Page 76

As she began to float, a dog barked from the shore, and she turned, bobbing with the sea’s motion. Hector stood at the water’s edge. Vaguely she remembered his escape when Mir and Roz returned. She should turn back to quiet him, lest he wake the castle’s sleepers, but she needed at least a quick swim. A movement in the trees distracted her, and Hector settled in the sand, a large stick between his paws. She turned out to sea and began to stroke. Hector started barking again. Her wool cap muted the noise. Hector would have to wait. She pushed on into the rising tide.

With a few strokes, she found her rhythm. Hector’s barking faded in the background. Then from somewhere above her, a sharp, loud crack split the air. A blow slammed her shoulder, knocking her forward under a small wave. Her right arm went limp. She sank down, tumbling through murky green water, off-balance, clawing to right herself with one hand. Her cap floated away. An endless moment later, her feet hit sand, grounding her. Instinctively, she pushed up, letting the ocean lift her. She tilted back, arching, her lungs ready to burst, until her head broke the surface. Gasping, her heart pounding wildly, she floated on her back, gazing at the sky, trying to understand what had happened. Hector was barking again.

With her working hand, she tried to steer her limp body, and point it toward the shore, toward Hector. Her limbs felt heavy with a sudden need for rest. She remembered Graymont floating on his back, at his ease, letting the sea hold him up. She would do the same. The thought of Graymont worried her. She had urgent things to tell him, but words eluded her. The tide was rising and should carry her in. Her eyes closed. She would rest a moment until she reached the shore. Then she would get help. Hector’s bark grew faint.

*

A mostly sleepless night yielded Gray a few ideas. Something woke him from a fitful doze, and he did not know which idea would appeal to Cordelia Staveley, but the need to see her, to speak his thoughts made him restless. For himself, Viola’s scandal would revive the old story that he had refused to behave honorably toward a young woman once before. He cared nothing for gossips spreading tittle-tattle or the print shops displaying their mockery. Cordelia, he thought, would fight to protect her sister from the world’s censure. If they let others control the story, they could end up opposing each other’s solutions when what he wanted from her, the unexpected thing he wanted, was the best solution.

Viola Staveley’s torn dress was the problem. It had shocked Lady Frome. Gray doubted that it fooled Bernie, but it gave his sister and Lionel the means to discredit Viola. With Cordelia, saving her sister’s reputation would be paramount. How to do it without marrying the girl himself was the trick. He knew the outcome he preferred, and he had to make it happen before rumors began to circulate and swell to a grand chorus of condemnation. He guessed that Lady Frome had been at her writing desk late in the night, describing the scene for some close confidant in London with a plea that the lady keep the story to herself. It was time for Gray to act.

Outside his window, the moon hung low in the sky over the sea, and somewhere below the castle a dog began to bark. He meant to shave and put on fresh clothes, but the dog’s bark had a note of distress in it. Most of the household, even the few servants, deserved their well-earned sleep. He would see to the dog.

As Gray descended the tower stairs, he met Lionel coming up them, dressed and ready for travel. It was impossible to pass one another without stepping back. His brother started, stopped to catch his breath, and stood staring as if seeing Gray there was a shock.

“What are you doing here, Graymont?” Lionel demanded.

“Here? In my own castle? I’m going to see about that dog.” The urgent barking continued.

“You’ve not been to bed?”

“As you see. I’ve had things on my mind. You’re up early.”

“I had to calm Bernie. She wishes to leave for London at once.”

“She’s awake?” It was unlike Bernie to get an early start.

“I fear that, like you, she was unable to sleep. She was most shocked by your folly in getting yourself tangled in that Staveley chit’s absurd drama.” Lionel caught his breath, and his voice assumed its usual drawling tone. “I’ve just come from seeing to the coaches. Do you want to say your farewells?”

“You’ll say them for me, perhaps.” Gray pressed back against the wall to let Lionel pass. The barking bothered him. The only dog he knew of in the area was Cordelia’s Hector.

Lionel came up a step and then stopped. “You didn’t swim? I thought you were religious about your morning swim.”

“Not today,” Gray said. Lionel’s usual false friendliness grated on him.

“Ah,” said Lionel. “You’ve got a scandal to manage, haven’t you? Well, good luck with that. If you are unable to extract yourself from the Staveley girl’s snares, I do know a good solicitor.”

“Lionel, I’ll manage my own affairs.” Gray slipped past his brother and started down the tower stairs.

“Of course,” Lionel called after him. “Shall I tell Bernie you rate barking dogs above your duty to a sister?”

Gray ignored that parting shot, taking the winding tower stairs as fast as he could. He strode across the courtyard, still arranged for the ball with tables and chairs and potted palms and the empty dance floor. Outside the courtyard, in the drive, Bernie’s three coaches were lined up, with her footmen tying trunks to the back of one carriage.

Gray loped past them around the castle’s west end and down the zigzag path to the beach. At the first break in the trees, he scanned the shore and spotted the dog running back and forth, barking frantically. Hector. Then he saw the figure, lying face up at the water’s edge, swayed gently by the wavelets of the incoming tide, limbs encased in yellow nankeen, and dark hair stirred by the sea’s ebb and flow. His heart stopped as if he’d received a punch to the chest.

“Cordelia,” he shouted. The breeze snatched the word away. Then he was scrambling down the path, pelting headlong, stumbling, sliding part of the way, grabbing at grass tufts to regain his balance. At the foot of the cliff, he got his feet under him. Hector ran to greet him.

Together they sprinted across the beach. Gray went on his knees beside her.

A thin ribbon of blood unwound in the water from her right shoulder. Her hair floated loosely around her pale face. He did not see her dark blue cap. He leaned down and put his ear to her lips and caught a tiny exhale. His heart resumed its beat.

He slipped his hands under her, grabbed hold of the stiff nankeen, and pulled her up the beach out of the shore break. She was cold as ice. He turned her onto her left side, and a moan escaped her lips.

“Yes, Cordelia,” he said. “Stay with me, love.”

Under the ridge of her right shoulder, he found a fingertip-sized hole in the nankeen, its edges powder-burned. Blood stained the yellow cloth in a circle below the hole.

As incomprehensible as it was, she had been shot. Apparently from behind while she swam. There was no blood on the front of the swim costume, so the bullet must be in her. He needed help. He needed to get her warm. He pulled off his jacket and wrapped it around her and began chafing her arms.