All tosh, of course.
That dramatic article had given Ophelia pause, and she’d been unable able to ignore her doubts. At long last, she’d come to the river to check her theory. The way the river had tugged at her body, urging it downstream, had answered her query.
“It would be impossible for a model to remain in one place in the river long enough for Mr. Millais to paint her,” she said.
“True.” He eyed her and then the river. “So you aren’t trying to top yourself, then?”
“I beg your pardon?” she exclaimed, shocked he would give voice to such an accusation.
He shrugged, a seductively easy gesture given that raw power rippled from him. “You are standing nigh waist-deep, fully clothed, in a river. One might draw certain conclusions.”
“Do I truly look determined to die?” she countered, horrified anyone might think she’d so entirely given up. Surely he couldn’t see the darkness of her thoughts.
He bit his full lower lip. Considering. “No. But you must forgive me for saying that there is a decided air of sadness about your person.”
Her throat tightened, and she had to fight to speak. “Is there?”
No one had ever said such a thing to her. Everyone else had always said how well she’d borne up under such circumstances as she’d been handed.
“Mmm.” The stranger narrowed his eyes, studying her slowly from the top of her head to where the water lapped at the gown now plastered to her thighs. “It’s almost beautiful, your sadness.”
“Beautiful?” she scoffed. This dark angel called her beautiful? Where was the trick? She knew quite well she was only passing fair. Odd-looking might be the better phrase.
“I hate to admit the truth of it, but your soul resonates, my dear, with a melancholy that is quite seductive. If I were a better man, I should determine to save you.”
A delicious hunger to be a foolish young girl saved by this man danced through her head. How tempting it would be. How dangerous. “But you are not. . .”
“Would you mind getting out?” he said abruptly.
She’d longed to say,
a better man?
To hear him confess his wickedness. “Pardon?”
“You’re making me exceedingly uncomfortable.” He shifted on his booted feet impatiently, a stallion ready to bolt. “Given the autumn air which has come upon us and the setting of the sun, the water must be cold.”
“It is.”
His eyes widened. “And?”
She tilted her chin up, unsure if she wished him to disappear as quickly as he’d come and leave her to her reverie. No. . . That was not what she wished at all. “And what?”
“For you to linger, there must be an
and
.”
“It feels. . .” She glanced down at the river water swirling past her in its staid, ancient fashion, taking in her own shadowed face reflected by the water, then looked back up to her dark angel. “Well, it feels as if I’ve been embraced, if you must know.”
She searched for words, struck by the oddity of such a conversation. Where were the banalities that had filled her days, even while emotion had stormed beneath her plain words? She drew in a slow breath, then said, “By something rather eternal.”
“Oh God,” he sighed.
That brief, warm moment she’d felt in the hope of a familiar soul vanished under his condescending noise. “Now what?”
He shook his head, dark hair brushing his broad shoulders. “I left London to escape this bloody romanticism nonsense and now here you are, a walking
manifesto
of romanticism.”
“Just go then.” It was strange, the emptiness in her heart at his dismissal of her daring admission. “Leave me here. I was quite contented—”
“Don’t you dare lie.” That dark brow of his seemed to thunder now, all mockery absent from his person. A person which seemed to claim all the chill air around him. “That is not part of your manifesto, is it, Ophelia?”
“How do you know my name?” she whispered, buying time. Buying breath against the way his very gaze heated her skin against the chill water sliding past her to some unseen sea.
“My dear, what other name could you have, waist-deep in languid water, the name of John Millais just upon your lips?”
She gasped in understanding.
He meant the
character
. From Shakespeare. The young lady who drowned herself after Prince Hamlet forsook her. A smile parted her lips. An unbidden gesture that surprised her as greatly as her own silly fancy that he had somehow known her from some eternal moment though they had never met. “My name actually is Ophelia, if you must know.”
“Truly?” Now a smile, devilish and hot, played at his own lips. “You do not make jest of this poor mortal?”
“I do not, and from the cut of your clothes you are no poor mortal, sir, but one of great esteem.”
He laughed. A booming, dark sound that should have shaken the trees and called Thor’s clouds to race in upon her. The only thing that shook seemed to be her usually fixed, analytical resolve when it came to the masculine sex.
“You are correct,” he said.
“Are you like Ophelia’s Hamlet, then? A prince?”
“Come away from the river, and I shall make myself known.”
“Ah, but he betrayed her in the end,” she countered. “I am most likely safer in the river.”
A distinctly sober look darkened his eyes. “Perhaps, but in betraying her he threw away any chance at happiness he ever had. For what? To avenge the death of his father? He should have chosen Ophelia.”
She was being pulled again toward this strange man. Her foot slid forward over the slick stones. She was determined to learn who he was, one half feeling mad like her namesake for feeling no fear of his presence and the other half terrified that he should evoke such feelings so quickly in her unconquered being.
“Good, my lady fair, give up your watery abode.”
Ophelia squared her shoulders, determined that he should know she was no foolish, wavering miss. “Oh, sir, I should never make the river my home. For unlike the lady of the story, I have not known what it is to live.”
CHAPTER TWO
Mysterious men are well and good
upon the page. They are not to be trusted in life
unless one is quite willing to risk their soul.
-Ophelia’s Notebook
Andrew Colton, Viscount Stark, clutching the bottle in his fist, stared at the incandescent fae woman in the river and didn’t know whether to curse the heavens or get down on his knees and thank God that his boyhood friend, the Marquis of Vane, had not been there to greet him when he arrived at the estate this morning.
