Scandal in Spring (Wallflowers #4)(20)

“Don’t choke him,” Daisy cried, seeing that Swift had gotten hold of the goose’s neck.

It was perhaps fortunate that Swift’s reply was lost in the explosion of movement and honking and goose-battling. Somehow Swift managed to restrain the bird until it was a writhing, spitting mass in his arms. Disheveled and blanketed with feathers and down, he glared at Daisy, “Get over here and cut the line,” he snapped.

Hastily she obeyed, dropping to her knees beside the grappling pair. Gingerly she reached for the goose’s muddy webbed foot, and it squawked and jerked its leg away.

“For God’s sake, don’t be timid,” she heard Swift say impatiently. “Just grab hold of the thing and get to work.”

Had there not been thirty pounds of furious goose caught between them, Daisy would have glared at Matthew Swift. Instead she seized the goose’s tethered foot in a firm grip and carefully slid the tip of the knife beneath the line. Swift had been right—the blade was wickedly sharp. With one nick it cut the line cleanly in two.

“It’s done,” she said triumphantly, closing the knife. “You may release our feathered friend, Mr. Swift.”

“Thank you,” came his sardonic reply.

But as Swift opened his arms and freed the bird, it reacted unexpectedly. Bent on vengeance, blaming its captor for all its woes, the creature twisted to aim a jab at his face.

“Ow!” Swift fell back to a half-sitting position, clutching a hand to his eye while the goose sped away with a triumphant honk.

“Mr. Swift!” Daisy crawled over him in concern, straddling his lap. She tugged at his hand. “Let me see.”

“I’m all right,” he said, rubbing his eye.

“Let me see,” she repeated, grasping his head in her hands.

“I’m going to demand goose hash for dinner,” he muttered, letting her turn his face to the side.

“You will do no such thing.” Daisy gently inspected the tiny wound at the edge of his dark eyebrow and used her sleeve to blot a drop of blood. “It’s bad form to eat someone after you’ve saved them.” A tremor of laughter ran through her voice. “Fortunately the goose had bad aim. I don’t think your eye will turn black.”

“I’m glad you find this amusing,” he muttered. “You’re covered with feathers, you know.”

“So are you.” Tiny bits of fluff and spars of gray and white were caught in his shiny brown hair. More laughter escaped her, like bubbles rising to the surface of a pond. She began to pick feathers and down from his hair, the thick locks tickling-soft against her fingers.

Levering himself upward, Swift reached for her hair, which had begun to fall from its pins. His fingers were gentle as he pulled feathers from the glinting black strands.

For a silent minute or two they worked on each other. Daisy was so intent on the task that the impropriety of her position didn’t occur to her at first. For the first time she was close enough to notice the variegated blue of his eyes, ringed with cobalt at the outer edge of the irises. And the texture of his skin, satiny and sun-hued, with the shadow of close-shaven stubble on his jaw.

She realized that Swift was deliberately avoiding her gaze, concentrating on finding every tiny piece of down in her hair. Suddenly she became aware of a simmering communication between their bodies, the solid strength of him beneath her, the incendiary drift of his breath against her cheek. His clothes were damp, the heat of his skin burning through wherever it pressed against hers.

They both went still at the same moment, caught together in a half-embrace while every cell of Daisy’s skin seemed to fill with liquid fire. Fascinated, disoriented, she let herself relax into it, feeling the throb of her pulse in every extremity. There were no more feathers, but Daisy found herself gently lacing her fingers through the dark waves of his hair.

It would be so easy for him to roll her beneath him, his weight pressing her into the damp earth. The hardness of their knees pressed together through layers of fabric, triggering a primitive instinct for her to open to him, to let him move her limbs as he would.

She heard Swift’s breath catch. He clamped his hands around her upper arms and unceremoniously removed her from his lap.

Landing on the grass beside him with a decisive thump, Daisy tried to gather her wits. Silently she found the pen-knife on the ground and handed it back to him.

After slipping the knife back into his pocket, he made a project of brushing feathers and dirt from his calves.

Wondering why he was sitting in such an oddly cramped posture, Daisy struggled to her feet. “Well,” she said uncertainly, “I suppose I’ll have to sneak back into the manor through the servants’ entrance. If Mother sees me, she’ll have conniptions.”

“I’m going back to the river,” Swift said, his voice hoarse. “To find out how Westcliff is faring with the reel. And maybe I’ll fish some more.”

Daisy frowned as she realized he was deliberately avoiding her.

“I should think you’d had enough of standing up to your waist in cold water today,” she said.

“Apparently not,” Swift muttered, keeping his back to her as he reached for his vest and coat.

CHAPTER 5

Perplexed and annoyed, Daisy strode away from the artificial lake.

She wasn’t going to tell anyone about what had just happened, even though she would have loved to amuse Lillian with the story of the goose encounter. But she did not want to reveal that she had seen a different side of Matthew Swift, and that she had briefly allowed herself to flirt with a dangerous attraction to him. It had meant nothing, really.