“Mr. Rollins, do you know what has become of Lord Merton?” she asked, keeping any sign of irritation from her voice.
Mr. Rollins looked around blankly. “Is he not here?”
Lady Merton considered that a singularly inept response. She would hardly have been inquiring for him had he been present.
“Excuse me, my lady,” said one of the footmen gathering up the detritus of the picnic, “Lord Merton asked me to tell you that he was taking Miss Rokeby for a sail and would have her back at the Hall in time for dinner.”
That was not a piece of information either of the two older women welcomed. However, Lady Merton nodded, not betraying by a quiver that her plans for her grandson had just received a crushing blow. Lady Carraby also said nothing, but she was not so skilled in maintaining her composure. Her heightened color and the tight set of her lips were enough to tell any fool that she was furious.
Miss Saunders was not a fool, and she was well aware that she would be on the receiving end of that fury as soon as her mother could corner her in private. She knew that the silence on the ride back to the Hall was only temporary.
Edgar Wortham had also failed to reappear for the return trip, but no one seemed to notice.
Chapter Twenty-One
The task of getting the boat into the water and under sail was accomplished swiftly. Tom discovered that Miranda knew her way about a boat and could tie off a line quickly and expertly. They were soon well away from shore, grinning at each other like a pair of children who had escaped their governess’ watchful eye.
They headed west, running before the wind, for about an hour with very little conversation, though they exchanged frequent smiles of pleasure. They were both content just to be.
Miranda had not spent such a glorious afternoon since she’d arrived in England. It was not just the sailing, much as she enjoyed it. It was being with him, being with Tom.
He had turned all her prejudices upside down and inside out. He was not at all a useless fribble like the gentlemen of the ton whom she had met in London or a cheerful fool like her cousin, George. He was solid, he was honest, he was real. He made everyone else fade into insignificance. He was a man who could be relied on, who could be trusted.
And he was the man who could turn her into a puddle with his touch.
There were those eyes—she had never seen eyes so blue. When he looked at her, her stomach did flip-flops. And when he smiled at her, when he smiled—she just dissolved.
He turned to look back over his shoulder and said regretfully, “We’d best turn around. We’ll have to beat against the wind, and it looks like a storm is on its way. I need to get you back before it hits.”
She sighed but nodded. He turned the tiller. She ducked out of the way of the boom, and as she was bent over it happened.
A board popped out of the bottom of the boat and water began to rush in.
Time seemed to stop still while she stared, but it can have been only seconds before she sat on the gap. Her bottom could not block the rush of water completely. The best she could do was slow it down. She snatched her bonnet from under the seat and used it to begin bailing. The effort was not entirely futile. Some water went over the side.
Tom turned to boat toward the shore. His face was grim. “Can you swim?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Good. I’ll get us as close in to shore as I can before we swamp.”
She nodded again and kept bailing. It was a losing battle, but she had no intention of surrendering. The boat grew increasingly sluggish. Time moved as slowly as the boat. She kept bailing, and he kept his eyes on the sail, making minute adjustments to the tiller to catch every bit of wind possible. Neither one spoke.
“We haven’t much more time. Kick off your shoes.” When she had done so, he said, “Now, do you think you could help me with my boots?” He looked apologetic. “I daren’t let loose of the tiller.”
She nodded and pulled off first one and then the other, not without a good bit of effort, which pulled her up from the floor of the boat. More water rushed in before she could again plug the hole with her bottom and return to bailing. The bonnet had disintegrated by now, but the boots served more effectively as buckets.
Finally, Tom said, “This is as close as we are going to get. When I give you the word, I’ll give you a hand up. Then dive over the side, and swim away from the boat as quickly as you can. I’ll be right behind you. Have you got that?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Good.” He turned the boat so she was facing the shore. He reached out and grasped her hand. “On the count of three. One, two, three.”
He pulled her up and she went over the side. It wasn’t a particularly graceful dive, but she was in the water and striking out as strongly as she could. She heard a splash behind her but didn’t stop. In mere seconds, Tom was beside her with a board in his hand. It looked like the seat from the boat. “Here, hold on to this,” he said.
She managed a grateful smile and paused to catch her breath. The sea was cold, but not terribly rough. She could swim in this. She turned to look back and saw the boat slowly keeling over. The mast and sail tilted until they rested briefly on the surface. Then the entire boat slowly disappeared under the waves, creating a small whirlpool that sucked down any floating bits of the boat, but they were already far enough away to escape its reach. She watched the last of her bonnet disappear and then turned in the other direction and gasped. The shore seemed to be an impossible distance away.
Fear must have shown in her face. Tom put an arm around her shoulder. “We’re going to make it,” he said. “You can swim, and I’ll be right by you to help you. When we get tired, we can hold on to the board and rest. We can make it.”
She nodded and repeated, “We can make it.”
How long they swam she did not know, but it started to seem like days. She lost track of the number of times her body wanted to just give up and slip under the waves, but Tom was always there, holding her up, sometimes murmuring encouragement, sometimes scolding her, always insisting that they were going to make it.
