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I
suppose, and he decided he might like to amuse himself by tossing
me in the air a time or two. I didn’t linger to ask his intentions.
I yelped and bolted straight for the stream. But the trees defeated
him, and I’m sure he’s gone now. Well, that will pay me handsomely
for trespassing, won’t it?”
    “Someone didn’t latch the—” Adam broke off, silently
cursing himself. “That was probably my fault, I’m afraid. I was
tramping the fields, woolgathering, not paying attention. Although
I could have sworn I’d latched the gate behind me. You could have
been badly injured, as could I; considering that I’d stumbled
through his pasture without realizing he was in it. Buckfastleigh’s
Prize isn’t known for his ingratiating manners. A thousand
pardons,” he ended, bowing from the waist, which wasn’t easy,
considering how his soggy unmentionables stuck to his rump each
time he moved.
    “Yes, I rather believe—did you say Buckfastleigh’s
Prize?” She cocked her head to one side, looking up at him
inquiringly. “How do you know that? I most distinctly remember
calling him Bumble, which is what Hayes calls him because, much as
he loves the sport of the mate, the poor obtuse Romeo has to be
helped through the more mechanical moments of the thing.”
    “Really?” Adam said, knowing his eyes were all but
wide as saucers. This all had to be a dream. She had to be a dream.
He had fallen on his own, hit his head on a rock, and was now
dreaming. He decided he liked the dream. Very much. Even if he
ended by drowning. “How—interesting. Except for Hayes, I’d imagine.
He probably sees the whole procedure as a terrible bother.”
    She clapped her hands to her cheeks, which were now
burning quite fetchingly with embarrassment. “I shouldn’t have said
that, should I? I’m supposed to believe that babies, even bull
babies, I imagine, are all discovered in the early morning, beneath
the cabbages. Then again, I shouldn’t be here at all. Not
trespassing, and most certainly not speaking to you. The two of us
are quite alone here, you know. That’s not permissible, according
to my companion, Mrs. Forrest. Except that Mrs. Forrest thinks plum
pudding is vulgar and suggestive—how, I don’t know—so I really paid
her very little attention as often as I could until she finally
threw up her hands and left us a year ago. You’re the marquess,
aren’t you? How else would you know Bumble is really
Buckfastleigh’s Prize. Or care, for that matter. Would you like to
step out of the trees and into the sun? You must be cold. You’ll
dry faster that way, too, although you’ll probably begin to itch. I
apologize for that, too.”
    The entire time she had been speaking—and she spoke
rather quickly, so he hadn’t had all that much time—Adam had been
busy mentally inventorying the trespasser. Her nearly waist-length
hair was, as he’d already noted, a marvel. But it didn’t begin to
compete with her creamy skin, her huge, liquid green eyes, the
sweep of dark lashes and brows, the pink fullness of her wide
mouth.
    Her face was small—he was sure his cupped hand would
all but swallow her chin and lower jaw—and infinitely exquisite. As
was the rest of her. She rose no higher than his mid-chest, putting
her at only a few inches above five feet, and her body was one of
curves rather than planes and angles. A full bosom, a trim waist, a
delicious sweep of hip, the hint of long legs, of feet as narrow
and well formed as her hands.
    If this was a dream, he decided he could be content
with that. If it wasn’t? Ah, if it wasn’t, if this adorable
creature was actually here, actually speaking to him...
    He waited until she had run down, run out of things
to say, then bent to retrieve the petticoat. He held out his bent
arm. She grinned, bobbed him a fairly saucy curtsy, and took it.
She then allowed him to lead her through the narrow band of trees
that had grown up around either side of the stream, and into