was not something that they were taught. And she was perfectly right to be worried, of course. He calculated quite coolly that in a minute, two at the most, the boat would tumble over the weir and Laura would fall into the water and might well drown. She might hit her head as she fell, or her long skirts might become entangled and pull her underwater, or any number of fatal things might happen to her.
Which, arguably, was what Laura Cole deserved for giving him such a perfect night of love four years before and then shattering his heart immediately afterward,showing herself to be no more than a cold, calculating, selfish and hypocritical creature into the bargain.
Not that he was bitter.
He did not care. Laura Cole could drown, for all he cared.
Hell and the devil.
Laura Cole would drown in approximately one minute and he was standing here watching it happen.
Dexter threw down the fishing rod and wrenched off his jacket. There was no time to stop to remove his boots. He strode into the river—it was shallow at the edge but deep in the middle—just as the boat reached the top of the weir and stopped with a rather sickening crunch as the wooden frame caught on the stones at the top.
“Jump!” he shouted.
Laura turned toward him. Her face was a pale blur. She was gripping the edge of the boat so tightly that Dexter could see her knuckles white against the dark wood. She did not move.
The water was up to his chest now and the current was frighteningly strong, threatening to pull him over the top of the weir. The mossy stone of the riverbed slid beneath his feet, treacherously uneven, as he struggled to stay upright.
Dexter made a grab for the boat but in that second the keel slid with a grating roar across the stones at the top of the weir, tipped up at a steep angle and decanted Laura into the river. She disappeared over the top of the weir in a cacophony of water, her bonnet tumbling off and one of her shoes flying through the air in a perfect arc before landing with a plop in the water beside Dexter’s head. Muttering a curse, Dexter gave in and allowed the current to take him over the weir and into the deep green pool at the bottom. Even as he did it he wondered what on earth possessed him to take such a dangerous risk. He felt as though all the air had been pummeled from his body in the fall. There was the sound of rushing water in his ears, cold water that chilled him bone-deep. It filled his lungs, smothering him. He stumbled upright, shaking the water from his eyes, searching desperately for Laura.
Then he saw her.
She was struggling like a madwoman against the heavy, dragging weight of her skirts, which threatened to pull her under. He grabbed hold of her and held her hard against him, protecting her from the tow of the current. His hand was firm in the hollow of her back, their lower bodies pressed intimately together. The water splashed cold around them, but where their bodies touched and clung together he could, suddenly and surprisingly, feel the heat in her. Her breasts were resting against his chest and through his soaking shirt and her drenched clothes he could feel her nipples tight and hard, pressing against him. Despite the cold water and the extreme discomfort of their situation, he felt his body start to stir as he remembered that other occasion on which she had been clasped close in his arms, naked, warm and enticing.
Dexter had not anticipated this happening to him when—if—he ever met Laura Cole again. Certainly it was not his usual response to a soaking-wet female. But now the memories of his night with Laura swelled like a dam that was about to burst and in combination with her wet and seminaked state made his erection swell in proportion. He felt simultaneously hugely aroused and furiously angry with himself for that instant and very inappropriate arousal. He tried to think of icy winds and how chilly the water was, but his body felt like a furnace. He could not control it. And the more he tried to exert self-control the more excited his errant body seemed to become, as though it were asserting its independence and its right to find Laura attractive if it chose. Dex was enraged.
Laura could evidently feel his response, as well. She raised a hand and dashed the wet strands of honey-brown hair back from her face. Her hazel eyes snapped with anger and discomposure. A hint of color touched her cheekbones. She looked as though she was as uncomfortable with his proximity as he was with hers. It was the reaction of the perfect, respectable duchess that he had always imagined her to be. And indeed she had been utterly perfect in his bed and nowhere near as virtuous as she pretended to be out of it…
“Mr. Anstruther! What are you doing?” Laura hit exactly the right note for an outraged dowager duchess and Dexter admired the apparent ease with which she could assume the role. No one hearing her now would ever guess that she had taken him into her bed and made mad, ecstatic, explosive love to him for an entire afternoon, evening and night. It might be something that, with hindsight, he deplored ever happening, but it seemed he could not forget it.
“I am saving you from drowning, your grace,” Dexter said politely. “However, if you object I can let you go.” He suited actions to words by loosening his grip on her.
Laura gave a muffled squeak and clung to him all the more tightly, her fingers digging into the muscles of his upper arms. Dexter was immediately reminded of the sensation of her fingernails scoring his back as she had moved in sensual abandonment beneath him. He tried to ignore the thought and erase the memory—and failed dismally. His body hardened still further until he felt as though he might burst—or throw her down on the riverbank and make love to her. He struggled for some rationality but his body still felt as though it was under independent ownership, hot, tight and desperate for satisfaction. He almost groaned aloud. It was a long time since he had had a woman—since his fall from grace and subsequent recovery he had avoided casual affaires—and none of the women he had known had ever affected him in the stunningly physical way that Laura did. That had been part of the problem. The awareness between them was unwanted, it was infuriating, but it was undeniable.
“Mr. Anstruther, do you always find situations such as this so arousing?” Laura’s tone was frigid enough to turn the most ardent man limp.
“Always,” Dexter said grimly. He bent, slid an arm beneath her knees and swept her off her feet and up into his arms. Judging by the startled look on Laura’s face, he guessed that no one had ever done that to her before. Perhaps it was not surprising for she was a tall woman. He stood at over six feet and she was a bare few inches shorter than him. Many men, he was aware, would find that intimidating.
Buffeted by the current, he strode toward the bank and deposited her gently on the ground. She was still wearing one shoe, the match for the one that had floated off down the river. He noticed that her other foot, in its soaked silk stocking, was large for a woman, but nevertheless delicately shaped with an elegantly high instep. For some reason Dexter found the fact that Laura had big feet to be rather endearing. He wished now that the contrast between her size and her apparent fragility did not appeal to him so much. He did not like her and he did not want to be attracted to her any more but reason, the mainspring of his life, seemed to desert him when Laura was around. It was most inconvenient and quite inexplicable.
“Thank you for your assistance.” Laura’s tone was still arctic. “You may leave me now.”
Dexter had had every intention of doing precisely that, but her dismissal grated on him. He stood watching as she wrung the water from her skirts. It was a fairly pointless exercise. Her entire gown was soaking, damp, he was quick to appreciate, in ways that went far beyond the practice followed by fashionable whores. The drenched muslin clung to every one of her curves—and those who declared Laura Cole to have no figure were clearly mistaken for she had the most entrancingly small, rounded, tip-tilted breasts and a deliciously arched line to her hips.
