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purchase on firm ground, he pulled harder, hauling the shapeless object toward him. His feet slipped and he fell to his knees. He glanced back. A feminine shape floated facedown and unmoving, her hair spread out around her like a dark halo.
    “Heaven help me.”
    Christian wrapped his arms around the woman’s torso and scrabbled up the slippery bank, hauling her limp body with him. He slipped in the mud and fell heavily, dropping the woman. Unwilling to yield, he put one arm around her waist and pulled her with him as he struggled upward, then collapsed on the muddy grass. The woman lay motionless beside him. He pushed on her back, hoping to force out the water in her lungs. No response. He’d heard of sailors reviving drowning victims by rolling them over a barrel. He looked around for a fallen log to serve as a substitute but found none. Again, he pushed on her back, harder. Nothing. He pulled her across his knees and pounded on her back between her shoulder blades.
    “Breathe!”
    Nothing. He pounded again. Dismay curled in his stomach. He’d failed to save her.
    Finally, she retched, coughed, and drew in a ragged breath. Very carefully, he turned her over. His heart, that long-frozen organ, gave a painful lurch that hit him like a fist to his gut. His breath rushed out of him.
    “Genevieve?” he gasped.
    She’d dramatically changed. Still, he’d know her anywhere. No one forgot the girl who broke his heart and ran off with another man.
    Horrified at the change, he stared. Still as death, Genevieve made no motion lying in perfect repose. What could have happened to her? Dark circles framed her eyes, her face had painfully thinned, and her once-lush figure had grown gaunt. Her coughing abated, but she remained unconscious. Despite the lack of modesty provided by her wet shift and stays, his male responses remained dormant. Memories battered him, the sweet as well as the bitter. He pressed his hand into his eye sockets to shut them out. A low roar like the distant rumble of thunder filled his ears.
    “Of all people, why you?” he muttered.
    Helpless anger coiled in his stomach. Pushing away the images and emotions that invaded his mind and his heart, he sucked in a breath and turned his attention to the matter at hand. What to do with her? Long-nurtured resentment voiced an ugly temptation to simply throw the wench back into the water, or at the very least, leave her here.
    But of course he couldn’t do that. His duty as a gentleman demanded that he care for her, even if she were a lying cheat. Very well, he’d take her home and see to her needs, then immediately ship her off to her precious husband.
    With a sigh, he slid his arms underneath her shoulders and knees and stood holding her petite body. He carried her along the river as he retraced his steps. His gaze strayed to her face as if he could find answers to how she’d come to be here, and why someone so full of life and zeal would attempt the horrific act of self-murder. But she was no longer his concern. She’d toyed with his heart and then left him. She deserved unhappiness for her thoughtlessness. What did he care if she tried to kill herself? He shouldn’t care. He didn’t care. He refused to care.
    Gritting his teeth, he tramped to his horse who had followed his progress down the river and now grazed nearby. “Good lad, Erebos. Take us home.”
    Steeling himself against Genevieve’s presence and her disturbing effect on him, he mounted his Friesian and urged the horse to a walk. Dark clouds blotted out the sun and cast gloom over the landscape. It matched his mood. Cold settled deep into his bones, and even deeper into his heart.
    As the full realization hit him of how close he’d come to losing his life, Christian’s hand holding the reins trembled. In his five and twenty years, he’d brushed up against death twice now. Only the fight which had left a scar on his face and ribs—courtesy of Wickburgh’s lapdogs—had been as deadly as this