Vixen

Chapter 15

"TT 'm sure there's a simple answer to this, lass, but just why do you never wear shoes these days?" JL Hugo regarded his ward's bare feet as she came into the kitchen from the orchard. The memory of her grass-stained soles of the previous day was still vivid.

"Because I don't have any," she responded simply, taking an apple from the basket and rubbing it against her skirt.

"What do you mean, you don't have any? Of course you have shoes."

"Only brown serge kind of shoes," she explained, scrunching into the apple. "Clumpy half boots that look silly with this dress."

"The dress looks as if it could do with a wash," he observed. "It looks as if you've been mucking out the stables in it."

"Oh, it's just from Rosinante and the dust from the stillroom," she said, flicking carelessly at a smudge on her muslin skirt. "I was trying to encourage Plato to eat one of Beatrice's mice, but I think he's too young. I'll have to dig up worms for him."

"That will certainly improve the condition of your gown," Hugo said dryly. "However, I think we'd better have another shopping trip to see about shoes."

"And a riding hat," Chloe reminded him. "I lost the other one at St. Peter's Fields. I've a mind to purchase a shako. I saw a woman wearing one in Bolton once. It looked very dashing."

"A shako!" Hugo groaned. "You're far too small for such a style, lass."

"Stuff," Chloe declared. "It'll make me look taller. Are we to go this morning?"

"We might as well get it over with," Hugo said.

"Then I'll change into my habit."

"Give me strength," Hugo muttered as the door closed on her energetic departure. "A shako! What the hell's she's going to come up with next'"

"Reckon as 'ow ye'U be able to steer 'er right," Samuel observed, biting off a length of thread. He held up the shirt he'd been mending and shook his head. "Ye'd do as well to buy yerself a new shirt. This one's more patches than anythin'."

"Not with the farrier to pay," Hugo said, getting to his feet. He sighed. "Ah, well, into the breach, I suppose. Wish me luck, Samuel."

Samuel gave him a dry smile. "If n ye think ye needs it."

Hugo's answering smile was rueful. "Oh, make no mistake, Samuel, I'm going to need all the luck in the world to steer a safe path through this maze."

Neither of them was referring to the shopping expedition. Hugo rarely had to tell the old sailor anything directly. His friend missed little of what went on around him.

"Tell the lass to bring down that gown and I'll wash it while yer gone."

"I hardly think it's your place to do her laundry," Hugo said, frowning.

"Right 'andy she is wi' the animals," Samuel said, "but I don't reckon they taught 'er much about washin' an' flat irons in that seminary. She 'ad enough trouble washin' the curtains from 'er room… and she didn't know one end of the iron from t'other, as I recall."

"No, I don't imagine an heiress with eighty thousand

pounds would have been expected to learn the finer arts of domesticity," Hugo said. "But then, I don't imagine such an heiress would expect to be living in quite such spartan surroundings either."

"She's 'appy enough," Samuel said gruffly.

"Are you talking about me?" Chloe's clear voice came from the doorway and both men turned toward her.

"Yes, we were," Hugo said calmly. "Samuel is offering to wash your gown."

"Oh, no, I couldn't let you do that." She crossed the kitchen.

She danced rather than walked, Hugo thought, watching as she bent and kissed Samuel's cheek. And what an amazing capacity for love and friendship, a capacity until now starved of recipients except the lonely, injured, and unloved of the animal kingdom.

"Nonsense," Samuel said, his ruddy cheek glowing. "Just fetch it down 'ere and then get along wi' ye. I've enough to do wi'out all this argumentation."

"Do as he says, lass," Hugo said. "And then let's get moving."

Purple shoes with gold rosettes and three-inch heels, Samuel!" Hugo flung himself into a chair at the kitchen table. "And the hats… you would not believe how many milliners we had to visit before we found a hat that the lass liked and I was prepared to tolerate."

