This will not do. This is dangerous.
The thought that she was out of her depth swam through her thoughts. She squared her shoulders, spun on her heel and marched over to the back door. She would dry off his boot and then send him on his way.
Her steps faltered. Was that a chuckle? Arrogant rogue. Exasperation flamed at her involuntary responses to him and her inability to hide them. More than ever she wished she had left him standing by the bridge, wet foot or no wet foot.
‘Penny,’ she called as soon as she set foot over the threshold. ‘Penny, where are you?’
He was right behind her. She could feel him. She cast her still-wet hat on to the kitchen table and then crossed to the fireplace, where a lazily steaming kettle hung to one side. She swung it over the centre of the fire and bent to grab the poker to stir up the coals, conscious the entire time of his eyes upon her. Where was Penny when she had need of her?
‘Take a seat, sir.’ Rosalind indicated the Windsor chair set to one side of the hearth, keeping her attention on the fire. ‘I will help you—’
The door flew open, interrupting her, and she glanced round as Freddie came in, Hector at his heels.
‘Ros, have you seen my—’ Freddie fell silent. His brows lowered. ‘What the devil are you doing here?’
Roused from his appreciation of Rosalind’s beautifully rounded derrière, Leo twisted to find a scowling young man of slender build standing in the kitchen doorway. There was enough resemblance to Rosalind for him to guess this must be Freddie. The swish of fabric and her jasmine scent told him Rosalind now stood next to him. The dog he had seen the other day in the lane padded around the table. He appeared not to share Freddie’s misgivings, for he swaggered over and thrust his wet nose into Leo’s hand.
‘Freddie! That is no way to speak to a guest.’
‘And I,’ said Leo, scratching behind Hector’s ear and curbing his instinct to slap down the young man’s presumption, ‘cannot imagine what I have done to arouse such...er...vitriol.’
Freddie’s scowl lifted, but only slightly. He moved away from the door, rounding the table awkwardly, supported by a crutch jammed into his right armpit. Was that the result of the tumble from his horse Rosalind had mentioned?
‘My apologies,’ Freddie said as he approached Leo. ‘For a moment, I thought...that is, you have the look of our new neighbour, Mr Lascelles, but I see now you are not him.’
A gasp, quickly stifled, whispered past Leo’s ear and he sensed the woman by his side stiffen. She was right to be wary of his cousin.
Leo smiled at Freddie. ‘Ah...in that case, I shall excuse your caustic welcome. I am Boyton. Cousin to your new neighbour, although I hope you will not hold that against me.’
‘I shall endeavour not to do so.’ A fleeting smile crossed Freddie’s face. ‘We all have family connections we should prefer to forget.’
Almost the exact same words his sister had used. Leo tucked that knowledge away for the future. They shook hands.
‘Allen. Frederick Allen.’ The younger man’s cheeks flushed. ‘Of sound mind, if not body.’
‘Fr-e-e-ddie...’
Rosalind’s protestation suggested this was not the first time her brother had used self-mockery in such a defensive way. A mixture of hurt and anger flashed across Freddie’s face. Sympathy for the young man bloomed as Leo concluded Freddie’s impairment was of longer standing than the recent fall of which Rosalind had spoken. At close quarters the lines of stress on Freddie’s face were visible. They made it hard to guess his age, but Leo would lay odds he was younger than his sister.
‘I am pleased to meet you, Allen,’ he said, ‘and I apologise for this intrusion, but my boot is full of river water and your sister kindly offered me the opportunity to dry off.’
Freddie’s brows rose. ‘River water?’ He surveyed Leo’s buckskin breeches, one knee of which was noticeably wet. ‘Dare I ask what you were doing in the river? It is hardly the weather for paddling.’
‘Mr Boyton very kindly rescued my hat.’
‘That is a great deal of kindness for one day,’ Freddie observed. ‘And your hat, dear sister? Might one enquire exactly how it ended up in the river?’
‘Never mind that, now, Freddie. Where is Penny? Mr Boyton needs help removing his boot.’
Rosalind’s brusque dismissal of her brother’s question again set Leo wondering at the relationship between brother and sister. He contemplated his own sons’ reactions if he should speak to them as though they were boys rather than the young men they now were, and he bit back a smile at the likely result. Alex, in particular, would take immediate affront.
‘She is not here. The cook at Foxbourne sent her a message inviting her to raid the herb garden and offering her surplus preserves from her larder. I do not believe I have ever seen her move with such speed. She could be heard muttering about rosemary and pickles as she bobbed up the path.’
Leo remained quiet, observing as brother and sister shared the joke. It was obvious they were close, despite Rosalind’s tendency to take the reins. Freddie appeared an easy-going young man who accepted her assumption of control rather than cause a fuss.
‘Oh...well...it appears I have no choice but to assist you myself, Mr Boyton.’
A blush tinted Rosalind’s cheeks. Was she, like him, remembering their earlier, similar conversation? At the memory of that almost kiss, blood pounded Leo’s veins, pooling in his groin. How long since his body had reacted with such unruly eagerness? She was so near, almost touching him, her scent weaving through his senses...the very air seemed to crackle between them. Freddie would have to be blind not to notice the frisson.
‘Perhaps your brother might help?’
Rosalind’s eyes brimmed with sympathy as she caught her brother’s eye. Freddie’s lips twisted and Leo cursed his own insensitivity.
‘Would that I could,’ he said, after a moment’s fraught silence, his tone suspiciously airy, ‘but with my appalling balance...or lack of it, I should say... I should end up on the floor.’
Rosalind again indicated the chair by the fire.
‘If you would care to sit, sir?’
A gentleman, surely, should at this point decline the offer and be on his way. But Leo was not ready to leave: he was intrigued by both Rosalind and Freddie. He sat.
‘Please raise your leg.’
She was close enough that her scent again wove its enchantment around him. He could hear her breathing, surely faster than it should be? She could not conceal her body’s reactions—she was as affected by their nearness as he. She moved to stand by his extended foot and grasped his boot at the ankle. Leo smiled at her fierce determination as she heaved until the boot came off with a slurp and a splatter of drops on to the flagstone floor. Rosalind looked up and their eyes met. She touched her upper lip with the tip of her tongue and he responded with a surge of lust so powerful he could barely stop himself from reaching for her there and then.
Her blush deepened and her lashes lowered.
‘There. Now, if you care to remove your stocking, sir, I shall hang it by the fire to dry.’
Leo did as he was bid. Freddie’s scowl had returned as he looked from Rosalind to Leo and back again.
‘Do you care to partake of some refreshments whilst your boot dries?’ Rosalind asked. ‘A cup of tea, or perhaps