“Ow!” Swift fell back to a half-sitting position, clutching a hand to his eye while the goose sped away with a triumphant honk.

“Mr. Swift!” Daisy crawled over him in concern, straddling his lap. She tugged at his hand. “Let me see.”

“I’m all right,” he said, rubbing his eye.

“Let me see,” she repeated, grasping his head in her hands.

“I’m going to demand goose hash for dinner,” he muttered, letting her turn his face to the side.

“You will do no such thing.” Daisy gently inspected the tiny wound at the edge of his dark eyebrow and used her sleeve to blot a drop of blood. “It’s bad form to eat someone after you’ve saved them.” A tremor of laughter ran through her voice. “Fortunately the goose had bad aim. I don’t think your eye will turn black.”

“I’m glad you find this amusing,” he muttered. “You’re covered with feathers, you know.”

“So are you.” Tiny bits of fluff and spars of gray and white were caught in his shiny brown hair. More laughter escaped her, like bubbles rising to the surface of a pond. She began to pick feathers and down from his hair, the thick locks tickling-soft against her fingers.

Levering himself upward, Swift reached for her hair, which had begun to fall from its pins. His fingers were gentle as he pulled feathers from the glinting black strands.

For a silent minute or two they worked on each other. Daisy was so intent on the task that the impropriety of her position didn’t occur to her at first. For the first time she was close enough to notice the variegated blue of his eyes, ringed with cobalt at the outer edge of the irises. And the texture of his skin, satiny and sun-hued, with the shadow of close-shaven stubble on his jaw.

She realized that Swift was deliberately avoiding her gaze, concentrating on finding every tiny piece of down in her hair. Suddenly she became aware of a simmering communication between their bodies, the solid strength of him beneath her, the incendiary drift of his breath against her cheek. His clothes were damp, the heat of his skin burning through wherever it pressed against hers.

They both went still at the same moment, caught together in a half-embrace while every cell of Daisy’s skin seemed to fill with liquid fire. Fascinated, disoriented, she let herself relax into it, feeling the throb of her pulse in every extremity. There were no more feathers, but Daisy found herself gently lacing her fingers through the dark waves of his hair.

It would be so easy for him to roll her beneath him, his weight pressing her into the damp earth. The hardness of their knees pressed together through layers of fabric, triggering a primitive instinct for her to open to him, to let him move her limbs as he would.

She heard Swift’s breath catch. He clamped his hands around her upper arms and unceremoniously removed her from his lap.

Landing on the grass beside him with a decisive thump, Daisy tried to gather her wits. Silently she found the pen-knife on the ground and handed it back to him.

After slipping the knife back into his pocket, he made a project of brushing feathers and dirt from his calves.

Wondering why he was sitting in such an oddly cramped posture, Daisy struggled to her feet. “Well,” she said uncertainly, “I suppose I’ll have to sneak back into the manor through the servants’ entrance. If Mother sees me, she’ll have conniptions.”

“I’m going back to the river,” Swift said, his voice hoarse. “To find out how Westcliff is faring with the reel. And maybe I’ll fish some more.”

Daisy frowned as she realized he was deliberately avoiding her.

“I should think you’d had enough of standing up to your waist in cold water today,” she said.

“Apparently not,” Swift muttered, keeping his back to her as he reached for his vest and coat.

CHAPTER 5

Perplexed and annoyed, Daisy strode away from the artificial lake.

She wasn’t going to tell anyone about what had just happened, even though she would have loved to amuse Lillian with the story of the goose encounter. But she did not want to reveal that she had seen a different side of Matthew Swift, and that she had briefly allowed herself to flirt with a dangerous attraction to him. It had meant nothing, really.

Although Daisy was still an innocent, she understood enough of sexual matters to be aware that one’s body could respond to a man without any involvement of the heart. As she had once responded to Cam Rohan. It disconcerted her to realize she was drawn to Matthew Swift in that same way. Such different men, one romantic, one reserved. One a handsome young gypsy who had stirred her imagination with exotic possibilities…one a man of business, hard-eyed and ambitious and pragmatic.

Daisy had seen an endless parade of power-seeking men during the Fifth Avenue years. They wanted perfection, a wife who could be the best hostess and give the best suppers and soirees, and wear the best gowns, and produce the best children who would play quietly upstairs in the nursery while their fathers were negotiating business deals downstairs in the study.

And Matthew Swift, with his enormous drive, the one her father had singled out for his talent and brilliant mind, would be the most exacting husband imaginable. He would want a wife who formed her entire life around his goals, and he would judge her severely when she failed to please him. There could be no future with a man like that.

But there was one thing in Matthew Swift’s favor: He had helped the goose.

By the time Daisy had stolen into the manor, washed and dressed in a fresh day-gown, her friends and sister had gathered in the morning room for tea and toast. They sat at one of the round tables by a window, looking up as Daisy entered the room.