He shook his head, massaging his temples. "There was a cartwheel of straw and tulle… you have never seen its like… but the shako… Dear God, I thought we were going to come to blows over that. Can you imagine what such a minute creature would look like in purple shoes and a foot-high shako with a monstrous dyed scarlet plume?"

"The shoes were lovely," Chloe said indignantly.

"Don't take any notice of him, Samuel. They were the most beautiful shoes I've ever seen, and Hugo is the stuffiest, primmest, most… most old-fashioned stick-in-the-mud!"

Perched on the table, she extended one dainty foot and examined with a grimace of disgust the bronze kid slipper enclosing it. "Look at this, it's so boring."

"It's tasteful," Hugo said. "And elegant."

"It's boring, isn't it, Samuel?"

"Don't bring me into this," Samuel said, stirring the contents of a pot on the lugpole. "I don't know nothin' about such flimflam."

"And I don't like the hat nearly as much as the one I lost." Chloe glared at her guardian. From her point of view, it had not been a successful shopping expedition, and Hugo had shown a dismaying propensity to behave as if their relationship had not changed dramatically as a result of the previous morning's activities.

"Well, you shouldn't have lost the other one, lass," he said, refusing to be drawn. "No one forced you into the midst of a melee, as I recall."

"Oh, yes, they did! Crispin and Jasper did."

"But who chose to be so forced?" His eyebrows lifted and his smile was slightly mocking.

"Oh, you make me so cross sometimes!" Chloe jumped off the table. "I'm going to feed Plato."

"Hey! Not in those slippers," Hugo protested as she stalked to the kitchen door. "You are not going to dig up worms in kid slippers. They cost a small fortune."

"The sooner they're ruined, the sooner I can buy a new pair."

The silly challenge fell into a stony silence, and Chloe bit her lip, her cheeks warming as she heard her petulance. In a subdued voice she said, "I'll put on my clunky boots."

As she passed him on her way to the hall door, Hugo

reached out and caught her around the hips, drawing her dose to his chair. "Don't be cross, lass. I really do know better than you." He smiled up at her, his eyes crinkling with amusement and something else that she couldn't yet read with fluency.

"But you don't know what I like better than I do."

"Oh, I think I might take you up on that later," he said softly. "You might well be surprised."

Her knees were suddenly weak, and the day's irritations faded as if they'd never been. His arm tightened around her, his hand flattening on her thigh, and she drew a shaky breath.

"I do like surprises."

He laughed and released her with a light pat. "Find your clunky boots and see to that owl. Samuel's dinner won't wait."

Chloe recovered her good humor with habitual speed and, Plato having been fed, came to the table with a ready hunger. Samuel carved a leg of mutton, ladled boiled potatoes, green peas, and parsnips onto her plate and set it before her as she took her usual seat at the side of the long table.

"Would you like a glass of wine with that, lass?" Hugo raised a questioning eyebrow as he was about to take his own seat at the head of the table.

Chloe shook her head and gave him a quick smile. "No, thank you, just water."

"I think Samuel's dinner deserves accompaniment," Hugo said calmly. "Fetch two glasses." He took the cellar key from the wall and went down.

Chloe looked anxiously at Samuel, who shrugged slightly and said, "Do as 'e says, I should."

She took two wineglasses from the dresser and then stood at the table, uncertain where to place them.

Hugo came up with a bottle of claret. "You and Samuel, lass," he said with a slight smile, pulling the cork.

Deliberately, he examined the cork, sniffed it, nodded, placed it on the table, and filled their glasses. Then he sat down and began to eat.

A collective easing of tension rippled around the table. Hugo had set himself a test and had passed it.

Chloe helped Samuel with the dishes while Vivaldi filled the house from the library; they could both hear the harmony in Hugo's soul as it flowed from his fingers.

Afterward she went into the library and stood behind him, one hand lightly clasping his neck. He looked over his shoulder and smiled at her. "You're tired. You had a long ride. Why don't you go up to bed?"