She had her arms around the board and her head rested on her arm. Her arms ached, her legs ached, everything ached. She was so cold, so tired. All she wanted to do was close her eyes and sleep, but something was shaking her, and a voice was saying, “We’re almost there. Come on, my love, you can do it. Kick for me.”
She whimpered, but she gave a kick.
“That’s right, dearest. Keep it up.”
She kicked again, and again, and then whimpered again when her foot hit something. A wave picked her up and an arm was around her, pulling at her and she went up and then landed on something hard and unmoving. She grunted. She felt a wave reach up to pull at her hips but then it retreated. Someone, Tom, dragged her to her feet and got her further up on the shore, away from the water.
Land. It took her a moment to realize it, but she was standing on land. She was swaying, but the land was not. It was solid, unmoving land. And she was leaning on solid, unmoving… Tom. She looked up, and saw Tom looking down at her. She looked back dazedly.
“We made it,” he managed to croak.
“We made it,” she croaked back.
His arms wrapped around her and held her tightly, and her arms held him as tightly as she could until it seemed impossible to tell where one of them left off and the other began. They clung to each other until exhaustion overcame them and they slid to the ground. He fell to his knees and then managed to turn enough to fall onto his back, taking her down with him so he cushioned her fall.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Whether they fell asleep or simply fell unconscious there on the beach, neither could have said for certain. What roused them was a ferocious clap of thunder. The storm clouds that had been on the horizon when they turned back had arrived, and with them came a downpour of rain.
Tom leaped up with a curse and looked for anything that could shelter them. There was nothing, of course—just the wide shin
gle beach and a small cliff hiding whatever lay beyond.
He helped Miranda to her feet and pulled her to him again. She rested against him, feeling safe and peaceful despite the storm.
“We need to find shelter,” he said, but didn’t move.
“Yes,” she said. She didn’t move either.
Finally, another clap of thunder prodded them into motion. He half-pulled her up the small rise at the edge of the beach. They pushed their way through some low shrubs and found themselves at the edge of a meadow. It was growing difficult to see in the rain and fading light, but they could make out a structure of some sort not too far away. They stumbled painfully toward it, both unaccustomed to bare feet.
Once they were close enough to see it, the structure turned out to be a barn, which did not seem to be in use. The door was hanging loose, banging about in the wind. Nonetheless, it had a sound enough roof as they discovered once they were inside. In addition, when Tom climbed up to the loft, he found a generous mound of dry hay. In a corner were a couple of discarded horse blankets and some empty grain sacks.
When he came back down, he looked at Miranda and stopped breathing. She was twisting her hair into a plait, apparently unaware that her clothing—the remaining tatters of her dress and shift—was plastered to her body and had been rendered virtually transparent by the water.
She was shivering, but looked at him and managed a smile. “At least the rain washed off some of the salt.”
He turned red and raced back up the ladder to the loft, where he retrieved one of the blankets. Once he had his body and his voice under reasonable control, he dropped it down to her and said, “Here. You might want to take your things off to dry and wrap yourself in this. It should keep you warm.”
Miranda looked down at herself and gasped. It had not occurred to her to consider what she must look like and it was a shock to discover that she was, to all practical purposes, naked. She could see her nipples, she could see her… she could see everything. Tom had seen everything. The remains of her dress were quickly removed, wrung out, and draped over a partition. The laces on her corset were impossible to undo. She grabbed hold of the edges and pulled. The fabric gave way almost instantly and she tossed the garment aside. Her useless shift joined the dress on the partition. The blanket proved large enough to wrap around herself like a cocoon, and she was grateful for its dry warmth.
“Are you all right?” Tom called down.
“Yes.” She hugged the blanket closer around her. It hooded her head so that her face was shadowed in an effort to hide her blushes.
Tom climbed down, with a blanket of his own kilted around him. “It’s getting dark. Even without the storm, we wouldn’t be able to find other shelter tonight. But there’s plenty of hay in the loft—it will make a warm, dry bed. Come, I’ll help you up.” He smiled encouragingly and reached a hand to her.
She stared at him. With only the blanket wrapped around his hips there was nothing to hide his muscular chest, his strong arms. If she reached out to him, he would hold her, he would be warm. She closed her eyes. She knew she would be lost the moment she touched him, but she wanted nothing so much as to be in his arms.
Mentally girding her loins, she managed to get over to the ladder, stumbling awkwardly with the blanket wrapped tightly around her, and halted. How on earth was she going to climb the ladder? She had obviously wrapped the blanket the wrong way. She needed at least one hand to hold it together, and another to hold on to the ladder, and a third hand to grasp the next rung to pull herself up. Taking hold of the rung just above her head, she stepped onto the bottom rung, and halted again, trying to figure out what to do next. She needn’t have worried. Tom was right behind her, holding her steady and wrapping an arm around her waist to lift her easily from one rung to the next. Yet once more, she doubted she could have made it without him.
Even once they were in the loft, he was still beside her, leading her to where she could just see where the hay was piled up into something resembling a bed, with another blanket covering it. Sinking down, she discovered that it was amazingly comfortable and gave a sigh of pleasure as she stretched out. The pleasure gave way almost at once to a sigh of loss when he stepped away and she could no longer feel his warmth.
