She’d known him too well. What he thought before he spoke. What mischief drove him to nonsense. Anyone else would have discouraged him or scolded him, but she had matched his folly and been a culprit in all his impish trouble.
“You may finish your work in the garden,” she said. “I can manage here.”
“I’ve a better idea.”
“Oh?”
“It is hot, ye love to swim”—he swooped the gardening tool away from her—“and there’s a stream half a mile away just waiting for the likes of us.”
“The likes of us, indeed.” She resumed trimming the bush, this time snapping them with her fingers. “I hardly think so.”
“Why?”
“The fact you need ask such a question speaks detrimentally to your character.”
“Ye know nothing of my character.”
“I know enough.”
He would have dismissed the comment as more of her cursed defiance, but something about her voice stilled him. The brittle rasp. The downward pull at her lips.
He frowned. “Ye are serious.”
“I think you should work on your garden.”
“Whatever ye’ve heard, ye’re wrong.” Was that her opinion of him? Ire wetted his palms. If he knew who had whispered lies in her ears, he’d cuff the sense out of them. Tom seized her hand. “And we’re going swimming, lass. If I have to drag ye there and dunk ye in myself.”
If she had realized one thing about Tom McGwen, it was only how impossible he was. That, and how impossible it was to remain angry with him.
The stream was flanked on both sides by ancient, gnarly trees. Bracken, gorse, and tiny wildflowers mingled with the grass, and the water caught blue reflections from the sky. Tom had kicked down the growth and now sat pulling cotton stockings from his feet.
She wasn’t certain what about him disarmed her.
How he could enrage her, then amuse her, then endanger her, then comfort her, all in the span of one heartbeat. He was complicated.
Lord Cunningham she understood. She knew enough of his past to forgive his failings; she comprehended his tragedies enough to condone his obsessions; and despite everything, she still found him pleasing. She wished to marry him.
Except she did not.
“Dinnae tell me ye need help with that.”
The niggling twitch in her chest gave way to distraction. “What?” He nodded to her feet. “Yer shoes.”
“What about them?”
“Ye forgot how to take them off, did ye?”
“No, I did not forget.” She loosened her shoelaces deftly. “Look away.”
He laughed.
“I am quite serious, sir. Look away or I shall not get in at all.”
“I’ve seen yer ankles before, lass.”
“Well, you shall not see them now.” She waited until he’d tossed both shoes over his shoulder—who knew if he’d ever be able to find them again in all this grass—and rolled up the legs of his trousers. He started to pull the shirt over his head.
Her blood flow spiked. “You will leave it on or I shall never see you again.”