"I'm not tired," she denied, spoiling the effect with a deep yawn.

Hugo laughed. "No, of course you're not. Go on upstairs." His voice softened. "I'll come up and wake you later."

Some instinctive wisdom told her that she couldn't insist that he accompany her, nor could she stay with him until he was ready. Hugo had too dense a thicket around himself for such a new relationship to penetrate. She had no rights of possession, no right to intrude on his privacy. His age and experience demanded that she respect his ruling on the time, the place, and the manner in which they conducted their liaison.

"Promise?"

He reached up, cupped the back of her head, and pulled her face down to his, kissing her firmly. "Promise. I'll play you a lullaby."

"But I dont want to go to sleep yet."

"Didn't I say I'd wake you?"

She nodded and left, the soft strains of a nursery lullaby, cleverly varied by the pianist, accompanying her up the stairs and drifting through her open window as she undressed.

She hadn't expected to fall asleep, but the music worked its magic and within minutes she was sleeping peacefully.

Samuel took himself to bed soon after, and Hugo continued to play for himself, softly now so as not to disturb the sleepers, enjoying the quiet of the house, the knowledge of the sleeping girl waiting for his waking touch, the satisfaction of another day's battle fought and won.

Across the courtyard, three dark-clad figures ran in a huddled crouch, hugging the shadows. The side of the house overlooking the courtyard was in darkness, and they couldn't hear the now-muted strains of the piano from the library, where only a single candle cast its light.

Silently, one of the three lifted the latch on the stable and they crept inside. A horse shuffled in the straw, whickered in alarm at the scent of strangers. The three moved fast, piling straw in a corner of the building. Flint scraped on tinder, a yellow flare lit the cobwebbed corners, threw an outsize shadow of a horse's head on the wall.

The yellow flare was put to the pile of dry straw. A horse whickered again, a panicky sound as the smell of burning filled the confined space.

The three figures backed out of the building, latching the door behind them. Then they flew across the courtyard, no longer worrying about hugging the shadows, and disappeared into the underbrush along the driveway.

The straw caught, but it burned slowly at first. Thanks to Billy's lack of husbandry, it was mixed with wet straw that had been moldering in the kennel.

Hugo caught the faint smell of smoke from the open library window at the same time one of the horses

screamed in tenor. The scream woke Chloe instantly, and as instantly she recognized the sound.

She was out of bed and down the stairs without thinking. Hugo was already wrenching at the locks on the side door as she raced across the hall.

"What is it?"

"Fire," he said curtly.

"What the 'ell's goin' oa'" Samuel, pulling on his britches over his nightshirt, hopped down the stairs.

But Hugo had the door open and was out in the courtyard. Smoke poured thick and black through the open stable window and wreathed under the door. The stamping of hooves and the high-pitched, terrified screaming rent the air in a horrific cacophony.

"Get back!" Hugo bellowed as Chloe bobbed up beside him. "And stay out of the way!"

Chloe jumped back obediently as he wrenched open the door, leaping to one side as he did so. Flame licked out at them, and the roaring and crackling of the straw pile added a hellish din to the already ear-splitting noise of terror.

Hugo covered his face with his arm and plunged into the smoke. He knew where each of the horses was stabled. The bolts on the stalls were too hot to touch, and his fingers blistered as he hauled them open. The animals were not tethered, but they were too terrified to find their own way through the smoke and flame.

He grabbed the mane of his own black stallion and dragged the terrified animal out of the stall, praying one of the powerful hooves wouldn't fell him as the beast reared and plunged. But as he smelled the fresh air, he charged forward, knocking Hugo to his knees as he raced into the courtyard.

Samuel was- beside Hugo now, wrenching at the bolts of the other stalls. It was impossible to see anything now, and they were guided by the screams and stamp-

ing hooves. Hugo could smell his own hair singeing, his skin was burning, his nostrils like cinders, his lungs heaving with the lack of air.

