Page 54 of A Stroke of Luck
“Hooray!” shouted both of her brothers. “Three cheers for the King of Spades.”
“That was a damn foolish thing to do,” she scolded as he squished over the rocks and exposed roots of the steep bank and handed over the precious bit of metal to the lads. “You could have been trapped in the flotsam or swept downstream.”
The duke’s gaze darted to the faces regarding him with a mixture of awe and admiration, then returned to meet hers. “As you know, I am a strong swimmer.” Hair plastered to his forehead, his once immaculate linen shirt smeared with a malodorous ooze, he was nonetheless sporting a lopsided grin. “And some risks are worth the reward,” he murmured in an uncanny echo of her own sentiments.
It was impossible to continue ringing a peal over his head in the face of such sentiment. “Well, do exercise a bit more caution in the future,” she said reaching up with her handkerchief to dab away the drops beaded on his lower lip.
“Ah, but we agreed to throw caution to the wind, did we not?” he murmured.
Her insides gave a little lurch as Zara realized that the last vestige of her own caution had already been blown halfway across the Atlantic. “Still, we had best be returning to the Manor so that you may change out of those wet garments before you catch a chill.”
They made quite a ragtag procession. The duke was dripping from head to foot, the lads were nearly as disheveled, and all three looked like some strange denizens from the deep, loaded down as they were with hampers and swaying poles. By now, her own appearance must not be much better, noted Zara wryly, seeing as she had been accorded the honor of carrying the creel. Between the copious amounts of water leaking over her skirts and the proximity of a rather large trout packed in wet leaves, she imagined she resembled a drowned muskrat and smelled like a dead fish.
As the path led out of the spinney and on to the narrow cart track skirting the pastures, a group of riders appeared at the crest of the hill.
“Bloody hell,” whispered Zara to herself, then added several other words that would no doubt have caused the young lady on horseback to fall into a dead swoon.
“Prestwick?” Lady Catherine reined her mount to a halt and stared.
The duke left off his whistling to reply. “A fine day to be enjoying the outdoors, is it not?”
“Has there been some sort of an accident?” demanded her father.
“Accident?” His brows arched in exaggerated surprise. “Good Heavens, no. Why do you ask?”
One of the young men accompanying the marquess and his daughter let out a snort of laughter.
After silencing the fellow with a withering scowl, Lord Ellesmore turned back to the duke with an uncertain frown.
Lady Catherine blinked as if not quite believing her eyes. “Prestwick, y-your breeches are covered in mud, you are missing your coat and your boots?—”
“Are quite ruined,” he said cheerfully.
“And …” Pressing a glove to her cheek, she looked perilously close to a maidenly swoon. “And there is a worm crawling out of your pocket!”
“Oh, we didn’t need it for bait,” assured Nonny. “We used a lure.”
“And we caught a large fish,” volunteered Perry. “Would you like to see it?”
The young lady turned a bit green around the gills.
”Indeed she would not,” growled her father. His gaze raked over the lads, then lingered a bit longer on Zara.
It was with great difficulty that she restrained the urge to stick out her tongue.
“Mud. Worms. Fish. And these relatives from strange lands.Hmmph! What’s come over you, Prestwick?” he continued in a huff. “Odd. Deucedly odd. And what is this I hear about Lady Farrington and your cousin making such an abrupt departure? Sounds like something havey-cavey is going on at Highwood Manor. Where did they head off to in such a rush?”
“To perdition, for all I care,” answered the duke.
The marquess was reduced to a fit of choking. “I must say,” he sputtered, once he had recovered his voice. “Your sense of humor has taken a queer turn of late, Your Grace. As have you. Not sure I can allow my daughter to keep company with anyone whose behavior is the slightest bit questionable, no matter how august the title.”
Zara watched as Prestwick took his time in picking a strand of algae from his sleeve. “You know, I believe you are right,Ellesmore,” he said slowly. “Lady Catherine deserves a different sort of gentleman than I.”
The young lady gave an audible gasp while her father’s countenance mottled to the color of aged claret. Another strangled “Hmmph,” was all he managed before spurring his stallion forward.
Lady Catherine, her face as pale and expressionless as polished marble, set off dutifully in his trail of dust, followed by her coterie of Town bucks.
“What a Friday-faced frump,” remarked Perry.
