He took two more steps and she flicked him with water again, this time onto his face.

“Elizabeth,” he said warningly.

“What?” she said innocently.

He loosened his grip and pretended to drop her, catching her just before she hit the water.

“Fitzwilliam Darcy! Don’t you dare drop me into this water!” she called laughingly.

“Oh? You don’t want to refresh yourself in the cool lake?” he teased.

She laughed again. “No! I would like to remain dry. Do not —” he pretended to drop her again and she screeched and kicked her shoe into the water, sending a spray of water into his face.

He spluttered and closed his eyes at the assault while Elizabeth tried to hold in her laughter, which was impossible to conceal when he was holding her and feeling every repressed shake of her body reverberate across his chest.

“Forgive me, Fitzwilliam. I did not mean to get you so very wet,” she apologized brightly, her eyes twinkling.

He gave her a rueful look. “I will repay you for that, madam,” he replied, but before he could finish the final words, he stepped onto a slippery rock and lost his footing.

For a wild moment, they flailed in the air, her clinging to him tightly, him waving one arm frantically for balance while the other clutched his wife. They both fell in with a spectacular splash.

Elizabeth’s cry quickly turned into laughter as she put herself to rights. They were both soaked through from the waist down and half-covered in muck. Darcy had the disadvantage of being on bottom and the entire back of his shirt was wet and dirty as well as some of his hair. His hat floated a few feet away. Darcy scowled as he stood and placed a hand on her elbow to steady her. She scooped up his hat as they walked the remaining few feet to dry land and handed it to him with a sheepish expression. She could not contain her laughter when he looked at the poor muddied hat with an expression of disgust and dismay.

He eventually laughed with her and they pulled the bits of leaves and other debris from each other as they stood on the grassy shore, dripping and cold.

“We’ll have to sit in the sun to dry out,” she said.

“We’ll never dry in all these layers.”