‘I might at that. Will you save me, Miss Lound?’ Sir Rowland looked at her, and her smile was all the answer needed.
Reaching the frozen lake meant traversing virgin snow, but Harry and Tom gallantly offered to lead the way and trample a path as best they could so that the ladies did not have snow reaching up under their skirts. At the edge they attached their skates, and Harry led the slightly nervous Madeleine Banham onto the ice. She had not skated for several years.
‘The art, Sir Rowland, is to keep moving, and glide. Observe.’ Mary set off slowly, feeling a little odd skating in her riding dress, but moving smoothly.
‘My fear is that if you assist me, and I slip, I will bring you down also.’
‘I am not afraid. Come along.’
If his first few steps were wobbly, and he flailed once or twice, he soon grew in confidence, and Tom, who had skated on the frozen Cherwell in his first year at Oxford, was not in need of coaching. They performed362several circuits about the edge of the lake, the activity giving them pink cheeks. Madeleine forgot her fears and became quite giggly, daring Harry to go faster. She could certainly glide very elegantly, and weave about prettily. In a moment of gay abandon, she commanded him to try and catch her, and set off on a meandering course closer to the centre of the lake. She was teasing him and then suddenly her voice became a scream, and the ice gave way beneath her.
‘Madeleine,’ yelled Harry, and would have immediately dashed to her, but Mary halted him.
‘No, no! You will go in also and break a larger hole. You are heavier.’ She turned to Tom Kempsey. ‘Get to the boathouse, for there should be rope in there, a painter at the very least.’ She cast her cloak aside. ‘I will go forward and try to grab her hands to at least keep her head above water.’
‘But she will freeze.’
‘Not as soon as she will drown.’ Mary skated a little closer, then went down on her knees and thence lay upon the ice, edging forward. Madeleine had disappeared twice already, and Mary was very frightened. A hand reached up, a hand clawing at air, and Mary made a grab for it, even as she felt the ice beneath her tremble. She pulled the arm, and Madeleine’s white face appeared above the dark water, but Mary felt very insecure.
‘Grab my ankles, in case the ice gives way,’ she cried, and a minute later strong hands grabbed her boots. ‘Hold on, Madeleine. You will be safe.’ Mary willed363her to hold on to consciousness as much as her hand. The icy water was already chilling her bosom as it came over the sagging ice beneath her own person. She prayed Tom Kempsey was swift. She heard his voice.
‘He is coming,’ came Sir Rowland’s voice from behind her.
‘Wait,’ cried Harry. ‘Make a loop in the rope. She will be too cold to grip it with her hands.’
There was muttering, but Mary could not look over her shoulder. She was watching Madeleine too intently, and when one hand let go of her and a length of rope appeared at her shoulder, she was almost surprised by it. Manoeuvring the loop one-handed was not easy, and she realised that looping it as she had imagined, about Madeleine’s body, was impossible to achieve. She therefore worked it about her wrists and pulled it tight. Her gloves might protect the skin a little, and if there were rope burns, well, that was the least harm there could be.
‘Pull,’ she shouted. ‘Pull now.’
The rope tensed.
‘You must edge back or the combined weight will have you both in.’ It was Sir Rowland, his voice urgent. He pulled upon her ankles, and she felt herself move back as the ice cracked and complained and Madeleine was dragged onto the icy surface. After a few feet Mary tried to kneel up, though she was shaking, and turned to see Harry and Tom, skates discarded, trying to keep a purchase on the ice as they pulled. At least once364Madeleine was flat upon the ice she slid more easily, and as soon as she was far enough from the hole, Harry let go of the rope and scrambled to her.
‘It will be safer and quicker to pull her than carry her,’ warned Sir Rowland, himself coatless, and added his hands to his brother’s. It looked heartless, but he was right. Mary, on all fours, slid and crawled to her cloak. Getting up on her feet felt impossible. As she saw Madeleine near the bank, she called to Sir Rowland to wrap Madeleine in her cloak. He came to her, and took it, as Harry Penwood, now distraught, begged Madeleine to speak, and lifted her up.
‘Tom. Get to the house, and have Mrs Peplow have a fire lit in a guest chamber and the sheets warmed. Swiftly now.’ Sir Rowland assisted Harry to drape the cloak about the pallid figure, and went back to Mary, who was shivering as much with reaction as cold. He helped her up, and then even as she protested, placed his own coat about her shoulders. ‘You too must get warm,’ he said, firmly, and his arm went about her. Her knees buckled a little, and he would have picked her up, but she objected, for they would make better speed if both were on foot.
‘And I do not wish to be dropped in the snow, sir,’ she managed, then paused. ‘Is she breathing?’ The question was whispered.
‘Yes,’ he answered.365
It seemed to take a long time to reach the house, and Mary was focused upon placing one foot before the other, and on the secure arm about her waist. The warmth of the house was sudden and made her feel dizzy. She swayed a little.
‘I will have a bed prepared for you also,’ decided Sir Rowland.
‘No, no, I will be better directly.’
‘You cannot remain in wet clothes, however, and it will take time to send a servant to the dower house for dry garments.’ He sent Hanford for his valet to go to his chamber and led Mary up the stairs.
‘I realise that inviting you into my bedchamber sounds sinister in the extreme, but I assure you as you enter it, I shall leave. My valet will find a nightshirt from my press, and I have a very thick winter dressing gown. Irregular clothing it may be, but not indecorous, and it will be dry. He opened the door for her, but did not step within.
‘You were very brave, and very sensible, and I love you,’ he said, simply.
Alone in the room, Mary almost staggered to a chair, and sat, damply. A maid entered and lit the fire, and a minute later a dapper individual, with remarkably rosy cheeks, knocked and entered. He announced himself to be Lyng, Sir Rowland’s man, and went straight to a figured mahogany press from which he drew forth a neatly folded nightshirt.
‘If you would permit, madam, I would assist you366from your wet coat, for it will be exceedingly difficult for you to extricate yourself unaided.’
‘Thank you.’ Mary let him help her, and then he brought forth a very warm-looking dressing gown and laid it upon the bed, bowed, and left her. She undressed as swiftly as she might, for the room was still chill. Parts of her body felt numb, but her mind was overflowing with jumbled thoughts. She was worried about Madeleine, aware of her own physical discomforts, and also, as she pulled the nightshirt over her head, preternaturally aware that what lay now against her skin normally lay against Sir Rowland’s. Logic said it was laundered cambric and nothing more, but to be wearing what he did, in his bed, felt not, she realised, shameful, but exciting. It was far too long in the arms, and very loose about the body, but would be covered by the dressing robe. This, she discovered, she could wrap so as to be double-breasted and still not tight. She knotted the cord firmly about her waist, and seeing a pair of slippers placed beside the bed, slipped her feet into them, although she could do no more than shuffle in them for they were so large. Being barefoot, however, felt indecent.
