-not?”
He was not even close to cold. He was on fire. Her clothes were soaking wet and ruined, her hair had come loose from its fastenings, and she should have looked like a bedraggled child. Instead, she looked stunning. The clothes molded to her shape, revealing her lush curves, the water only emphasizing her stunning features—high cheekbones, long, spiked lashes framing enormous blue eyes, porcelain skin. He tracked one drop of water down the curve of her neck to the hollow of her collarbone, and he had an intense desire to taste the droplet on his tongue.
She was alive.
And he wanted her.
Thankfully, she shivered again before he could act on the unacceptable desire.
He had to get her home before she caught pneumonia.
Or before he went entirely mad.
He turned to her maid. “Did you come by carriage?” he asked in quick Italian.
“No, Your Grace.”
“It will be faster if I take your mistress home in my curricle. Meet us at Ralston House.” He clasped Juliana’s elbow and began to steer her toward a nearby rise.
“You j-just assume that she will follow your orders?” Juliana asked, her tone suggesting the very idea was ridiculous. He ignored her, instead meeting the maid’s gaze.
“Yes, Your Grace.” She dropped into a quick curtsy and hurried away.
He returned his attention to Juliana, who scowled.
Her irritation returned some of his sense. And some of his anger. Last night and this morning, her impulsive behavior had risked her reputation. This afternoon, it had risked her life.
And he would not have it.
They walked several yards in silence before he spoke, “You could have died.”
She gave the briefest of hesitations, and he thought perhaps she would apologize again. It would not be entirely unwarranted.
He sensed the tensing of her shoulders, the straightening of her spine. “But I did not.” She tried for a smirk. Failed. “Twelve lives, remember?”
The words were rife with defiance—of him, of nature, of fate itself. And if they had not made him so irate, he might have found room to admire her tenacity of spirit.
Instead, he wanted to shake her.
He resisted the impulse. Barely.
They reached his curricle, and he lifted her, shivering, into the vehicle, then climbed in beside her.
“I shall ruin your seat.”
Her words, so ridiculous in light of everything that had happened in the past few minutes, set him off. He paused in the act of lifting the reins and turned an incredulous gaze toward her. “It is a wonder that you are able to find concern for my upholstery when you seem to care so little for things of much more import.”
Her dark brows arched perfectly. “Such as?”
“Such as your person.”
She sneezed, and he cursed, “And now you’re going to fall ill if you don’t keep warm, you daft female.”
He reached behind them for a traveling rug, and thrust it at her.
She took it and covered herself. “Thank you,” she said firmly, before looking away and staring straight ahead.
He set the curricle in motion after a long moment, wishing he’d been less forceful. More courteous.
He did not feel at all courteous. Did not think he could muster courtesy.
They exited Hyde Park before she spoke, and he barely heard her over the sound of hoofbeats against the cobblestones. “You needn’t speak to me as though I am half-witty.”
He could not resist. “I believe you mean half-witted.”
She turned away, and he heard an irritated Italian curse over the wind. After a long moment, she said, “I did not plan to drown myself.”
There was sulking in her tone, and he felt a slight twinge of sympathy for her. Perhaps he should not be so hard on her. But, damned if he could stop. “Plan or no, if I hadn’t come along, you would have drowned.”
“You came,” she said simply, and he recalled that as she had coughed up water and trembled with relief in the moments after he’d rescued her, she’d whispered the same words. You came.
He’d tried not to.
He’d thrown away her reckless note—the cleverly disguised missive that had fooled everyone into thinking that the Marquess of Ralston had sent the correspondence—tossed it into a wastepaper basket in his study.
He’d pretended it wasn’t there as he read the rest of his correspondence.
And still as he discussed a handful of outstanding issues with his man of business.
And even as he had opened the package that arrived from his mother less than an hour after she had left him—the package that had contained the Leighton sapphire, the betrothal ring that had been worn by generations of Duchesses of Leighton.
Even then, as he’d placed the ring on his desk, in full view, that crumpled piece of paper taunted him, spreading Juliana throughout his orderly, disciplined house. Everywhere he looked, he saw her missive, and he’d wondered what she would do if he did not respond.
He’d imagined that she would not think twice about assuming a more scandalous course of action—and then her bold, black scrawl had been replaced with her bold, black curls and her flashing blue eyes. And they’d been in his bedchamber . . .
He had called for his curricle and driven entirely too fast for a man who was determined to avoid her.
And he’d almost been too late.
His hands tightened on the reins, and the horses shifted uneasily under the tension. He forced himself to relax.
“And aren’t you lucky that I came? I nearly didn’t. Sending me such a message was both immodest and infantile.” He did not give her an opportunity to reply, his next words exploding on a wave of irritation. “What would possess you to dive into a frigid lake?”
“I didn’t dive,” she pointed out. “I fell. It was a mistake. Although I suppose you never make those.”
“Not life-threatening ones, usually, no.”
“Well. We cannot all be as perfect as you are.”
She was changing the topic, and he was in no mood to allow it. “You did not answer my question.”
“Was there an inquiry hidden in all of that judgment? I did not notice.”
He found himself comforted by the fire in her. He cut her a glance. “The lake. Why were you in there in the first place?”
“I told you. I followed my hat.”
“Your hat.”
“I like the hat. I did not want to lose it.”
“Your brother would have bought you a new hat. I would have bought you a dozen if it would have kept me from having to . . .”
He stopped.
From having to watch you nearly die.
“I wanted that one,” she said, quietly. “And I am sorry you had to rescue me . . . or that you shall have to replace this upholstery . . . or buy new boots . . . or whatever other trouble my situation has caused you.”
“I didn’t say—”
“No, because you are too proper to finish the sentence, but that’s what you were going to say, isn’t it? That you would buy me a dozen bonnets if it would keep you from having to keep me out of trouble? Again?”
She sneezed again.
And the sound nearly did him in.
He nearly stopped the carriage and yanked her to him and gave her the thrashing she deserved for taunting him . . . and then terrifying him.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he pulled the carriage to a stop in front of Ralston House with all decorum, despite the anger and frustration roiling within.
“And now we have arrived,” she said, peevishly, “and your tiresome position as savior may be passed off to another.”
He threw down the reins and descended from the carriage, biting his tongue, refusing to correct her view of the situation—refusing to allow himself to be pulled further into the maelstrom of emotion that this woman seemed to call into being every time she came near.
Last night, she’d labeled him emotionless.
The idea seemed utterly laughable today.
By the time he reached her side of the carriage, she had already helped herself down and was heading toward the door. Obstinate female.
He gritted his teeth as she turned back from the top step, looking down at him with all the self-confidence of a queen despite her sodden, bedraggled clothes and her hair, collapsed around her. “I am sorry that I have so inconvenienced you on what I can only imagine was a perfectly planned day. I shall do my best to avoid doing so in the future.”
She thought him inconvenienced?
He had been many things that afternoon, but inconvenienced was not one of them. The tepid word didn’t come close to how he felt.
Irate, terrified, and completely unbalanced, yes. But not even close to inconvenienced.
The entire afternoon made him want to hit something. Hard.
And he imagined that the conversation he was about to have with her brother would do little to combat that impulse.
But he would be damned if she would see that.
“See that you do,” he said in his most masterful tone as he started up the steps after her, rejecting the impulse to leave her there, summarily, on her doorstep, and get as far from her as he possibly could. He would see her inside. And only then he would get as far from her as he possibly could. “As I told you yesterday, I haven’t time for your games.”