Too Wilde to Wed (The Wildes of Lindow Castle, #2)(43)

“One of my sisters will give you a pair.”

She pulled herself free. “I shall borrow Mabel’s second-best slippers until I can acquire another pair. Do you understand what you’ve done, North?”

He shook his head.

“Those shoes were my possession, and I have very few possessions. Just because you can afford to allow your valet to steal your breeches doesn’t mean the rest of the world can be as cavalier. A pair of slippers, like those in your sisters’ wardrobes, costs far more than I can afford.”

“I want to buy you shoes. I knocked your shoes in the lake, so I will replace them.” He hesitated and then told her the truth. “Please. It will make me feel better.”

North had the unnerving sense that Diana knew exactly how pared to the bone he felt. The panic that blanketed him when his loving, exuberant family flooded into the drawing room and made that enormous room seem like a narrow cavern with towering stone cliffs.

She sighed. “Kicking my shoes into the lake ought to make you ashamed. It’s something Artie would do in a temper.”

He couldn’t stop himself and kissed her again until she let the stocking fall to the grass and wrapped her arms around him.

“Stop worrying,” she said sometime later, eyes intent on his.

“Because all will be well?” He couldn’t muster a smile.

“It will pass.” She turned away without giving him a sympathetic smile, which he would have hated, and pulled on the rope; the boat had drifted from shore again.

He leaned over her and gave one tug that beached the boat on the bank.

“I never get the boat to come onto the shore so I have to jump.” She nimbly climbed back into the boat. “I wish I were as strong as you are.”

North pulled off his boots and threw his stockings on the bank next to hers. “Strength is not something I think about very often,” he said, climbing after her. She had seated herself on the forward seat. He sat down facing her. “It’s a family trait. In one of my earliest memories of my father, he was taming a horse. In my mind it was the size of an elephant.”

“I have no memory of my father,” Diana said wistfully. “Now poke the shore with the oar, pushing us in that direction.” She nodded toward the thick waterfall of leaves.

The prow of the punt slid into the green wall. Leaves closed around them as the boat reached the end of the rope, coming to a halt in the midst of a sea-green cave, as if they’d slid underwater and entered a mermaid’s parlor.

North slid down and sat in the generous well between the two seats. Stuffing one of the pillows behind him, against the rear seat, he waved the other pillow at Diana.

“This is so improper,” she observed.

“Less so than your chamber last night.” He put his feet on the seat beside her, giving her a nudge with his bare ankle. “Off the footstool, my lady.”

Diana slid to the bottom of the boat opposite him, taking the cushion he handed her and putting it at her back. Then she carefully arranged her skirts so that they draped over her toes.

“I like your feet,” North said thoughtfully. His eyes narrowed. “Did you take off your shoes when Leonidas showed you the island?”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Diana said. She threw her head back and looked up at the maze of willow branches over them.

He had felt trapped by bed curtains and military tents, but this living tent felt right.

“Yes, I’m jealous,” he confirmed.

“I am not yours,” Diana said, keeping her eyes far above them.

He admired the long smooth line of her throat. Some of her hair had fallen from its bun and a strand or two trailed over the wooden seat, forcing him to imagine locks of her hair falling over his chest, winding around his arms, brushing . . .

Well.

“You’re my friend,” he said gruffly. “Alaric’s abroad, and Parth is in London. I trust you.”

She lowered her chin and leveled her gaze at him. “That says little for your intelligence, don’t you think? Has anyone other than myself told lies about you?”

“Probably not.” He reached over his head and stretched, enjoying his lack of a coat. “Except for those engravers who depicted me as a ravisher emerging from a trunk.”

“Would you mind if I put my feet on the seat beside your shoulder?”

He grinned at her. “The way I have done, without asking permission?”

There was a thread of erotic tension between them that grew hotter and tighter every time their eyes met. And when she stretched out long, slender legs and put her feet beside him?

The sight of Diana’s ankles jumbled his thoughts so much that all the blood in his body headed downward. He had to be careful and not frighten her. Though if that kiss hadn’t frightened her . . .

She slid farther down, so her head rested against the cushion. Her cheeks were pink and her lips had the curve, the laughing curve, that he remembered from when he first saw her.

How could he not have realized that she was grieving during their betrothal party? How blind had he been? In the last three days he had learned every curve of her face. If she felt miserable now, he would know.

“You have freckles,” he observed, because if they didn’t talk, he was going to pull her into his lap and probably capsize the boat.

“Yes, I do.”