There was nothing like this anywhere in London.
She looked to him. “Why?”
He looked away, to the water, black and tempting. “I told you. I like to swim.”
He hadn’t said that. He’d said he liked being clean. “There are other ways to swim.”
“It is best at night,” he said, ignoring the question. “When there is nothing but water and stars. Most of the time, I don’t light the lamps.”
“You feel your way,” she said.
He ran his hand down her arm, taking her hand in his. “Feeling is underrated.” He pulled her close and wrapped one arm around her waist. He kissed her, deep and lush, and she didn’t know if it was the heat of the room or the caress that made her lose thought.
No, she knew. It was the caress.
He pulled back. “Do you know how?”
It took a moment for her to understand. “I do.”
He watched her for a long moment, as though gauging the response to his inevitable question. As though wondering if he should risk her saying no.
As though she would ever say no.
“Would you like to swim, my lady?”
The honorific swirled around her, soft and full of promise. How much did it tempt her? How much did it make her wish for a moment, for this night, that she was his lady?
More than it should.
“This evening is going quite differently than I expected,” she said.
“And I.” He kissed her, quick and rough. “Discard the damn wig.”
Her hands were doing his bidding even as he moved away, to the wall of fireplaces, crouching down to stoke the flames of first one, and then the next. His instructions followed, she calculated that it would take him several minutes to set fires blazing in each of the six hearths, and so she sat, removing her shoes, her stockings, her drawers, setting each neatly to the side, until all that was left was the dress.
The dress she wore was designed for Anna, not Georgiana, and it did not require a maid for removing. It was structured with hidden catches and ties and an interior corset, all designed for ease of donning and doffing.
Though she wondered if the dressmaker who had performed this feat of fashionable engineering had ever imagined this particular moment, when the dress would find itself at the side of a swimming pool.
If all went well.
He turned from the last fire, facing her across the massive room, and she stood, watching as he returned to her, thoroughly focused on her, hunting her. She noticed his bare feet, and realized he’d taken a moment to remove his boots while he stoked the fire. He removed his jacket on the way, tossing it to the side, forgotten as he worked on his cravat, unraveling the long length of linen and letting it fall away. He did not take his gaze from her, and she did feel like prey.
No prey had ever wanted to be caught so well.
He reached her as he pulled his shirttails from his trousers, and she wondered at the comfort he had with the process. “Have you ever entertained here?” The question was out before she could stop it, and she wished to God she could have stopped it.
This night, it meant nothing. It was not forever. It was for now.
So she should not care if he had other women here. In this magnificent, extravagant, ridiculous room.
“I have not,” he said, and the pleasure that came with the words – with the knowledge that he told the truth – was acute.
He removed his shirt then, pulling it over his head, revealing a long, sinewed torso, all curves and crevices. Her mouth went dry. No man outside of classical sculpture should look this way. No man outside of classical sculpture did look this way.
Poseidon flashed again, and she resisted the silly thought.
But she did not stop looking.
Until he reached for the falls of his trousers, his fingers working the buttons there, and she could not look any longer. Her gaze found his face, his gaze all knowing, as though he was in her head. As though he knew she had compared him to Poseidon in her thoughts.
He was an insufferable man.
“You are overdressed.”
She willed the embarrassment away. She’d agreed to this moment, had she not? To this night? And she was Anna, was she not? Experienced in all things. In every way a woman should be.
It did not matter that the last was a slight fabrication.
Fine. A significant fabrication.
She had the dress to bear it out. And it was the clothes that made the man, was it not? In Duncan West’s case, it seemed the clothes did him a disservice, but that was not the point.
She took a deep breath. Shored up her courage.
And dropped the dress, baring everything to him.
Later, when she was not so embarrassed, she would laugh at the memory of his response – shocked to the core that she’d been able to undress without help and looking as though he’d received a very firm, very serious blow to the head.
But laughter was very far from her mind at the moment. Her mind was too occupied with embarrassment. And nervousness. And awareness of all the oddly shaped, strangely stretched bits that she usually kept under pretty, silk wraps. And the keen, unsettling combination of desire and terror.
So she did what any self-respecting nude woman would do in the same situation. She turned and dove into the dark pool.
She surfaced a handful of yards away from the edge, marveling at the temperature of the water, like a cool summer bath. She turned to face the spot where she’d entered, to find him there, watching her, hands at his hips.
Naked.
She tried not to look. She really did.
But it was rather difficult to miss.