Dapple was released. Samuel was struggling with one of the two hunters, both of which were too terrified to find their way out of the stalls. Suddenly Chloe was beside him. She had the hunter by the mane and was leading him around, her voice, choked with smoke, speaking to him with a desperate urgency that was still somehow quiet and soothing. She pointed him toward the opening and slapped his rump.

As he lunged forward, she left Samuel and was stumbling down the aisle, her head buried in the sleeve of her nightgown. Her chestnut was at the far end of the aisle, with Rosinante. She could free only one of them.

The chestnut was young and inexperienced. He resisted all her efforts to lead him. By now her head was about to explode, her lungs were on fire, and she knew she was going to lose consciousness. With a last effort born of desperation, she scrambled halfway up the scorching wooden rail of the stall and fell forward on the gelding's back. Somehow, she got one leg over and kicked hard with her bare heels against his flanks, steering him out of the stall. The gelding exploded out of the stall and out of the stable into the courtyard.

Hugo was staring frantically around the courtyard as the released horses milled and stamped and whinnied. It was a bright night, the moon hanging full and round, low in the sky. Billy had appeared now, his face white in the moonlight, his usually vacuous expression a terrified blank. But Chloe was nowhere to be seen.

"Chloe!" Hugo bellowed in desperate fear just as the chestnut hurtled out of the burning building, his eyes rolling, lips pulled back over great yellow teeth.

"Goddammit!" Hugo yelled, his fear turning to rage. He grabbed Chloe by the waist and swung her off the

horse, holding her in midair. Her eyebrows and the wisps of hair on her forehead were singed, and black tears of pain and desperation streaked down her smoke-blackened cheeks.

"Of all the lunatic, reckless things to do," he raged. "I told you to stay back." He shook her as he held her off the ground, beside himself with terror-induced fury.

"I had to rescue Petrarch," she cried as impassioned as he. "Petrarch was still in there! I couldn't leave him."

"Petrarch?" For a moment he was bewildered, then he understood. The damn chestnut had finally been christened. "I was just going in for him," he declared, setting her on her feet with a jarring thump.

"But he couldn't wait!" she cried, rubbing her tears with the back of her hand, smudging her face with black. "I couldn't wait for you… And Rosinante… he's still there." She dived suddenly beneath his arm and raced to the stable, ignoring everything he'd just said.

"Chloe! Come back here!" He lunged and caught her arm, spinning her away from the burning building. "Didn't you hear a word I said?" He almost threw her backward into Samuel's arms. "Don't let go of her!" Then he dived once more into the smoke-filled stable, stumbling down the aisle, crouching low to the ground. By the time he reached the end stall, his lungs were about to burst and he was blinded with smoke. The heat was so fierce, he could feel his clothes beginning to smolder, scalding his flesh.

Somehow, he grabbed the mane of the enfeebled nag. The hair was burning to the touch and he could smell the animal's scorched hide. He hauled him backward out of the building, thankful that the years of deprivation had reduced the beast to a weight that he could physically control.

He staggered into the yard just as his lungs were

about to yield to the smoke. Rosinante buckled at the knees and fell to the cobbles, where he lay on his side, his flanks heaving, foam bubbling from his mouth, his eyes rolling.

Chloe dropped beside the nag, tears still pouring down her cheeks. She laid a hand on the animal's tortured flank and then looked up at Hugo. "Put him out of his misery. He can't breathe. He'll never recover from this."

"I'll fetch your pistol," Samuel said.

He was back in a few minutes and silently handed the pistol to Hugo. Chloe was still crouching beside Rosinante, murmuring to him as if she could somehow reach him through his agony.

"Go into the house, Chloe," Hugo commanded brusquely, bending to lift her to her feet. "Right away!"

"It's all right, I don't need-"

"Go! And put that kitchen overcoat on while you're about it." He knelt to place the pistol against the animal's head. The shot rang out and Rosinante jerked once and was at peace.

