Then she heard it: the sound of not being quite alone. Alixe turned her head towards the sound. A bird call? It came again—distinctly not a bird. It sounded like a human shout.
Oh, dear.
The lake.
Alixe was galvanised into action. Someone might be in trouble. She tore through the woods, running towards the shouts.
Alixe crashed into the lake clearing and came to an abrupt halt too late to rethink announcing her presence once it became patently obvious the only thing in risk of drowning were her sensibilities. Three men cavorted—really, that was the only word for it—cavorted in the water. They dove, they wrestled, they noticed her.
Oh, lord, they noticed her.
She didn’t want to be noticed. This was not what she deserved for playing the good Samaritan. She’d run pell-mell to the aid of three men swimming nude in a hidden lake. Someone could at least have the decency to actually be drowning.
‘Hello, are we making too much noise? We didn’t think anyone was around,’ one of them said easily, unfazed by her sudden appearance. He separated from his comrades and waded towards the shore, the receding water revealing him inch by marvellous inch until Alixe was sure of two things: first, she’d never seen such a finely made man in her life and, second, the finely made man was undoubtedly naked.
She should look away. But where to look? His eyes? They were too mesmerising. The sky wasn’t even that blue. His chest? Too well-sculpted, especially the tapered muscles at his abdomen.
Abdomen!
Oh, lord, she hadn’t meant to let her gaze or the water get so low. He was still moving towards her, unbothered by his nudity. She had to put a stop to it or she’d be seeing more than the firm muscles of his abdomen.
All her supposed good breeding failed her utterly. Her eyes remained riveted on the stranger’s midsection. It would only be a matter of seconds now before all was revealed. She should say something. What did one say to a naked man at a pond?
She opted for a casual response and tried to sound as if she ran into naked men all the time. ‘Don’t get out for me. I’ll just be going. I heard the shouts and thought someone might need help.’
Good. She sounded mostly normal.
Alixe took a step back from the lake and promptly fell over a log half-buried in the mud of the lake side. She landed hard on her backside. She could feel her cheeks burning. So much for normal.
The man laughed, not unkindly, and kept advancing. He was fully revealed now, his manly parts entirely visible. All she could do was stare. He was so magnificent that for a moment she forgot to be embarrassed, her curiosity unleashed at the sight of him. He was beautiful—that part of him was beautiful in a wild, primitive way. She’d not expected it.
‘Seems as though someone might need help, after all.’ The nameless, naked man stood over her with a hand held out, not that she had much attention for the hand when there were other dangling appendages in close proximity.
‘No, really, I’m all right.’ Her words rushed out in a flummoxed mess, her sense of propriety returning.
‘Don’t be stubborn, give me your hand. You don’t want to fall again.’ He held out his hand, insisting.
‘Oh, yes, my hand.’ Alixe offered it up as if she’d just discovered it and dragged her eyes a little further up his chest to his face. He was grinning at her with his whole visage: his smile wide and laughing, his eyes bluer than the cerulean of an English summer sky.
He tugged Alixe to her feet, not in the least nonplussed by his lack of clothing. ‘Your first naked man, I take it?’
‘What?’ It took her a moment to follow the question. It was hard enough to train her eyes away from the environs of his thighs, let alone follow a conversation. She opted for sophistication in the hopes of recovering her dignity. ‘No, actually. I’ve seen plenty in …’ She faltered here. Where would she have seen them?
‘Art work?’ he supplied helpfully, water droplets sparking like diamonds in the pale flax of his hair.
‘I’ve seen the David,’ she shot back, sensing the challenge. It was true. She had in pictures, but the David of pictures had nothing on this stranger, who stood bold and brash in the sunlight with all his worldly goods plainly displayed. Her eyes darted about the shores of the pond, in a desperate attempt to not look at said worldly goods. It was all his fault. He’d made no move to retrieve any of the garments lying close by. What kind of man stood naked in the presence of a lady? Not the kind of man she was used to meeting in her parents’ genteel circles.
The very thought sent a tremor of excitement through her even as she reached for the nearest garment. ‘You should cover yourself, sir.’ Alixe held out the shirt. It would be too bad, of course, but it was an absolute social necessity. No one stood around conversing without their clothes on.
He took the shirt, his eyes were laughing at her. ‘Should I? I was under the impression you were enjoying the view.’
‘I think the only one enjoying this is you,’ Alixe countered, mustering all the outrage she ought to feel at this affront to her sensibilities.
He cocked an eyebrow in challenge. ‘At least I’ll admit to it.’
That comment did stoke her temper. Alixe squared her shoulders. ‘You are a most ill-bred man.’ With the body of a god and a face of an angel. ‘I must be going.’ She brushed at her skirts to give her hands something to do. ‘I can see everyone is all right. I’ll be on my way.’ This time she managed to exit the clearing without stumbling over any errant logs.
Merrick watched her go with a laugh. He thrust his arms through the sleeves of his shirt in a belated overture to decency. Perhaps he shouldn’t have done it—shouldn’t have teased her so mercilessly. But it had all been good fun and she’d not shied away from it. He knew when a woman was curious and when she was genuinely mortified. This creature in the drab dress hadn’t been nearly as mortified as she claimed. Her lovely sherry eyes had been wide with curiosity satisfied as she looked her fill.
Merrick reached for his trousers and slid them on. To be sure, she’d tried to look away, but healthy inquisitiveness is hard to defeat and she’d lost that battle from the start. Not that he’d been bothered by her frank enquiry into the male anatomy. She wasn’t the first woman to see him naked. He’d been naked in front of a lot of them.
Women liked his body, with its lean lines and muscled contours. Lady Mansfield had once, quite publicly, declared it the eighth wonder of the world. Lady Fairworth had spent nights staring at him for hours. She’d made a habit of having him fetch things from around the room so that she could watch him walk across the floor stark naked for her.
He hadn’t minded. He understood the needs of those experienced women and, in turn, they understood his. But today had been different. There’d been something unsullied in her gaze. He’d clearly been her first. Even now the knowledge fired a low heat in his groin. She’d been surprised, but she hadn’t shrunk from her discoveries. She’d welcomed them. Her response to him had sparked a kind of eroticism he was not familiar with. It had been ages since he’d been anyone’s first naked man.
More than that, the very directness of her demeanour had appealed to him. He’d known he could push her sensibilities. For all her clumsiness, he’d known she could handle herself. Helpless misses didn’t run through the forest to the rescue of drowning victims. He’d