A Hint of Wicked

by Jennifer Haymore

  Her heart thudded in a dull cadence, heavy in her chest. Excitement flushed her skin under the coarse wool of her dress. Would he be there today? He wasn’t yesterday, but she’d seen him twice in the past week, swimming in the small lake created by the ruin of a dam that had once formed the castle moat.

  The air grew warmer and close. Branches cracked under her feet, and leaves rustled. The faint drone of insects hummed in the air as twilight approached. She’d taken the long way, and it’d be full dark by the time she arrived home, but she cared about that just about as much as she cared about her wet feet and mud-soaked hem. Not a whit. She slowed as the creek turned northward, and with her lower lip trapped between her teeth, she focused on placing her footfalls so her steps would be quiet. A splash sounded in the distance, and Kate halted and looked up. Beyond a thick copse of greenery just ahead, the pool glimmered in the gathering dusk, its surface rippling. Someone had just dived in. He had just dived in.

  Kate swallowed hard and crept forward, crouching so he wouldn’t see her behind the cluster of brambles and bushes.

  She ducked behind a particularly dense bush at the water’s edge and peeked around it. Just as the waves on the pool’s surface began to settle, he emerged from the depths with his back to her. He rose until the water lapped eagerly at his narrow waist. For the tiniest fraction of a second, she wished she could be that water.

  His thick shoulder rippled with muscle as he reached up to thrust a hand through glistening blond hair.

  Surely this man couldn’t be human. He was perfectly built—like one of the gods she’d learned about when she spied on Mama reading to her brothers. Tall, muscular, his skin bronzed from the sun, as hard and beautiful and intimidating as Apollo himself. He shook his head, sending blond shoulder-length curls flying and a cascade of golden drops showering into the water. Then he dove again, his taut—and quite shockingly bare—

  backside emerging from the water before his entire body disappeared beneath the surface. The god-man swam like a fish. Perhaps he wasn’t Apollo at all, though he rather looked like she’d always imagined Apollo. Perhaps he was Poseidon—a young, clean-shaven Poseidon. Perhaps this time when he emerged, he’d be carrying his golden trident. She held her breath, waiting, frozen.

  Kate had been born at Kenilworth and raised at Debussey Manor, and she knew without a doubt this man didn’t hail from these parts. What was he doing here? And why did he come here—this place that had been her secret spot for so many years—to bathe? The sight of him, and his very strong, very naked body, was so far removed from her realm of reality that it didn’t seem all too far-fetched to think that a lightning bolt had deposited him straight from Olympus.

  He rose from the water again, this time farther away but facing her. She stared in fascination at the jagged scar near his waist, and when her gaze traveled up his solid torso and over his rugged face, she saw the second scar, a terrible knot glaring red just above his left eyebrow.

  The scars, the imperfections on his otherwise perfect form, shot home the fact that this was not a god, but a very human man indeed. A man who’d seen, experienced, and ultimately survived terrible things.

  He rubbed the water out of his eyes and opened them. The sky blue orbs settled directly on her.

  She jerked her head behind the bush, gulping back a gasp. Her heart thumped in her ears. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of her face. Controlling her breaths, she froze in her crouched position and squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t move, because now he’d surely hear her. Her best option was to remain quiet, hidden behind the bush, and pray he hadn’t seen her.

  She should fear this giant, intimidating man, but that wasn’t why she prayed he hadn’t seen her. No, she prayed he hadn’t seen her because if he had, she wouldn’t be able to watch his sculpted nude body anymore.

  She let out a long, silent sigh through pursed lips. It was the undeniable truth. As much as she’d fought against it, she was hopelessly and thoroughly debauched. If not in body, at least in thought. The man could be a murderer or a lunatic, and all she cared about was spying on him naked.

  Not only was she debauched, she was an idiot.

  Perhaps he hadn’t seen her. He had just opened his eyes after being submerged in water, and surely it would take a second or two for him to focus on something as far away as her. And with her brown hair and brown dress, she blended into the landscape like a chameleon.

  She’d stay hidden for a few moments, then make a hasty, as-quiet-as-possible retreat. Keeping her eyes closed, she hugged her knees to her chest and counted to a hundred. All was silent for a while, but when she reached sixty, splashing resumed from the direction of the pond. Clearly he’d resumed his sport.

  Ninety-nine. One hundred.

  She released a relieved breath and raised her lids.

  Impossibly, the man, now dressed in a loose white shirt and leather breeches, sat on his haunches an arm’s length away. She blinked several times in disbelief, trying to clear her vision as he gazed at her with narrowed blue eyes, a frown creasing his handsome face. Rivulets of water streamed from his golden hair and plastered his shirt to his broad, imposing shoulders.

  He’d been watching her. Spying on her in silence—probably throwing pebbles into the water to mislead her.

  With a squeal of fright, Kate stumbled to her feet. Her legs caught in her skirts, but she kicked them free. Brambles clawed at her dress, ripping the fabric as she lunged away. She’d gone no farther than two steps when he clapped an arm around her waist and yanked her back. She stumbled and would have fallen had his hard body not ensnared her like a net.

  Kate trembled all over. Small, pathetic whimpers bubbled from her throat as she futilely tried to twist away.

  His warm, damp torso pressed against her back. He smelled fresh and clean, like hay drying in the sunlight, with some underlying male musk she instinctually recognized as purely his. His arm crossed over the front of her chest, pinning her against him. The lock of his embrace rendered her utterly helpless.

  “Who are you?” he demanded. He bent his head, and the trace of beard on his jaw scraped against the shell of her ear. “And why were you watching me?”

  His voice, low and rough, stroked over her body like a coarse towel, causing every inch of Kate’s skin to explode into flame.

  Panic wouldn’t help her now. She must stave it off, be as brave as a knight battling a rampaging dragon. For several moments, trapped in the steel of the stranger’s arms, she worked to control her gasping breaths and to stop her limbs from shaking like autumn leaves in a gale.

  When she finally had reined in her foolish feminine impulses, she sucked in a lungful of air. Staring straight over the pool, now glowing purple in the twilight, she said, “My name is Katherine, sir. I’m very glad to meet you. Lovely evening, isn’t it?”