"I'll kill Jasper."

The soft-spoken ferocity of the statement brought Hugo to his feet in one movement. Chloe was standing to one side, out of his line of sight as he'd shot the horse. But she was still coatless and had clearly remained in the courtyard.

"I told you to go into the house!"

"I didn't need to," she said, her mouth taking on the stubborn line he was beginning to know.

"Go and put a coat on!" he ordered her in clipped accents. A battle royal with his willful ward would have to wait until the fire was under control.

Chloe went for the coat without further protest and then ran to join them at the pump, where they were frantically filling buckets.

"I'll work the pump," she said, seizing the handle from Billy.

Half an hour later, the blaze was under control. The stable was solidly built of lime-washed stone, and while the straw and the wooden partitions of the stalls burned merrily, the flames finally exhausted the fuel.

Chloe was drenched with sweat from pumping the handle, her hands blistered, her nightgown beneath the overcoat torn and black with smoke, her face and hands and feet as filthy as a coal miner's. But without flagging she turned to calming the horses and settling them in the barn, where the stench of charred wood and burned straw wouldn't reach them. While she was thus occupied, the three men heaved Rosinante onto the cart and buried him in the far field.

It was past four o'clock before Billy went to his bed in the loft above the old dairy, and Hugo, Samuel, and Chloe staggered into the kitchen.

"Cup 6' tea won't come amiss, I reckon," Samuel declared, setting the kettle on the range.

"I'm parched," Chloe agreed, shrugging out of the overcoat. She rubbed her stinging eyes with the heels of her palms.

"Come here, you." Hugo took her by the waist, lifted her, and sat her on the table. "You and I need to have a little talk, my ward. Leaving aside that inexcusable piece of arrant interference over… over whatever you call him"-he clutched at the air-"Petrarch… I gave you two direct instructions, which, on both occasions, you chose to ignore."

"But you'd forgotten about Rosinante," Chloe protested. "I had to go in after him." Her position on the table meant that she was obliged to look directly at her guardian as he stood in front of her. It was not a comfortable exercise. Hugo was as filthy and as weary as

she, but his eyes were dauntingly severe and his jaw was set in an uncompromising line.

"You did not have to," he said forcefully. "I had just forbidden you to go anywhere near the fire, and you weren't going to take a blind bit of notice. Do you think I say these things just to exercise my vocal chords?"

"I couldn't think about anything but the horses. And you had forgotten about Rosinante." Seeing him for a moment without a response, she rushed on in swift self-defense. "And I didn't need to go inside when you shot Rosinante. I'm not such a milksop. It was the least cruel thing that had ever happened to him, poor soul." She sniffed and wiped her eyes with her filthy sleeve. The lace edging was torn and unraveling, and she began to pull at it. It gave her the opportunity to look down and away from that unwavering scrutiny.

Hugo put a finger under her chin and tilted her face. "In ten years at sea," he said deliberately, "no one ever, ewer disobeyed an order of mine."

"Too interested in keepin' a whole skin," Samuel observed, measuring tea into a pot. "Powerful 'ard the navy is."

It occurred to Chloe that Samuel was on her side. "But this isn't the navy," she pointed out.

"No, it's not, for which you may thank your stars." Hugo lifted her off the table. "In view of the circumstances, I'm going to let it go this time, but you'd be making a great mistake to assume any precedents."

The storm seemed to have blown over. Chloe shifted the subject to good purpose, saying with the ferocity of before, "I'd like to stick a knife in Jasper."

"So you've said." Hugo sank into a chair with a weary groan. "What makes you think your brother's responsible?"

"It's obvious. It has his mark all over it," she said. "He

never forgets an insult or an injury, and he doesn't scruple what methods he uses to get even."

" 'Ere, get this down ye." Samuel put a mug of tea in front of her. "A tot o' rum in that wouldn't do 'er any 'arm," he said to Hugo.

