Page 42 of Just About a Rake


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In this shallow water? A man could only hope.

The next moment, Heart emerged from the water like a sea creature ready to wreak vengeance on whoever had disturbed him, glowing eyes directed at him.

Dare sighed. He should have stayed in bed today.

“Get your hands off my sister!” the creature roared.

This damn man... But they were once more in a bit of a tangle as the boat continued to rock back and forth.

“The boat is still unsteady,” Dare defended himself, slowly retracting his arm. She snatched her hand back, too.

“Well, this is certainly something else.” Calstone carefully rose to help the man.

“Don’t!” Dare called, seeing the man’s bootstep skew, and watching in horror as the duke stumbled for his balance. Nothing could have prepared him for what happened from that moment onward.

The boat capsized, and all of them plunged into the lake. Bloody everlasting hell! At some point, his arms circled Lady Leonora, and he did not let go once as cold water seeped through his clothes. He and Lady Leonora came up sputtering at the same time as the duke.

“Dear God!” Calstone exclaimed. “What horror! I must stay away from water and boats for the rest of my lifetime!”

“Are you all right?” Dare asked Lady Leonora, his gaze roaming over her face for any signs otherwise.

She wiped at her face. “As right as I can be.”

He looked down but shouldn’t have. The water came up to her waist, but the plunge had left her clothes drenched, dripping, and clinging to her like second skin.

Almighty heaven above.

His eyes burned.

I shouldn’t have looked. I shouldn’t have looked.

Calstone cleared his voice. “There is no back door or servants’ entrance, is there? I could use a nice, clean escape right about now.”

Dare glanced toward the man, moving to block the duke’s line of sight of Leonora. “This isn’t a damn house. We are in a lake.”

“I thought so, yet I had hoped that I was dreaming.”

“Why?” But then he followed the duke’s gaze to the shore and promptly cursed.

Every single eye on the embankment was trained at him. Even Heart had gone silent.

Not. Good. Not good at all.

Chapter Eight

If Leonora hadknown she’d be soaked in a lake from head to toe, she might have rethought some of her decisions. As moments went, this was not one of the best. Honestly, it was one of those moments that one didn’t quite enjoyinthe moment but might be able to draw a laugh fromaftera good amount of time had passed.

About the only thrilling sequence of this spectacle was Dare, him drawing her to him before the boat capsized and then becoming a bundle in his arms as they did. And the fact that he was at present, like her, soaked to the bone.

A rake falling into a lake.

Very well, there was a bit of enjoyment in that!

The men, however, had gone utterly silent, and on an instinctive level, Leonora understood it was a full ten parts bad. But all she could do in this particular sequence of events was appreciate Dare, hair dripping water onto his face, and the sculpted contours of shoulders through the shirt that stuck to his body.

By Jove!

Such masculine beauty.