Rafferty Kincaid, Duke of Somerfield, had been standing near the east wing with his steward for the past twenty minutes, discussing a drainage problem on the lower meadow. It was not, strictly speaking, the appropriate use of a garden party. Rafferty had attended the gathering because Lady Vickery was his nearest neighbor and had invited him seven times across three years without receiving a single acceptance. And Oldwin had said, with the particular quietness he deployed when he meant something strongly, that perhaps this year might be the year. Oldwin was sixty-one. He had been steward at Somerfield for twenty-two years. Rafferty had long ago learned that when Oldwin was very quiet about something, it was time to do it.
The lower meadow drainage remained unresolved. They were discussing the second culvert when Rafferty heard a sound—not a cry, nothing dramatic, more the specific noise of someone discovering very suddenly that a large volume of water was closer than expected.
He looked up. A young woman in white muslin was standing in the Somerfield fountain. Or rather, she had recently arrived in it, because she was still in the process of establishing her footing, one arm extended with a rose held carefully aloft as though this were the only item worth preserving. She was standing in approximately eighteen inches of water. She was looking at the fountain's central stone figure with the expression of someone who has just lost a very short argument with the built environment around her. Several guests had turned. A few moved forward. Most simply stared.
Rafferty walked over. It was not a decision, exactly; it was the straightforward application of being the person on whose grounds someone was standing in a fountain.
"Are you injured?" he said.
She looked at him. Her hair had come partly loose on one side, dark and damp against her cheek. Her eyes were honey-warm and entirely unafraid, which was the first thing he noticed because most people looked at him and then looked at the middle distance, performing a careful social neutrality. She looked at him as directly as one person can look at another.
"Not physically," she said.
"The basin has a submerged step," Rafferty said, "on the western approach. I have been meaning to have it marked."
She glanced down at the water around her ankles. She appeared to be conducting an internal review of the situation. Then she looked up at him again and said, "Is that the official explanation, or the charitable one?"
Rafferty looked at her for a moment. "Both, I think," he said.
"I was reading a letter," she said. "It was not exactly an explanation. It was simply the truth offered without defense."
"While walking?"