He raised their clasped hands again and tucked her arm beneath his.
“Daughters to look like their mother?” he said. “And sons to look like their… mother? Children to hold and love and play with and nurture? It is an appealing thought, I must confess. And now it is possible. I am married. Yes, I will have children with you, Katherine, not just because I need them, but because I want them.”
Sometimes he was not sure himself whether he meant what he said to her or whether he spoke to impress or tease her. Though he never spoke with any serious intention to deceive. This wager was different from any other he had ever made. There was too much at stake in winning it-and though she did not know it, it was a double wager. Either they both would win, or they both would lose.
But oh, Lord, she believed him. Her lips had parted, and her eyes had brightened with tears that she quickly blinked away. And perhaps she was right. Perhaps he did mean what he had said. He had a sudden mental image of holding a baby as tiny as Moreland’s-a baby that was his own.
Dash it all, he would be bound to drop it.
No, what he would be bound to do was love it. There would be no choice in the matter. No child of his was going to go unloved while he had breath in his body. Even a child who had just painted red, grinning lips and black arched eyebrows on all the stone statues along the balustrade about the roof or who had returned home with torn coat and breeches that he had forgotten to change out of after church before going to ride the waterfall-a strictly forbidden activity in its own right. He would love and love such a child anyway. He would probably take him back to the waterfall, in fact, so that they could ride it together, and take him-or her-back up to the roof to paint purple beards on all the statues.
Katherine had raised her free hand and was cupping his cheek with it. With the pad of her thumb she brushed something away from beneath his eye. Something wet.
Good Lord!
He jumped to his feet and stepped outside the hermitage. He moved back onto the path without waiting for her and plucked two blooms from the rhododendron bushes.
“Let me see,” he said, turning to her as she came up behind him. “One to go here in the ribbon about the crown of your bonnet, I believe, and one to go… here. ”
He pushed the stem down inside the bosom of her dress, into her cleavage, using his finger to press it down firmly. She was warm and slightly moist there, and he felt such a stabbing of desire that he was surprised he had not got an instant erection and alerted her to the direction his thoughts had taken.
“Not that you need sweetening,” he said. “But perhaps the flowers do. They will be sweetened by their proximity to you.”
“Oh, well done,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “That was one of your better efforts.”
“Do I win any reward, then?” he asked. “A kiss, perhaps?”
But, as he had expected, she merely laughed.
Lord, that was not a tear she had wiped away, was it? He had rarely felt more embarrassed in his life.
He offered her his arm and they continued along the path, which began gradually to slope downward in the direction of the lake.
They passed the great, ancient beech tree at the end of the rhododendron walk and stopped to set their palms against the trunk and marvel at its great size and age. He looked beyond it, up the hill into the trees, which grew dense here. But there was nothing to be seen from here. And for today, he decided, he would keep her on the path. There would be time enough to come back-or not.
“There is a beach at this end of the lake,” he said. “It is called a beach though, of course, there is no sand, and no ebb and flow of tides. But the bank was deliberately created to slope into the water so that one can sit picnicking there or paddle one’s feet without toppling in over one’s eyebrows. Or one can swim. We do not have any picnic fare with us, alas.”
“We will paddle our feet instead,” she said as they descended the slope and the trees thinned out and the sun beat down on them. “It has turned into a warm day and I am a little footsore after all the walking.”
“Can you swim?” he asked her.
“I can,” she said. “I learned as a child at Rundle Park, when we used to go over there to play with the Dews. I thought I had forgotten how, but I have not. I have swum at Warren Hall too.”
“Then we will swim today,” he said. “What better way to cool off after a long walk?”
“Today?” She turned her head sharply to look up at him. “I cannot swim in this dress, Jasper. It is one of my best ones. And you cannot swim in those clothes.”
They had come to a fork in the path. One branch would take them about the far side of the lake and up to the little cottage and the waterfall and so on around to the house side. The other fork went down to the beach and then on around to the boathouse and jetty. He turned down toward the beach.
“I suppose,” he said, “unless you are very brazen, Katherine, you are wearing a shift beneath your dress. And stays too?”
“Of course,” she said. And then she looked at him again, her eyes widening. “I am not bathing in my shift!”
“Without it, then?” he asked. “You need not fear being seen by anyone except me. And I have seen you unclothed before. It was by candlelight on that occasion admittedly. But I would wager you will look just as lovely in sunlight.”
“Jasper!” She laughed nervously. “I am not swimming without my shift.”
“With it, then,” he said, “if you must be modest.”
They stood on the sloping, grassy bank, looking out across the water of the lake. It was sparkling invitingly in the sunshine. The air was hot now that there was no shade.
“Come,” he said, releasing her arm and turning her so that she faced away from him. “I will help you out of your dress and stays. I make a tolerable lady’s maid when pressed into business.”
“Oh,” she said indignantly, “I am sure you do. But, Jasper, we cannot go swimming now. We have no towels. We have no dry clothes. We have no… oh!”
He had opened her sash and the back of her dress, lifted it off her shoulders, and let it slide down to the ground. He tackled the tapes that held her stays together at the back.
“We will dry in the sunshine afterward,” he said, setting his lips between her shoulder blades as he loosened her stays and dropped them to the grass before kneeling and rolling down her stockings.
Her shift covered her from the breasts to several inches above her knees. She looked tall and willowy and more enticing than any other woman he had ever set eyes upon as she stepped out of her shoes and stockings and turned to face him.
He was committed now. If he did not get himself into the lake water soon, he might well explode like a firecracker.
“Oh,” she said, “this is not very proper at all.”
The vicar’s prim daughter in a skimpy shift and nothing else at all-a potently erotic mix.
He stripped off his coat and waistcoat and neckcloth with ungainly haste.
“For your husband to see you in your shift?” he said. “It is shocking indeed.”
He pulled off his shirt over his head and sat down on the grass to haul off his boots before standing again and dragging off his pantaloons and stockings.
Should he shock her completely? But he hesitated for only one fraction of a moment before removing his drawers as well. How the devil had he managed to show no outer sign of arousal?
She bit her lower lip.
“The water will be cold,” she said-a very weak protest indeed.
“Then we will warm it up,” he said. “We will boil it over its banks. I do not know about you, Katherine, but I am feeling very warm indeed. Are you coming?” He held out a hand for hers.