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driveway.
    Jacaranda blew out a breath of relief and folded her towel into the hamper. She did not recognize the horse, or the groom’s voice, but the stable master, Roberts, knew what he was about. Housekeepers might use a pond late at night, and the occasional stable lad might go courting.
    A few minutes later, a lantern sparked to life in the stable yard and voices drifted across the water. Working quickly, Jacaranda began to plait her wet hair. Whoever had wakened the stables would likely quarter with the grooms at this hour, but she wasn’t about to be caught in dishabille.
    “You there,” a masculine baritone said from the shadows of the rhododendrons. “Explain what you’re about, and explain now. ”
    The tone of voice—imperious, vaguely threatening, definitely intimidating—arrived at Jacaranda’s brain before the content of the words did. What registered was that she was alone, barely dressed, after dark, outside, with a strange man. The shadow detached itself from the surrounding darkness and proved to be of considerable size. She opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out.
    Her legs were not as unreliable. She would have pelted barefoot for the house, except the day before had been rainy, the bank was grassy, and Jacaranda’s feet were wet.
    At the last instant before she toppled into the pond, her foot slipped. Instead of a graceful arc over the water, she tumbled and fell, pain exploding in her head as she went under with a great, ungainly splash.
    Chapter Two
     
    “Breathe.” Kettering pushed dark, wet tendrils of hair off the woman’s forehead and spoke more sharply. “Madam, I told you to breathe.”
    She coughed and rolled to her side, bringing up water and yet more water. Then she shivered, even as she tried to scramble away from him.
    “None of that, or you’ll be back in the pond, and I am not rescuing you a second time.” He eased his hold, his mind insisting she was well, despite the galloping of his heart.
    “ Rescuing me ?” This time she got as far as a sitting position, her mouth working like an indignant fish’s. “Rescuing me, though you all but pushed me into the water when I tried to evade your unwelcome company? I’ve never heard the like.”
    Her pique was almost humorous, given that her nightclothes were sopping wet and her curves and hollows tantalizingly obvious in the moonlight.
    And yet, she had dignity, too. Damp, disheveled dignity, but dignity nonetheless.
    “Madam, you panicked,” Kettering said, retrieving his riding jacket from the grass farther up the bank. His coat was dusty, but he knelt and draped it over her shoulders in aid of her modesty, which would no doubt soon trouble her—for it already troubled him. “If I hadn’t hauled you out of the water, you’d be bathing with Saint Peter as we speak.”
    “I am an excellent swimmer.”
    “You are an excellent scold.” He settled his palm on the side of her head, brushing his thumb over her temple. “You’re also raising a bump the size of Northumbria. Nobody’s an excellent swimmer when they take a rap on the noggin like this.”
    He took her fingers and gently guided them to the site of her injury.
    “Angels abide.”
    He rose, and she gaped up at him. He wasn’t that tall. He knew of at least one belted earl who was taller, several men who were as tall, and still the gaping abraded his nerves. He extended a hand down and drew her to her feet.
    And gaped.
    “I must look a fright,” she said, but to him…
    She was tall for a woman, wonderfully, endlessly, curvaceously tall. When dragging her from the water, only vague impressions had registered—some size, some female parts, not enough breathing. His coat had slipped from her shoulders as she stood, and he might as well have seen the woman in her considerable naked glory.
    He picked up his coat and dropped it over her shoulders again. “I’ll carry your effects, you keep the jacket, and we’ll find some ice for your