In the gloom, Tom moved cautiously until he stood at the open door of the loft, sheltered from the wind, looking out into the rain. Nothing was visible. He could not even tell what time it was. It was not yet night—he was not staring into blackness—but the encompassing gray could be either twilight or mist and clouds. He was not sure how long it had taken them to swim ashore, and had no idea how long they had lain there not even semiconscious on the shore.
She could have died, and it was his fault.
The boat had been sabotaged.
He had been wary enough to protect against direct attacks, but he had not considered something like this. His carelessness had caught her in the trap and, without her own cool courage, they might both have drowned. How could he have been so stupid?
Now, here they were taking shelter like beggars in a decrepit barn. He wanted to offer her everything, wrap her in silks and drape her in pearls, and instead he provided a pile of moldy hay and wrapped her in a filthy old blanket.
Anger and shame fought within him, anger at whoever had created this trap, shame that he had not protected her.
“Tom?” Her voice sounded uncertain.
In a flash, he was crouched at her side. “Miranda? What’s the matter? Are you hurt?” She looked pale. Was she injured and he hadn’t noticed?
A slight smile seemed to tug at the corner of her mouth. “No, I’m all right. But what about you? Are you all right? You looked so… I don’t know… so distressed over there by the door. Is something wrong?”
“Wrong?” He made a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob. “Good God, Miranda, you could have been killed and it’s all my fault. How can you ever forgive me?”
“Your fault? How ridiculous. You saved me. I could never have made it to shore on my own. How can you possibly say this was your fault?”
He caught himself before he said it had not been an accident. There was no need to frighten her even more. He shook his head. “I should never have taken you out in the boat. I should never have taken you away from the picnic, from your family.”
“You foolish man.” Smiling at him, she reached up and cupped her hand around his cheek to caress him gently. “How can you be so silly.”
The movement made the blanket fall away, and a flash of lightning illuminated her breast, almost glowing in the momentary light. He swallowed hard. “Miranda…” He caught her hand and turned to press a kiss into her palm. “Miranda.”
“Yes.” It was almost a whisper.
He needed no further invitation. He was kissing her passionately, furiously, and she was responding with a heat of desire to match his own. He managed to break away for a moment to ask, “Do you mean…?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?” His voice was hoarse.
“Yes.” She wrapped both hands around his neck to pull him down to her. “Yes,” she whispered against his mouth before he swallowed the whisper in a kiss. He caressed her face with kisses, trailing along her cheek, the line of her jaw, lingering to trace the curves of her ear with his tongue before returning hungrily to her mouth. Her hands moved over his back, and he burned wherever she touched him.
The blankets had been pushed aside, their coarse wool replaced with the silken softness of her skin. His hands slid over the curve of her waist, the roundness of her hip, while her hands roamed over his back, his shoulders. She made little sounds of pleasure as she moved into his caresses.
His kisses trailed down now, down her throat, as he cradled her breast in his hand. The nipple hardened under his thumb, and he brought his mouth down to suckle it. She arched her body against him even as she gave a gasp of surprise.
When he moved his hand along her thigh, coming to settle between her legs, she stiffened, but immediate
ly relaxed, opening to welcome him. His fingers threaded through the soft curls to caress her into readiness and she gave a little moan of pleasure. He knew he should go slowly, but he could not wait any longer. Her body was ready for him but, even so, when he thrust into her, she gave a gasp.
He immediately halted. “I hurt you.”
“No, it is nothing.”
“Forgive me, I…”
“No, there is nothing to forgive. I want this. Truly.”
He kissed her again, and began to move in her. Almost at once, she began to move with him. There was nothing hesitant, nothing gentle about their coming together. They had survived. They were alive. Their bodies wanted to glory in this truth.
The storm outside raged on.
It was full night when she awakened. The storm had ended, and the silence seemed strange. But she was nestled up against Tom’s chest, his arm laid protectively over her, his legs tangled with hers. She was safe with him, where she belonged.
She smiled contentedly and went back to sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Three
At Schotten Hall, the dinner hour arrived, but the earl and Miss Rokeby did not. This caused considerable distress to some members of the house party—and considerable pleasure to at least one, perhaps more than one. No one, however, wished to make a public display of emotion, so Lady Merton led the way in to dinner and made polite conversation with the guests just as if the absence of the host were a matter of no concern whatsoever.
Lady Carraby could not manage to school her emotions quite so effectively. She simmered her way through the meal, tasting not a mouthful of the chef’s excellent offerings. Her distress over the earl’s vanishing along with her unsatisfactory niece was only exacerbated by the sight of her daughter sitting next to Mr. Rollins, looking quite charming and chatting away in a manner the little fool had never managed when sitting beside the earl. Why on earth was she wasting her time on him? It wasn’t even as if the earl were present to be aroused to a bit of jealousy. And she had been so happy to see Lydia laughing with the earl at the picnic.
The Earl Returns Page 13