Because if Vane
had
been there, Andrew would never have gone for such a long walk to fortify himself before their meeting. And he most certainly would have never come across such a gloriously odd sight.
Stunned by her immersion in the river, he lifted the bottle of gin and took a swig. It tasted foul on his tongue. Oh, not because it shocked his palate. He was far too inundated in a sea of abuses to be bothered, but because the woman in the river suddenly struck him as a tonic far better than what floated in the green glass receptacle favored by artists and the damned.
She’d certainly proved a distraction from his concerns over his absent friend.
The young woman glided slowly through the swirling water, her dark skirts almost black as she slowly emerged. Her red- gold hair hung down her back like liquid fire, and a halo of light spun about her face. A trick of the light surely, or had he truly come upon a fiery seraphim?
The brilliance of her green eyes suggested the latter. In fact, he half-expected her to pull a glittering sword out of the water and proclaim, “I have come for your soul, sinner.”
Perhaps he really should cease drinking gin.
Suddenly, her fierce countenance softened into one of shock, and she slid down, abruptly plunging beneath the surface. She hit the water with a splash, drops of liquid spraying up into the crisp autumn air.
For one horrifying moment, her hands flailed and her fiery hair licked over the water. He tossed the bottle to the ground and vaulted into the river.
It took him only a moment to grab her shoulders and haul her up. A wave of cold water crashed over him, and his teeth clacked together.
As he lifted her free, she gasped for air. Her thick hair plastered her face, and he carefully wiped it away from her pale cheeks.
She gasped for air, her whole body shaking with cold and likely shock. A horrified laugh passed her lips.
Holding her slight form in his arms, he felt his heart beat so hard he was sure it would presently ram through his chest. “What could hold such amusement?” he demanded.
“I nearly met my namesake’s fate.”
“Yes,” he said calmly, though his blood raced through his veins with fear. If she’d slipped too far, or hit her head on the stones beneath. . . He’d have lost her before he’d even known her, and that one thought inexplicably terrified him. “Ophelias should stay far away from rivers.”
She nodded, dewy drops of water flicking from her hair. “I shall recall that in future.”
Andrew swept her up into his arms, not giving a tinker’s damn for the freezing water that sluiced his frame. She’d been mad as a hatter to descend into the cold water. Now that she’d been thoroughly doused, she surely risked infection.
In a few powerful strides, he had her up on the loamy bank. The trees that arched above them, their branches delicately whispering with their fading leaves, still provided shade. An unwanted thing at present, because he and Ophelia needed the last warmth of the setting sun. “Do you live near at hand?”
“A few miles.”
“Good God, woman. What possessed you to catch your death so far from home? And without anyone here to make sure you didn’t drown?”
She scowled, a seemingly favorite expression of hers. “And who are you to question my behavior at such short acquaintance?”
He opened his mouth to give a terse reply, but no logical one came to mind. Why did he care? Before he could give it thought, he said softly, “Because someone must take care of you.”
She opened then closed her mouth, and her scowl softened for the hint of a moment before she said tersely, “And do you propose yourself?”
“At this time, I am the only one present.”
“I can take care of myself,” she said, defiantly squaring her chin.
Ah. He’d hit a nerve. “I have no doubt, but do you not grow exhausted from such endeavors?”
She brought her hand to her mouth, covering her pink lips, and suddenly her shockingly emerald gaze shimmered, and she glared at him as if his words had been blades meant to cut her heart.
So, that was it. No one took care of his fiery seraphim, and she was overwhelmed. “Come on then, Ophelia. For now, you’ll do as I say.”
She arched a red brow. “Shall I?”
“Mmm. You shall, because it’s high time someone shouldered whatever great burden it is that you carry.”
“You’re a perfect stranger.”
“I came upon you for a reason, or are you one of those strange modern people who believe that all is at random?” He stroked back a lock of damp hair clinging to her cheek. “That there is no order, and that the soul is a figment of our desperate pinings for meaning to our seemingly meaningless world?”
“You speak the words of a poet,” she whispered.
“And you shall have consumption if we don’t get you out of these soaked garments.” He set her down, making certain her feet had found purchase upon the soft earth before turning her and working at the lacings of her gown.
“What are you doing?” she gasped.
“Ensuring you don’t die of exposure.”
“By taking
off
my frock?”
“Yes, and giving you my coat.” His usually sure fingers stumbled over the lacings. How many women had he extricated from their far more elaborate clothes? More than he could ever recall. But this woman? Trepidation dumbed his movements. “Then I shall see you home. Is that acceptable?”
She hesitated then replied, “It seems logical.”
“I am nothing if not logical,” he teased.
“I somehow doubt that, sir.”
“My lord, actually,” he corrected.
“I beg your pardon?”
Slowly, carefully, painfully, he worked the laces of her bodice, not daring to allow his fingers to wander over her delicate back as he exposed her flesh. With each inch of damp undergarment he exposed, he found his brain flying off and something quite different taking over his actions. And it wasn’t exactly lust. Lust he knew quite well, and this burning was not just one of bodily desire, but the mystifying possibility that he had found a better reflection to his damaged soul. Could fate be at work here? The circumstances certainly were remarkable.
He leaned in, bending his head down to accommodate for the several inches of difference in their heights, and whispered, “My lord Viscount Stark, if you must know.”
She tensed but didn’t pull from his grasp. “How fortunate for you, my lord viscount.”