An Offer From a Gentleman (Bridgertons 3)

He took a step into slightly deeper waters, the soft sludge of the pondbottom squishing between his toes. Now the water reached a couple of inches higher. He was bloody well freezing, but at least he was mostly covered up.

He scanned the shore, looking up into trees and down in the bushes. There had to be someone there. Nothing else could account for the strange, tingling feeling that had now spread throughout his body.

And if his body could tingle while submerged in a lake so cold, he was terrified to see his own privates (the poor things felt like they’d shrunk to nothing, which was not what a man liked to imagine), then it must be a very strong tingle indeed.

“Who is out there?” he called out.

No answer. He hadn’t really expected one, but it had been worth a try.

He squinted as he searched the shore again, turning a full three hundred and sixty degrees as he watched for any sign of movement. He saw nothing but the gentle ruffling of the leaves in the wind, but as he finished his sweep of the area, he somehow knew.

“Sophie!”

He heard a gasp, followed by a huge flurry of activity.

“Sophie Beckett,” he yelled, “if you run from me right now, I swear I will follow you, and I will not take the time to don my clothing.”

The noises coming from the shore slowed.

“I will catch up with you,” he continued, “because I’m stronger and faster. And I might very well feel compelled to tackle you to the ground, just to be certain you do not escape.”

The sounds of her movement ceased.

“Good,” he grunted. “Show yourself.”

She didn’t.

“Sophie,” he warned.

There was a beat of silence, followed by the sound of slow, hesitant footsteps, and then he saw her, standing on the shore in one of those awful dresses he’d like to see sunk to the bottom of the Thames.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“I went for a walk. What are you doing here?” she countered. “You’re supposed to be ill. That”—she waved her arm toward him and, by extension, the pond—“can’t possibly be good for you.”

He ignored her question and comment. “Were you following me?”

“Of course not,” she replied, and he rather believed her. He didn’t think she possessed the acting talents to fake that level of righteousness.

“I would never follow you to a swimming hole,” she continued. “It would be indecent.”

And then her face went completely red, because they both knew she hadn’t a leg to stand on with that argument. If she had truly been concerned about decency, she’d have left the pond the second she’d seen him, accidentally or not.

He lifted one hand from the water and pointed toward her, twisting his wrist as he motioned for her to turn around. “Give me your back while you wait for me,” he ordered. “It will only take me a moment to pull on my clothing.”

“I’ll go home right now,” she offered. “You’ll enjoy greater privacy, and—”

“You’ll stay,” he said firmly.

“But—”

He crossed his arms. “Do I look like a man in the mood to be argued with?”

She stared at him mutinously.

“If you run,” he warned, “I will catch you.”

Sophie eyed the distance between them, then tried to judge the distance back to My Cottage. If he stopped to pull on his clothing she might have a chance of escaping, but if he didn’t . . .

“Sophie,” he said, “I can practically see the steam coming out of your ears. Stop taxing your brain with useless mathematical computations and do as I asked.”

One of her feet twitched. Whether it was itching to run home or merely turn around, she’d never know.

“Now,” he ordered.

With a loud sigh and grumble, Sophie crossed her arms and turned around to stare at a knothole in the tree trunk in front of her as if her very life depended on it. The infernal man wasn’t being particularly quiet as he went about his business, and she couldn’t seem to keep herself from listening to and trying to identify every sound that rustled and splashed behind her. Now he was emerging from the water, now he was reaching for his breeches, now he was . . .

It was no use. She had a dreadfully wicked imagination, and there was no getting around it.

He should have just let her return to the house. Instead she was forced to wait, utterly mortified, while he dressed. Her skin felt like it was on fire, and she was certain her cheeks must be eight different shades of red. A gentleman would have let her weasel out of her embarrassment and hole up in her room back at the house for at least three days in hopes that he’d just forget about the entire affair.

But Benedict Bridgerton was obviously determined not to be a gentleman this afternoon, because when she moved one of her feet—just to flex her toes, which were falling asleep in her shoes, honest!—barely half a second passed before he growled, “Don’t even think about it.”

“I wasn’t!” she protested. “My foot was falling asleep. And hurry up! It can’t possibly take so long to get dressed.”

“Oh?” he drawled.

“You’re doing this just to torture me,” she grumbled.

“You may feel free to face me at any time,” he said, his voice laced with quiet amuse

ment. “I assure you that I asked you to turn your back for the sake of your sensibilities, not mine.”

“I’m just fine where I am,” she replied.

After what seemed like an hour but what was probably only three minutes, she heard him say, “You may turn around now.”

Sophie was almost afraid to do so. He had just the sort of perverse sense of humor that would compel him to order her around before he’d donned his clothing.

But she decided to trust him—not, she was forced to admit, that she had much choice in the matter—and so she turned around. Much to her relief and, if she was to be honest with herself, a fair bit of disappointment, he was quite decently dressed, save for a smattering of damp spots where the water from his skin had seeped through the fabric of his clothing.

“Why didn’t you just let me run home?” she asked.

“I wanted you here,” he said simply.

“But why?” she persisted.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Punishment, perhaps, for spying on me.”

“I wasn’t—” Sophie’s denial was automatic, but she cut herself off halfway through, because of course she’d been spying on him.

“Smart girl,” he murmured.

She scowled at him. She would have liked to have said something utterly droll and witty, but she had a feeling that anything emerging from her mouth just then would have been quite the opposite, so she held her tongue. Better to be a silent fool than a talkative one.

“It’s very bad form to spy on one’s host,” he said, planting his hands on his hips and somehow managing to look both authoritative and relaxed at the same time.

“It was an accident,” she grumbled.

“Oh, I believe you there,” he said. “But even if you didn’t intend to spy on me, the fact remains that when the opportunity arose, you took it.”

“Do you blame me?”

He grinned. “Not at all. I would have done precisely the same thing.”

Her mouth fell open.

“Oh, don’t pretend to be offended,” he said.

“I’m not pretending.”