AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Did you not think that such an act might drive the Duke away? Send him running for the hills?” Lucius asked.
“Not if you had seen the way he was with my daughter,” the Dowager Countess said smugly. “Smitten. I could tell from the first moment I saw them together. Do you know, I think that the night of the Wrexham ball, they…” she suddenly stopped herself, looking shrewdly at Lucius and Rebecca. “Ah, no. Best not to say more.”
Lucius leaned back against the wall that separated the flagstone-covered yard behind the house, from the jungle-like lawn that stretched to the woods opposite. He threw back his head and laughed.
“Is that the cat you didn’t want escaping?” he asked.
“No,” Olivia said sternly. “Get a hold of yourself, young man. Disrespect does not become you. Just be glad that the two of us were able to keep your secret long enough for the two of you to make your way to Scotland.”
Rebecca went to join Lucius, leaning against him as he put his arm around her delicate shoulders. It felt good to be able to hold her like this in public and know there could be no scandal. He was a husband, holding his wife. Nothing could be more right or natural.
CHAPTER 46
Harriet watched Edward anxiously. They sat facing each other in a large boat. It was powered with oars, worked by two local men from the nearby village of Grindley, aided by a sail that ran from a central mast to the vessel’s prow. A third man worked the ropes that directed the sail while keeping one hand on a tiller at the rear of the boat. Upon their arrival at Grindley, Edward had stood on the shore of the lake, looking out towards the distant shape of Greyhame House.
They had arrived that morning, under glowering skies that seemed to bode ill. Edward had been frustrated to discover after they had begun their journey before dawn, that it would take most of the rest of the day to circumnavigate the lake to reach Greyhame.
“After we’ve spent three days getting here from Erdington. And now a third of that again just to ride around a blasted lake!” Edward had raged.
“Why can’t we cross the lake directly?” Harriet had suggested. “As the crow flies, as it were. That must be quicker.”
The idea had seized Edward and would not let go. The local innkeeper told them that across the lake it would take no more than half an hour to reach Greyhame but warned against it. He had stood in his stable yard, peering up at the darkening sky and muttering about the capriciousness of the lake and of summer storms. But Edward would not be deterred. So now, they sat in the boat that Edward had hired from a local ferryman. Edward watched Greyhame grow larger on the shore while Harriet watched Edward.
There was the potential for violence in him, now that he was so close to his goal. She did not know what he would do if Rebecca and Lucius were to be found at Greyhame still.
Will he challenge him to a duel? If Edward were to harm Lucius, then Rebecca will never forgive her brother. It would be a schism in the family that will never be healed.
She could see nothing ahead but disaster if Edward went storming ashore full of righteous vengeance. She reached out and put a hand on his knee. Distracted eyes found hers and Edward smiled thinly, putting his hand atop hers. His muscles were tense, like iron springs. His eyes went past her once again and he frowned.
“There’s someone on the shore waving to us,” he said.
Harriet turned. They were upwind of the figure so could not hear what they were shouting. But that they were shouting something was evident. It was a man and he was gesticulating, then pointing to the sky. A woman stood just behind him. The man ran forward and Harriet realized he was traversing a jetty and leaping into a rowboat tied there. The woman followed him until he stopped her, then he came on alone, rowing vigorously and all the while looking anxiously at the sky. Edward leaped to his feet.
“By heaven! It's him! The blackguard is here! And that is Rebecca or I am a blind man!”
The boat rocked with the sudden motion. Harriet looked up and saw, with alarm, how much darker the sky had become. The movement of the boat did not subside as Edward became still. The water was becoming choppy, stirred by a growing breeze.
“Your Grace!” the tillerman protested. “Please would you sit still. The water’s getting right choppy and your movements could have us right over in a moment.”
A flash caught Harriet’s eye, followed almost immediately by a clap of thunder.
“We should turn back like the man says!” one of the oarsmen roared over the noise. “What do you think Charlie?”
“No use going back. Take us even longer and through the deepest part of the lake. Strike for the nearest shore I say!” said the other.
“Bert! Steer us for the shore ‘afore this storm really gets going!” the first oarsman said.
Harriet realized that the man in the rowboat was trying to get close enough to deliver a warning about the weather. He had stopped rowing some twenty yards out and was bellowing into cupped hands.
“Turnabout! Don’t try to land! It’s too dangerous!” he was shouting.
“It’s too dangerous, Your Grace,” Bert said, hauling the tiller to one side and causing the boat to begin to turn.
Harriet clung to her seat, frightened by the increasingly large waves that buffeted the boat. Lucius had turned his boat around but had not yet begun to row for shore. Edward reached for the tiller as though to wrest it from the hands of the man who held it. At that moment, a gust of wind and a wave surge hit the boat's broadside. The wooden boom to which the bottom of the sail was secured, whipped around, and struck Bert across the temple. He fell, crashing into Edward and bearing both of them to the bottom of the boat.
The vessel yawed around and tilted. Harriet screamed as it reared up on one side, for a moment standing upright before slowly toppling over with all of its occupants trapped underneath the capsized vessel. Frigid water engulfed Harriet and her dress immediately became saturated and threatened to bear her down into the black water below her. A hand grabbed her wrist and she screamed in the confines of the capsized boat. A man came spluttering out of the water to join Harriet under the boat.
“My name is Lucius Worthingham. Are you injured and can you swim?”
