“WAIT!” DIANA YELLED AS SHE DARTED OVER RED-and-white gingham tablecloths that had been spread on the ground, and nimbly avoided a dumbstruck child not quick enough to get out of her way. Her feet were moving faster than her thoughts, but she was taken by the sudden conviction that nothing was quite so important as Henry not touching her hat. “I don’t need your help!” she shouted after him.

He slowed at the sound of her voice. The way Henry had spoken to their coachman was still fresh in her mind, and galling—Will had been with their family forever, and his rebellious streak had long endeared him to Diana. She was finally gaining on Henry when she heard the shrill, nasal voice of a female bystander saying, “So that’s how the Hollands rear their girls these days.”

She looked back briefly, with a dismissive look, and then continued her chase. By the time she reached Henry, she was panting, and the wind had gotten through her dress. She brought her arms up around herself to keep warm. She took a final few strides to reach his side and said, as coldly as possible, “Thank you, but I don’t need your help.”

He gave her the rakish smile that she was now fancying herself already immune to. “All right, Miss Diana,” he said. “If you insist, then I won’t help.”

Diana looked back across the field to where their carriage stood on the path, just beyond the stone bridge. Her sister and Will were out of sight. She turned back to look for her hat, which had landed in the blue-green waters of the pond. The white ribbon that had fastened it to her head was floating away. She sighed impatiently, pulled back her skirts, and took a tentative step toward the muddy edge.

“Now, Diana…” She turned back to look at Henry. He wasn’t laughing at her or leering, but he was staring at the hem of her dress, already slightly muddied by the water at the pond’s edge. “I wouldn’t want to push on where I’m not wanted…but if you’d prefer that I get that hat…”

She looked at him, and then at the gaggle of children who had collected several feet behind them. When she turned back around, she saw that her hat was floating farther away. She felt curiously on display out in the middle of the field, and unsure what to do. She looked at Henry, and he raised his eyebrows in gentle amusement. “Would you like me to get it?”

“Well…” Diana looked at him crossly. “I suppose…”

Henry smiled at her and put both hands on her hips. The touch of his hands softened her urgency and made her wonder why on earth it had seemed so important that he not retrieve her hat. He stepped on his heels to quickly shuck off his shoes and socks, and then turned and waded in to his knees, his fitted black pants growing wet and sticking to his legs.

“Aha!” Henry cried, nabbing the hat with a splash. Just then a fleet of ducks came over to examine him, and one of them took the floating white ribbon in its beak. “The ribbon, however…I’m afraid it has a new keeper,” he added, pointing to the brown-and-gray duck swimming away.

“But how will I tie the hat without the ribbon?” she yelled, crossing her hands over her chest and twisting up her face. “If I get freckles, I don’t know what my mother will do to you.”

Henry looked at the duck and grimaced. Diana, realizing that he really was considering fighting it for the ribbon, couldn’t help but giggle into her hand. He looked up at her when he heard her laughter.

“I was joking!” she called.

He gave the ribbon a concerned parting glance, and then he lifted one knee after the other and brought himself out of the pond. The gathered children broke out in giggles at his bedraggled appearance, and Diana couldn’t help but give him a few hearty claps. She was finding it increasingly difficult to feel taken advantage of by a barefoot man whose expensively tailored trousers were now ruined by mud.

“Here is your hat,” he said, with a touch of put-on formality. “But it’s sopping, and I would be happy to go on holding it for you. If that’s all right, of course.”

“Thank you.” She bent her head in a kind of nod.

They paused at the edge of the pond, the wind whipping at Diana’s rose-brown skirt. He was watching her and she smiled at him, faintly at first and then wider. The moment lasted a few seconds longer than it should have, and then Henry said, “We ought to go back,” ending it.

“Yes,” Diana said. “I suppose we should.”

She watched him slip his shoes back on and wished she could think of something more to say to let him know she wasn’t angry anymore. But then he gave her a barely perceptible wink and she knew she didn’t have to.