Page 6 of When the Scoundrel Sins

No matter. Quinton Carlisle was the last person she wanted to think about. Not when the sunset was this beautiful and the evening most likely one of the last warm ones of the year.

“If you don’t mind, my lady.” Belle slipped her arm from the viscountess’s. “I’d like to take a walk down by the pond, for some fresh air before dinner.”

“Very well. I shall see you at dinner then.” She tilted her cheek toward Belle so she could kiss it.

Belle obliged with a smile.

Lady Ainsley walked on toward the house, and Belle sighed out a grateful breath as she hurried away in the opposite direction, toward the end of the garden and the little path lying just beyond. One way led uphill to the tumbled ruins of the old castle, the other down toward the glen and the secluded pond. She turned downhill, her feet moving quickly over the familiar path she’d walked at least once a day for the past fifteen years.

For the first time all day, she felt at peace, and she hummed a soft tune to herself as she reached the edge of the pond and began to undress. Her worries slipped away as easily as the layers of her clothing. For a little while at least, she could forget about her troubles and simply enjoy the summer evening.

With a small shiver as she entered the cold water, she took a deep breath and plunged forward, to swim out into the center of the pond as she did on most summer evenings. As always, she had the glen to herself. The men were all up at the stables, where they kept their quarters, or had returned to their families and homes in the village. There was no one to see her through the thick bushes lining the pond’s edge or to invade her peaceful solitude.

She closed her eyes and let the cold water refresh her, cooling away the frustrations that had engulfed her life.

But it couldn’t stop the sorrow that swept over her whenever she thought about the possibility of losing Glenarvon if she didn’t find a husband. The estate had been a refuge for her, free from the horrors of her childhood, where she’d always had a warm bed to sleep in and food free from the mealy worms she remembered picking from the flour with her mother. What would she do if she no longer had the security of this place and these special moments? How would she ever be happy again, forced away from all she held dear?

“Well, well.” A man’s deep voice pierced the quiet evening. “What have we here?”

Spinning around, Annabelle gasped with surprise. Her arms flew up to cover her bare breasts, and she dropped down until the cold water came up to her chin, hiding all of her beneath the pond’s surface.

Unable to see his face as he stood silhouetted against the setting sun behind him, she stared at the tall stranger standing at the edge of the pond, right beside her pile of clothes. She swallowed back both her startled fear and her mortification, and anger flared inside her. To sneak up on her like this when she was alone, naked, and vulnerable—how dare he!

“Who are you?” she demanded in her sternest possible voice, which dripped with irony given the weakness of her current position. Heavens, she couldn’t even run away! “What do you want?”

An impish grin blossomed through the shadows darkening his face. “Belle,” he called out, a laughing lilt to his rich voice, “is that you?”

Her shoulders sagged beneath the water. God help her, she would know that grin anywhere. That handsomely smooth smile that could charm the king out of his crown…

“Quinton Carlisle,” she called out tersely, peeved that he’d picked here and now of all times to arrive.

Typical Quinn. Always showing up at the most inconvenient moments. And incidentally—as if he had some sort of a rogue’s sixth sense for it—where currently stood a naked woman.

The last time she’d seen him, he was just twenty-one, fresh out of Oxford, and well on his way to becoming a rake even then. He and his two older brothers had cut a swathe through London’s most notorious venues that season, as if competing to outdo each other with drunken debauchery. The three had been the foremost topic of retiring room gossip, with the quality unable to believe that the Carlisle brothers belonged to their hallowed ranks. But while the ladies scorned them in public, privately they swarmed to them. Especially to Quinton, whose charming smile had them eagerly surrendering their hearts. And other body parts.

No wonder he hadn’t paid her much notice that spring, except to torment her. Why would he give any mind to a shy country girl who felt more at home in bookstores than in ballrooms when he had the sophisticated ladies of thetonvying for his attention? She should have known when he charmed her into surrendering her first kiss that she meant nothing to him. Such a goose she’d been!

“So itisyou.” With an amused glimmer in his blue eyes, obviously thrilled that he’d caught her in such an embarrassing situation, he lowered himself onto his heels and closer to her level. “Up to your neck in it as ever, I see.”

“And you, as ever a bother,” she muttered, goaded into the same bickering they’d engaged in when they were children. Old habits were hard to break.

He gave a short laugh. A lock of blond hair fell across his forehead as he removed his beaver hat and ran his fingers through the thick waves, which were just as golden as she remembered. His crooked grin grew impossibly brighter.

Oh, she knew that look! And knew well the effect it had on women. Even now, having experienced the devilishness that lurked behind that angelic face, she felt that charming grin swirl through her, so intensely that it curled her toes into the muck at the bottom of the pond.

He pulled off his leather riding gloves and slapped them against his hard thigh as if finding her in such an embarrassing—and increasingly colder—position was a grand joke. “I wasn’t certain if it was you,” he taunted, “or if mermaids had come to Scotland.”

“We’re in England,” she shot back. The pest aggravated the daylights out of her—always had, blast him. “But if you’d like to travel on, Scotland is just ten miles that way.” She gave a jerk of her head toward the mountains in the distance. “Safe travels!”

Instead of being offended, he laughed, his eyes sparkling brightly. That, too, was typical of Quinn—boundless energy and a magnetic personality. “Your loyalty to crown and country is admirable, Belle, but I don’t think ‘Rule, Britannia!’ applies to duck ponds.”

Oh, the devil take the man! Pressing her lips together tightly, she glared murderously at him, not trusting herself to respond without saying something she might regret.

He was just as aggravating as she remembered, despite being six years older, more mature, and definitely broader and more muscular. A sinking dread fell through her that Lady Ainsley had made a terrible mistake by inviting him here. How on earth was he, of all men, supposed to help her find a husband—something she didn’t want in the first place?

But her primary concern at the moment wasn’t his aunt and how the two of them were going to resolve the mess that the late viscount had created in her life—it was getting out of the pond and over to her clothes without Quinn seeing her naked. And judging from the relaxed way he rested back on his boot heels, his forearm lying casually across his thigh, he didn’t plan on being a gentleman and leaving.

“Lady Ainsley is up at the house,” she informed him, goose bumps forming on her skin. Good Lord, the water was cold! A few minutes more, and her teeth would chatter.