even as the need surged to scratch and kick at him until he was bruised and bloody. “Please leave, Mr. Evans.”
“Wild horses couldn’t tear me away, Miss Barrett.” He stepped closer. “Given how our acquaintance has advanced this evening, can’t you bring yourself to call me Christopher?”
“I can bring myself to call you a self-serving rat,” she said coldly. He remained a few feet away, but that seemed too close. She retreated another unsteady pace, the grass scratching her bare feet.
“Aren’t you cold?”
“I can’t dress with you here.”
Moonlight silvered his features into beguiling black and white. “I could promise not to look.”
“You could demonstrate some honor and go.” She struggled to sound defiant. This was the most mortifying thing that had ever happened to her. And she had nobody to blame for this catastrophe but herself. How could she have been so foolhardy as to chance a swim when she knew Mr. Evans watched her like a buzzard watched a field mouse?
“Or I could just turn my back.” He suited actions to words.
For a fraught moment, she stared at him. She couldn’t trust him, but nor could she stand here covered in a strip of linen. She let the sodden towel drop and hurriedly tugged her old muslin dress over her head, fastening it with shaking hands.
“Can I turn around?”
“Yes,” she said sullenly, although she was angrier at herself than him. He’d only followed the dictates of his rodent nature. She should have known better than to come here.
“Do you feel better?” he asked neutrally, although the way his gaze ran over her body made her feel naked again. She resisted the urge to shield herself with her hands.
“Why did you follow me?” Although the answer was no mystery. He’d flirted with her from the first. Even without her flaunting herself, he’d leap at any chance to get her alone.
“I thought you met a lover.” The edge in his statement made her frown in consternation.
“I don’t have a lover,” she said quickly, before remembering that her swains weren’t Mr. Evans’s concern.
He arched one eyebrow in a fashion that made her shiver. Not with cold. “I could fill the position.”
This time she didn’t bother to conceal her retreat. “If my father knew you pestered me—”
“Do you intend to tell him?” he asked, as if her answer was of purely casual interest.
“Yes.” Although how could she? Anyone would say she’d asked for trouble by being out here. Anyone would be right.
Something dangerous flashed in Mr. Evans’s eyes. The breath caught in her throat and she chanced another step back, only to slosh into the pond. The shock of cool water around her ankles made her gasp. She stumbled as her bare toes sank into the mud. Mr. Evans moved swiftly to catch her arm and save her from a spill.
“Careful.” He spoke softly. She realized that he always did. Uncanny how much power that quiet voice exerted.
“Let me go.” She hated her breathlessness. She hated the easy confidence of his hold—and its radiating heat. She hated the way her nipples tightened painfully against her bodice. Fumbling, she raised her skirts above the water. She tried to wrench free, but his grip remained adamant.
“Seeing I’m to be hanged anyway, it may as well be for a sheep as a lamb,” he said thoughtfully.
Her belly dipped with dread and her knees wobbled. “What … what do you mean?”
He always watched her, but this time his gaze felt different. This felt like he placed his mark on her, claimed her in some atavistic way. “I want to kiss you.”
“You can’t.” Although if it cost only a few kisses to escape this disaster, she should be grateful.
“Indeed I can,” he said with one of those flashing smiles that always set her heart pounding. This time, her heart already pounded nineteen to the dozen. With fear, she told herself staunchly. Definitely not with anticipation.
“I … I won’t let you.”
Another laugh. Warm and lazily amused. He lifted his hand and stepped back. “Then by all means, return to the vicarage.”
She frowned, not leaving the water. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“Then I wish you good night, Mr. Evans,” she said crisply, still not trusting him but desperate to escape.
Ignoring his proffered hand, she splashed out of the pond. She’d emerge unscathed from this encounter. Which was more than she deserved. Keeping a careful eye on him, she edged toward the trees, her sopping hem slapping her ankles.
She’d almost reached the woods before he spoke. “Such a pity.”
Trembling, she turned. Moonlight transformed him into a statue of silver and ebony. She’d survived twenty-five years happily oblivious to masculine splendor, but something about Mr. Evans made her heart skip a beat. Then another. He might be rotten to the core, but he was disgustingly picturesque.
A bristling silence built and her skin tightened with longing that she refused to examine. Safety beckoned. Still she poised in the shadows. Night scents filled her nostrils, strangely seductive.
Eventually curiosity won out. “What’s a pity?”
He tilted his hip, standing with a loose-limbed elegance that made her pulses race. “That you’re such a coward, my dear.”
“I’m not your dear,” she said automatically.
“I suggest a little harmless flirtation and you retreat to your books and dry old men. For shame, Miss Barrett. I thought better of you.”
He’s taunting you. He just wants you back within pouncing distance. Go while you can.
“I have no intention of being ruined,” she said coldly, while a sensation as far removed from cold as possible rushed through her veins.
“You have my word that I’ll stop at kisses.” He considered her thoughtfully. “Have you been kissed?”
Dear Lord. She felt giddy as forbidden images flooded her traitorous mind. “Mr. Evans, I’m twenty-five years old. It would be very sad if I haven’t.”
She’d hesitated too long. His features sharpened and his stare burned. Heaven help her, he guessed her embarrassing lack of experience. Although the lack only seemed an embarrassment in his company. Her flimsy dress felt invisible. From now until the end of time, she could never forget that he’d seen her as no other man ever had.
She waited for some derisive comment. But he merely nodded once as though confirming a theory. “Ah.”
God above, what did that mean?
Run. Run.
“Men have wanted to kiss me,” she said defensively, moving from one foot to the other but unable to convince those feet to remove her from this discomfiting conversation.
“I’m sure,” he said softly.
She expected mockery but detected none. “I haven’t wanted to kiss them.”
“That may change once you discover how good a kiss can be.”
“With you?” She wanted to sound sarcastic, but the words emerged as barely contained curiosity.
He shrugged, looking irritatingly at ease with himself as he folded his arms across his powerful chest. “Why not? I profess some skill and you’re quite safe.”
“Said the spider to the fly.”
She shifted restlessly, only stopping