Yesterday they’d explored trees; today they explored creeks. The girls took off their footwear and paddled, and the men did, too, but Pip couldn’t bring herself to remove her half boots and peel off her stockings and hold up her skirts. She would have if Lord Octavius hadn’t kissed her last night, but now she was afraid it might be interpreted as an invitation.
“Do come in, Miss Toogood,” Newingham urged. “The water’s just too good.”
“Perfect, in fact,” Lord Octavius said, with a hopeful smile, but Pip merely shook her head.
She saw disappointment on the girls’ faces, and on Lord Octavius’s face, too, as if he wanted her to paddle in creeks quite as much as he’d wanted her to climb trees yesterday, and that brought a flash of memory—holding his hand while climbing the perfect tree—and s