"There's a crock in the pantry, isn't there?"

"Reckon so." Samuel fetched the stone jar of rum and poured a dollop into Chloe's tea. He doctored his own similarly and sat down in his usual chair by the range, closing his eyes.

"Once, when a man offended Jasper… he wouldn't sell him a horse or something… Jasper arranged to have the stream that watered his orchard diverted. And I know he poisoned old Red Biddy's drinking trough and poisoned her cow because she'd cursed him once."

"How do you know these things?" Hugo sat up, no longer weary. He'd put nothing past Jasper, but he hadn't realized that the man's evil was so well known.

Chloe shrugged, sipping her tea. "Jebediah, the poacher, told me. He knows everything that goes on."

"Mmmm." Hugo sipped his tea in silence, a deep frown corrugating his forehead. Jasper had taken up the gauntlet with a vengeance, it seemed, and the duel would continue until one of them was defeated. Chloe had to be protected first and foremost. Only when she was safely beyond her brother's reach could Hugo turn his attention to the more personal vendetta that this had now become.

Chloe Gresham needed a husband… and soon.

"So what are we going to do?" she said. "We're not just going to let him get away with it, are we?"

"What do you suggest?" He smiled slightly at her intent, ferocious expression. "I doubt he'll let you come close enough to stick a knife in his ribs."

"Burn his hay ricks," she said promptly. "What's

sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander… but we won't hurt anyone," she added, tears suddenly sparking anew in her eyes. "What if you'd been asleep, or if we hadn't woken? Or if we were too late?"

"None of those things happened," he said soothingly. "Don't dwell on might-have-beens, lass."

"It was too late for Rosinante."

"It had been too late for Rosinante for a long time." Suddenly, he stood up and his voice took on a completely new tone. "You look like a chimney sweep. You can't possibly go to bed in that condition."

"What do you mean?" But he'd already left the kitchen.

Chloe lapsed into a fatigued trance, sipping the comforting brew in her mug until she tipped it up, draining the tea, and yawned. "I can't stay awake another minute."

"You can stay awake long enough to clean up." Hugo spoke from the doorway. He carried the brown velvet robe she'd worn before, a thick towel, and a cake of soap. He beckoned. "Come on, lass. It'll be a bit chilly, but we'll get it over with quickly."

"What are you talking about?" There was something about the gleam in his eye that made her uneasy.

"You'll soon see," he said, and the gleam intensified, his lips twitching with a secret amusement that increased her suspicion.

Samuel stood up. "I'll be off to me bed," he said deliberately.

"No, don't go, Samuel." Chloe put out a hand to stop him.

He glanced at her and shook his head. "Sir 'Ugo's right. A proper little sweep you are. Wouldn't 'ave happened ifn ye hadn't gone into the stable."

"But I thought you were on my side," Chloe wailed.

Samuel, chuckling, left the kitchen.

"Come on, lass." Hugo beckoned again. "It's bath time."

Chloe stood her ground, holding on to the back of the chair, regarding Hugo with the deepest suspicion. "I don't want a bath."

"Oh, you're mistaken, lass. You want a bath most urgently." He walked toward her with soft-paced purpose and she backed away.

"What are you going to do?"

"Put you under the pump," he said readily, sweeping her easily into his arms.

"But it's freezing!" Chloe squealed.

"It's a warm night," he observed in reassuring accents that Chloe didn't find in the least reassuring.

"Put me down. I want to go to bed, Hugo!"

"So you shall… so you shall. All in good time." He carried her out to the courtyard. "In fact, we'll both go to bed very soon."

Chloe stopped wriggling at that. Despite fatigue and the events of the night, she realized she was far from uninterested in what such a statement might promise.

"Why can't we heat some water and have a proper bath," she suggested carefully.

