One of the two horses lifted its head and stared at her, making her feel foolish. She stared again at the horizon, at the edge of a wood a half mile away, then up and down the stream. She was hot and nervous.

She had been frightened when she swam before, but that had been a fear of Matthew Slythe and his leather belt, and this time the fear was quite different as she took off shoes and stockings, undid her stomacher, unlaced her dress, and then paused. She crouched, as she used to, looking about her. Her heart beat as it used to beat, its sound loud in her ears, and then, decisively, she pulled the dress over her head and dropped it beside Toby’s clothes. She fumbled at the laces of the petticoat, feeling the heat of the sun on her bare back, and then she stood, the petticoat fell, and she was naked. She ran for the water’s cover.

It had not changed. It felt so clean, so cold, so good, and it reached every part of her, flooding her. She had forgotten the sheer joy of it. She ducked her head, then swam with clumsy strokes into the stream’s center, feeling the current tug at her, and her feet brushed long weeds as she turned with the water. It was good, so good, and the water was strong on her, lifting her and cleaning her. She swam nearer to the bank where she could kneel in the current, covered to her neck, and let the water flow around her.

“Isn’t it good?” Toby was smiling at her just forty yards away. He ducked his head, came up again, and swam closer. He stopped thirty yards away and she wondered whether she should run now for the bank, for her clothes, but then he stood up in the stream, the water to his waist, and grinned. “Come and see an eight-fingered man catch a trout.”

She shook her head.

“I’ll come to you, then.”

“Stay there, Toby!”

He began wading, his progress slow against the current. “When we’re married we must do this every summer. If we get Lazen back we could put a wall round some of the moat. Would you like that?”

She nodded, too frightened to speak.

He grinned, pretending not to see her crouching lower in the water. “Of course it would be better in the Lazen stream. I suppose I could threaten the villagers with death if they came to watch us, but it seems a little extreme.” He was close now, just ten yards away. “People will think we’re very strange if we swim.”

“Stay there, Toby!” Faithful Unto Death Hervey was sliding his hands over her, Scammell was leering at her, the whole tribe of men was laughing at her nakedness. “Don’t come near me!” She was kneeling low, her arms crossed in front of her breasts.

Toby stopped. He was six or seven yards from her, smiling. “Campion?” He spoke with infinite gentleness, and then suddenly his voice changed.