He turned and walked away, his shoulders high and his head low.
“As you should be,” she called after his retreated back.
Once she was certain he had gone, she stormed off in the direction of her mare. Her day had been entirely ruined, her mood now dark and unstable. To say she was irritated was an understatement. She piled her goods on the back of the waiting horse, then held onto the reins and put her foot in the stirrup.
She didn’t lift herself up, though. She found herself quite unsettled and decided returning to the house now would not be a good idea. Instead, she lowered her foot back to the ground, retied the reins, and wandered off into the trees. It was amazing how restorative a little walk in nature could be, her father had always said so.
She spread out her fingers as she walked, letting the leaves and branches hit her hand, their cool wetness satisfying. And she allowed her imagination to play out in her mind. What would have happened had she not sent the stranger away? Pretended she hadn’t seen him? Would he have approached anyway?
Would he have taken me?
Though she was infuriated at his impertinence—he obviously thought her a mere maid after all—the thought that he hadenjoyedwatching her, that her physical being had brought him some pleasure, sent a shiver of excitement down her spine. Would he have taken her? She didn’t know—didn’t think so—but the thought enticed her all the same. The true question was would she have wanted him to?
Charlotte had never been much of an exhibitionist, preferring instead to sit out from the parade of ladies and gentlemen in theton. And yet, with this man, she wanted to show him how beautiful she was, a peacock fanning its tail.
She laughed at herself as she stepped over the gnarled tree roots that spread across the ground. Never before had she thought of herself as one to puff her plume, and yet with him, she found herself doing it without thought. Without conscious decision. There was something different about him, and the feelings he evoked in her even after just a short time were different.
Is that what attraction is?
Surely not. She had always been able toobjectivelysay whether a man was handsome or not. She knew how to appraise a gentleman for his good points and his bad. But this was different. This man was different. This feeling that stirred within her very core was different.
She walked through the field of bluebells, admiring the shock of color amid the deep greens of the woods. If the lake was isolated, this was a world of its own, and the quiet helped to calm her thoughts. She giggled to herself as she imagined the stranger diving into the lake with her, his chest glistening with water. She could imagine the taste of him, man mingled with the metallic earthiness of the lake.
It wouldn’t do any harm, she supposed, to picture him in such a way. Now that any risk to her safety was gone and her spiraling thoughts had begun to quieten, she could enjoy the moment for what it had been, laughing at herself and the situation she had gotten herself into.
It wasn’t the first time something like that had happened to her, but itwasthe first time that she had responded in such a way. It was the first time she had found herself engrossed in the man in question, instead of turning away from him, annoyed and disgusted.
But it mattered not. She wouldn’t see him again. The chances that such a hunter—probably a poacher—would return to the same spot after being caught once was slim. Charlotte breathed a little easier, relieved by the realization. She could indeed enjoy the memory—and she would—safe in the knowledge that she would never see him again.
Chapter 6
Alexander rode his steed slowly back to the house, his surroundings quiet but his thoughts loud and crying for attention. He didn’t see any of the area he had been hoping to explore, nor did he pay much heed to the countryside through which they rode. He couldn’t, because all he could think about was the strange woman he had met at the lake.
She was a confounding thing. She spoke with the air of aristocracy and moved as a noblewoman would. And yet she behaved with such abandon as one would never find in a well brought up woman. She exuded freedom and, in that freedom, she looked happy. She was like no other woman he had ever met—noblewoman or maid alike. And that was more than a little appealing.
“Oh, to be so free,” he muttered as the horse plodded, head down, through the fields and over the same paths he’d traversed just after the sun had come up.
There was something enviable about the way the woman had been, whomever she was. She was like a character in a play that no one would ever find believable because she was everything everyone wanted to be, yet no one could— or had the courage—to be.
“And she is beautiful with it,” Alexander murmured.
His eyes searched the gravel along the driveway to the house as he approached, as if the answer to his thoughts were somehow between the stones. Not that he even knew the question, only that he was unsettled. Her presence had switched something within him. He hardly knew her, had barely spoken to her, and would most certainly never see her again. And yet he felt somehow changed by their meeting.
He laughed at himself as he approached the stables, jumping off the horse before it had even stopped. He led it into the stables, handing the reins over to the stable hand who still had sleep in his eyes, then made his way into the house. To be as free as her would be a gift. To be as light would be more.
“The wanderer returns,” Stewart said as Alexander walked into the entrance hall.
His friend had just reached the bottom step of the grand staircase that swept into the hall, its bright red carpet running down the center. Stewart had his hand on the banister, his eyes equally as sleepy as the stable hand’s.
“And sleeping beauty awakens,” Alexander retorted. “Do you always spend half your day in bed?”
Stewart snorted. “It’s barely nine o’clock. Breakfast time. Would you care to partake?”
Alexander made a show of stretching, though his muscles thrummed with energy. No, he didn’t want breakfast. He wanted to scoop up the woman at the lake and whisk her to his bedchambers. He wanted to lay her down, to peel off her wet gown, and run his fingers over every part of her body.
“Yes, I think so,” he replied instead, knowing he didn’t truly have much of an option. “I could do with a little sustenance after a morning’s exercise.”
Stewart looked him up and down curiously as the pair turned past the staircase and into the narrow hall that led to the breakfast room at the back of the house. “Are you always this chirpy in the morning? What time did you rise, anyhow?”