"It would take too long." He set her down beside the pump, maintaining a hold on her arm. "And it would not convince you of the consequences of headstrong, willful behavior. If you dash into the midst of an inferno, you're going to come out like a chimney sweep." Releasing her arm, he pulled the nightgown over her head so she stood naked in the moonlight.

"And chimney sweeps go under the pump," he declared, working the handle.

A jet of cold water hit her body and Chloe howled. He tossed the soap toward her. "Scrub!"

Chloe thought about dashing out of the freezing jet and into the house, but the filth pouring off her body

under the vigorous application of the pump convinced her that she had no choice but to endure this punitive bath. She danced furiously for a few moments, trying to warm herself, then bent to pick up the soap and began to scrub in earnest.

Hugo watched her with amusement and rapidly rising desire. The gyrations of her slender body, silvered in the moonlight, would test the oaths of a monk. She was in such a frantic hurry to get the job over and done with that her movements were devoid of either artifice or invitation, which he found even more arousing.

"I hate you!" she yelled, hurling the soap to the ground. "Stop pumping; I'm clean!"

He released the handle, still laughing. "Such an entrancing spectacle, lass."

"I hate you," she repeated through chattering teeth, bending her head as she wrung the water out of the soaked strands.

"No, you don't." He flung the thick towel around her shoulders. "Rarely have I been treated to such an enticing performance." He began to dry her with rough vigor, rubbing life and warmth into her cold, clean skin.

"I didn't mean to be enticing," she grumbled somewhat halfheartedly, since the compliment was pleasing.

"No, that was part of the appeal," he agreed, turning his attentions to the more intimate parts of her anatomy. "But I trust that in future you'll think twice before you fling yourself into whatever danger presents itself, my headstrong ward."

Chloe knew perfectly well that given the set of circumstances, she would do the same thing, but it seemed hardly politic or necessary to belabor the issue, particularly when he was doing what he was doing. Warmth was seeping through her in little ripples, and, while her skin was still cold, her heated blood flowed swiftly.

Finally, Hugo dropped the towel and wrapped her in

the velvet robe. "Run inside now and pour yourself another tot of rum. You can dry your hair at the range. I'm going to clean myself up."

"Oh?" Chloe raised an eyebrow. "I'm sure it would be easier for you if I worked the pump." She turned up her blistered palms. "I've had a deal of practice already… and besides, I'm entitled to my revenge… or do I mean my pleasure."

Hugo smiled and stripped off his clothes. "Do your worst, then, lass." He faced her, his body fully aroused, his eyes gleaming with challenge and promise.

With a gleeful chuckle she sent a jet of water over him, careful to circumvent that part of his body that most interested her. Hugo was unperturbed by the cold, having enjoyed many baths under the deck pump of one of His Majesty's ships of the line. The secret was to know it was coming. The other morning, when Chloe had chucked a jug of the icy stuff over him in the bath, he'd been expecting the benediction of steamy liquid warmth.

With the utmost seriousness he washed himself as she continued to work the handle, but deliberately he offered himself to her wide-eyed gaze. She worked the pump with breathless enthusiasm, her tongue peeping from between her lips, her eyes sparkling with anticipation.

"Enough!" Finally, he held up his hands, demanding surcease. "The show's over. Pass me the towel."

Chloe grinned and continued to work the handle for a few more minutes. Hugo leapt out of the stream and grabbed the damp towel. "You're asking for more trouble, young Chloe." He rubbed his hair and abraded his skin.

"Inside with you, unless you want to go under again." He took a menacing step toward her and with a mock scream she ran into the house, but instead of going to

the kitchen she went into Hugo's bedroom, diving beneath the sheets.

When he came in five minutes later, she was lying in his bed, the sheet pulled demurely up to her chin, her cornflower eyes filled with the rich sensuality that never failed to overwhelm him.

"Good morning, Sir Hugo." She kicked off the cover, offering her body, naked, translucent in the pearly dawn light.

"Good morning, my ward." He dropped the towel from his loins and came down on the bed beside her.