All the sleuthing had worked up her appetite.
Livy was brushing off crumbs when she arrived at her destination: a pond situated at the northern edge of the garden. In the summer, the water teemed with fish and playful ducks, but now the surface was iced over and dusted with drifts of snow. That opaque surface would have frustrated Narcissus who, Livy knew from Mama’s stories, had been captivated by his own watery reflection. She scanned the icy perimeter, looking for a place between earth and sky…and then she saw it: a flash of gold in the branches of a Scots pine.
I’ve done it, she thought gleefully. I have found the prize!
She raced over to the base of the tree. Tilting her head back, she stared up into the thicket of blue-green needles: the crown was tied to the end of the lowest branch. After several futile jumps, she had to concede her vertical disadvantage. As Mama was fond of saying, however, there was more than one way to cook an egg.
Livy grabbed onto the bark, shivering at the chill that seeped through the smooth kid of her gloves. Nonetheless, she pulled herself up, finding the footholds, getting to the desired branch. Testing the ledge and finding it sturdy, she carefully maneuvered toward her glittering prize. She freed the crown from its rope and held it aloft.
“All hail the queen,” she sang.
An ominous crack interrupted her tune. She watched in horror as the branch she was sitting on snapped from the trunk. She plummeted, a shriek exploding from her lungs. Her back hit the snowy bank with a jarring thump. Dazed, she caught her breath and sat up. Looking around her, she couldn’t find the crown.
“Botheration,” she muttered.
Then she saw it: lying some twenty yards away on the pond. Rising, she dusted herself off and placed a foot cautiously onto the ice. Papa had issued countless warnings about walking on frozen surfaces, but the ice felt thick and solid beneath her boots. She would have her prize in a blink and be on her merry way.
She slipped and slid over to the golden circlet. Grabbing it, she shoved it into her bag and started back toward the bank…and froze. Had she imagined the movement beneath her? She took another step forward, and the ice groaned and swelled. A web of cracks shot through the surface.
Heart hammering, she raced toward the shore, but the ground vanished beneath her, her screams lost in an icy abyss. Freezing water burned her lungs as she fought to surface. Ice was everywhere, blocking her escape. Trapped, she pounded her fists against the thick translucent wall, a watery hand choking off her cries. As the world beyond grew blurrier and more distant, a terrifying conviction took hold of her.
I am going to die. Here. Alone.
She fought to survive with all of her strength, thrashing against the ice until the last of her breath bubbled from her. Until her limbs grew heavy, invisible chains dragging her downward. Numbness blanketed her as she sank deeper and deeper into oblivion…
Suddenly, she was reversing direction. Something dragged her upward, throwing off the darkness, exposing her to brightness, harsh and cold. She blinked up into a halo of light. Was she dead? The glowing ring seemed to be summoning her, and she felt herself floating toward it…but hands pushed her down. Pressed on her belly with painful force.
“Don’t you let go,” a deep voice commanded. “You fight.”
Someone was telling her to fight. Which was strange, because people were usually telling her to be less tenacious. She tried to reply, but water gargled out instead. Exhaustion made her weightless, and she drifted up toward the heavens…
The voice anchored her to the earth. “Not you too. Bloody hold on, do you hear me?”
The mix of authority and anguish in those words halted her flight. Yet she couldn’t make her lips or body move, as if she were trapped beneath ice still. Then a mouth sealed over hers, warm and firm, forcing air into her. Breaths billowed her lungs again and again until the halo above her vanished, and she surfaced with a gasp.
“Easy there, little one. Take a breath now. Slow and easy.”
Blinking, she saw that she lay on the bank, a man kneeling beside her. Water dripped from the chiseled contours of his face, frost tipping his thick eyelashes and mink-brown hair. Stormy blue eyes bore into her.
“Are you all right, Olivia?” he gritted out.
He knew her name. As the haze lifted, she realized that she knew his too.
“I-I am fine, Your Grace,” she said.
Her rescuer was Benedict Wodehouse, the Duke of Hadleigh, one of the party guests. Until that moment, she had thought of him the way children generally think of adults: as old and not terribly interesting. It didn’t help that he had an air of detached boredom which grown-ups called ennui and which Livy did not understand. What was there to be bored about when there was an entire world to explore?
At present, however, he didn’t seem indifferent. Emotion blazed from him, with an intensity that was painful to witness…like staring into the sun. He quickly turned away, but not before she glimpsed the sheen in his eyes. He shuddered, exhaling raggedly as he shoved his hands through his wet hair.
He muttered something to himself. It sounded like, Thank Christ.
Managing to sit up, she tugged on the sleeve of his coat. “Are you all right?”
He faced her again. She noticed the curious hollows beneath his eyes and cheekbones. Lines etched on his brow and around his mouth suggested a habit of frowning. Although he was tall and broad of shoulder, he lacked the brawn of, say, Livy’s papa. This duke was as lanky as a scarecrow.
“You nearly drowned,” he said grimly. “And you are asking me if I am all right?”
“You seem shaken,” she returned.
His brows slanted together. “And you seem self-possessed for a chit of ten.”
“I am twelve,” she informed him. “As I said,
