I got some new reviews (okay, just from my friend who came back from a trip) but that still makes me motivated! Thank you reviewers, they were really encouraging! I hope you enjoy! In this chapter, I kinda put two together, so you might see the split where they were once two chapters. Sorry!

Chapter 3

I open my eyes weakly, feeling every muscle of my body bruised and strained. My throat is sore from something running down it, and I can feel pain on the side of my cheek where I had bitten it, the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth.

I can't make sense of the image in front of me: A young, handsome, dark-haired man that I would guess to be around nineteen bent over me, his shocking gray-blue eyes filled with fear, his hair plastered onto his scalp and water creating a sheen over his face. Then I do, and I try to scream, but it comes out as a hiss of pain as my bruised torso reacts to my intake of breath.

"Shh…." The young man's voice is soft and pleasing, and I can feel my tense muscles relax, even though he's a complete stranger. His gaze is not lustful or hungry, but rather comforting and protective, as if I were a child. I feel like a child. I'm wet, I realize, and in a strange place. Where am I?

I had fallen.

I remember now, the shot of terror that had burned through me, as I fell to the river below, the crack of pain when I hit the surface, and then the cold blackness that had engulfed me, filling my lungs, keeping me down… The terrifying numbness that took over my body and mind, making me stop swimming, stop trying…

My mind had gone black, but now I'm here, staring up into the eyes of a handsome stranger not much older than me. I feel a lurch in my stomach.

"Where am I?" I finally get out, the words scratching my sore throat.

"You're by a river." The young man's voice is calming and foreign, Scottish if I remember right. An immigrant to England, then. I wonder when he came here? A thousand odd questions are floating around my head, but I push them down.

"I fell, didn't I?" I stare up at the man as he nods, and I realize something else. "You saved me."

"Well, I…" His face has gone bright red and he looks to the side. I smile at his voice. It's… sweet.

"Thank you." He turns his eyes back to mine, and I have to stop myself from gasping at his piercing gray-blue eyes. His face looks warm and protective even with the covering of water, and I realize that he risked his life to save me.

"It was nothing. I was just shocked to see a lady in the middle of the woods." He smiles, and it's contagious.

"You were the one singing!" I open my eyes, shocked at my stupidity for not thinking of it before now.

"Yes, I guess that was me." He looks embarrassed again, and I admonish myself for saying anything.

"It's just… Sorry, you just sounded really good." I find myself blushing too, smiling hesitantly. "What was the song that you were singing?"

"That one? It's just something I had made up." He laughs, and I can't help but laugh too.

Suddenly, I realize where I am and what I'm doing, and I start up, eyes wide with horror.

"Oh no! I can't be here! With you, and… and w-wet…" I shiver, and remember at the same time that he does that I'm drenched and chilled to the bone.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" He leaps to his feet, wincing at the pain in his muscles. "I should have realized before-" He takes his jacket off from around his shoulders, but it's just as soaked as everything else about us. Looking down, I wince at the damage: ruined dress, battered shoes, missing hat, and when I touch my ears I feel empty holes. A fortune lost because I fell in a river.

"You're still alive, which is what matters." Looking up, I see that the man had been watching me, and realized what I had been thinking. "Now let's get you somewhere warm."

"What?" My eyes widen. "What are you going to do?"

"You need something warm, or else you'll catch a chill. Can you walk?"

I try to stand on my right foot, and wince in pain, instead lowering myself back to the ground, looking helplessly up at the man.

"I'll take that as a no." He gives out a chuckle, and then suddenly I'm in his arms, lifted up easily and pressed against his chest.

"What- What are you doing to me? Stop!" I twist my head around, trying to squirm loose from his arms, but he only chuckles again.

"You have to get to civilization somehow. Carrying you is the easiest way." He begins to walk, and I'm forced to lean my head against his chest. I can hear his steady heartbeat through his shirt, and this calms me.

"I'm going to take you into town. We can find somewhere warm for you there." The young man's voice is soothing next to my ear as I lean against him, completely exhausted. My trial in the river has left my muscles weak and strained, and I'm thankful for the man holding me…

A man is holding me! The shame! I let out a gasp of horror at the thought, and try to strangle out of the man's arms, but his grasp is tight.

"Let me go! I can't be in the arms of a man!" Speaking the words out loud brings a blush to my cheeks, but the man only looks down at me with an amused look on his face. Our eyes catch, and I'm locked in their blue-gray depths, but I shake my head free from their earnest gaze.

"I don't really think that you'll be ruined by being picked up by a man."

"Oh yes I will!" I punch him on the arm, but it's a sad attempt. "Do you have any idea what would happen if anyone found out? The tea ladies? My parents? Simon?" I shake my head at the thought, trying to block it from my mind.

"And this Simon, is he your suitor?" The young man's voice is still light and conversational, but I can hear a strain in it.

"My fiancé." I say it proudly, not looking up at his face. "We're to be married in a few months, and I cannot be in such a scandal!"

"No worries than, miss. I will give you no reason to be thought of as ruined." His voice has gone quiet, and we walk a far way in silence. I have the sense that I've insulted him.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way. You did save me."

"Yes, I did." His footfalls are steady.

"I know I can trust you." The words pop out of my mouth and I can't take them back. I hear a chuckle, and then the man's face is next to mine again.

"You'll regret saying that, I bet." He laughs out loud, and I can't help but be enveloped in the sound, surging through my ears. I don't know why the sound effects me this way, and I don't try to figure out.

"Oh! I still don't know your name." I look up to the man's face to get a glance of his eyes at the same time as he leans down to answer me, and we end up with our faces mere inches apart. Neither one of us moves.

"Christian. And yours?" His answer is a murmur, and sends a chill down my spine.

"Lady Charlotte Heatherford." I'm the first to look away, and I feel cowardly for doing it. I hear a whistle from Christian.

"A noble, then? Thought so. You don't get dresses like those cheap. And this Simon of yours, he's one as well, I suspect?"

"He's a Duke. But that's not why I'm marrying him. We love each other." I make sure to make this clear to Christian.

"That's lucky. Falling in love with someone you probably would have married anyway, I mean."

"I wouldn't have!" It comes out more whiny than I wanted it. "I believe in marrying for love, not power."

"Is that so?" Christian cocks his head to the side, a smile flickering across his young face. "Well then, there might be something in you yet." With that, we come out of the trees to the outskirts of a town I had only seen in passing, and a life that I never knew existed.

End of Chapter 3

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