He nodded obediently and Victoria dove under, tracing the line with her cold fingers beneath the tree, feeling for the place where it had wrapped itself around a submerged limb, working her way toward the opposite end.

“Northrup said he saw them walking toward the bridge about—” Jason stopped abruptly as the word “help” drifted to them.

Both men broke into a run, racing at an angle across the lawn toward the distant bridge. Sliding and skidding, they scrambled down the steep, flower-covered bank toward John. Robert Collingwood caught his son by the shoulders, his voice rough with alarm. “Where is she?”

“Under the bridge,” the little boy replied, grinning. “Under the tree, getting Uncle George’s boat for me.”

“Oh, Christ! That little fool—” Jason gasped, already stripping off his jacket and running toward the water. Suddenly a laughing, red-haired mermaid broke the surface in a high, showy arc. “I have it, John!” she called, her streaming hair covering her eyes.

“Good!” yelled John, clapping.

Jason skidded to a stop, his mindless terror giving way to black fury as he watched her blithely swimming toward the bank with long, graceful strokes, the little sailboat trailing far behind in her wake. With his booted feet planted wide apart and a thunderous expression on his face, he waited impatiently for his prey to swim into reach.

Robert Collingwood sent a sympathetic look at his furious friend and took his son’s hand. “Come with me to the house, John,” he ordered firmly. “I believe Lord Fielding has something he wishes to say to Miss Victoria.”

“Thank you?” the little boy predicted.

“No,” he said wryly. “Not ‘thank you.’ ”

Victoria waded backward out of the water, reeling in the little boat as she walked, talking to an absent John. “See, I told you I could rescue the—” Her back collided with an immovable object at the same instant that hands like vices clamped on her arms and spun her around, snapping her head back.

“You little fool!” Jason snarled furiously. “You stupid little fool, you could have drowned!”

“No—no, I wasn’t in any danger,” Victoria gasped, frightened by the enraged glitter in his green eyes. “I’m an excellent swimmer, you see, and—”

“So is the groom who nearly drowned there last year!” he said in a terrible voice.

“Well, breaking my arms isn’t going to help,” she said, but her futile efforts to free herself only made his grip tighten painfully. Victoria’s chest rose and fell in agitation, but she tried desperately to appeal to his reason. “I know I’ve frightened you, and I’m sorry, but I wasn’t in any danger. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“You haven’t done anything wrong? And you aren’t in any danger?” he repeated ominously, his eyes dropping to her bosom as it heaved with her fearful breaths. Victoria suddenly realized she was dripping wet and scantily clad, soaking his shirt where her breasts touched him. “Suppose someone other than me were standing on this bank watching you—what do you think would happen?”

Victoria swallowed and wet her lips, remembering the time she had strolled into the house long after dark, and discovered that her father had organized a search party to comb the woods for her. First he had reacted with joy. Afterward, she had not been able to sit down with comfort for two days. “I—I don’t know what would happen,” she answered him, trying to brazen it out. “I suppose whoever it was would hand me my clothes and—”

Jason’s gaze dropped to her moistened lips, then slid lower, following the line of her throat down to the tantalizing mounds of flesh exposed to his view above her clinging wet chemise. With her head thrown back, they quivered and thrust forward invitingly, emphasizing the undeniable fact that she was an alluring woman and not the child he had tried to convince himself she was. “This is what would happen!” he snapped suddenly, and his mouth crushed hers in a fierce, brutal kiss that was meant to punish and humiliate her.

Victoria squirmed silently against him, trying to break his hold and to drag her mouth away from the fierce possession of his lips. Her struggle only seemed to make him angrier, and the kiss more painful. “Please,” she gasped tearfully against his mouth. “I’m sorry I frightened you—”

Slowly his hands loosened their grip, and then he lifted his head and stared down into her frightened eyes. Automatically, Victoria crossed her arms over her breasts, her hair spilling over her shoulders like a sheet of wet rubies overlaid with a sheen of gold, her sapphire eyes wide with fear and contrition. “Please,” she whispered, her voice shaking with both emotions as she tried to maintain the truce that had existed between them for almost five days. “Don’t be angry. I’m sorry I frightened you. I’ve been swimming since I was a child, but I shouldn’t have done it today, I know that now.”

Her straightforward, ungrudging admission caught Jason completely off guard. Every feminine ploy in existence had been used on him since he’d made his fortune and gained his title, but without success; Victoria’s candor, combined with her beautiful, upturned face and the sensation of her alluring body pressing against him, acted on him like a powerful aphrodisiac. Desire surged through him, heating his blood, sending it singing through his veins, forcing his hands to pull her closer.

Victoria saw something primitive and terrifying flare in his eyes as his hands tightened on her arms. She jerked back, a scream rising in her throat, but his lips covered hers, stifling her voice with a demanding insistence that stunned her into immobility. Like an alarmed rabbit captured in a painless trap, she struggled until she felt his hands stroke soothingly up and down her spine and shoulders, while his lips moved on hers with inflaming expertise.

Dizzily, she slid her hands up his chest, trying to cling for support to the very object that was destroying her balance. This innocent action triggered an instant reaction from Jason. His arms tightened around her and he deepened the kiss, his lips moving on hers with hungry ardor, insistently shaping and fitting her lips to his own. Lost in a haze of nameless yearnings, Victoria leaned up on her toes, responding to the forceful pressure of his arms. He groaned as she molded her body against his, and his parted lips crushed hers, sliding insistently back and forth, urging hers to part; the moment they did, his tongue slid between them, plunging into the soft recesses of her mouth.