Keeper of the Swans

by Nancy Butler

  “Ah, but I am a wild thing, untamed and unfettered,” she reminded him.

  “Yes,” he said, drawing back to gaze into her bright eyes. “And wild things must always return to their true home. Where is that home, my sweet witch? Where does this wild thing belong?”

  She whispered against his lips, “With you, Romulus Perrin. Wherever you dwell, is my home.”

  He returned her kiss, holding her tight against his chest, unmindful of his trembling hands. He couldn’t tell whether they trembled from the palsy, or from the warm, supple feel of Allegra melting in his arms.

  “Can you ever forgive me?” he crooned. “For loving you in such a wrong-headed way? For turning away from you? I learned last night that there is no honor in drawing back from one who loves you.”

  “Last night?” She blinked in confusion.

  “It’s not important now. I tried to make you go away, Allegra. Because it’s damned hard having you see me like this, and…because I couldn’t believe you could want a man who…who let a skulking river rat humiliate him. But you don’t care, do you? None of that matters to you.”

  “No,” she stated, “it doesn’t. You were delirious when Argie beat you. You had been for days, the doctor said. You’d have broken the switch over his head if you’d been in your right mind.”

  “That wasn’t the only reason—the delirium,” he said softly. “I thought you were dead. Argie Beasle, blast his hide, told me you were. And without you, Allegra, I had nothing to live for. No reason to fight off a vengeful poacher…. No reason to fight for anything.”

  She pondered this a minute. It was certainly flattering to hear that without her, Romulus had lost the will to live. But she needed to make him see how unrealistic that sort of love was.

  Diana the dreamer was about to give a lecture on practicality.

  “Romulus, even if I had died in the fire, you still had other reasons to live. Niall, for one, and Lady Hamish, and all the creatures on the river who depend on you. I will be as much a part of your life as a woman can be…but I can’t be everything.”

  “No,” he said softly. “I wanted…. I needed something to fill up my soul…because ever since I returned from France, it’s been so very empty. But I’m afraid even a water witch hasn’t that much magic.”

  “Then what has made this change in you?”

  “I think I found one answer last night. I can’t explain it just yet. I…I can only say that I feel whole again. And I couldn’t be with you, or love you, until that occurred.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I am complete. Well, except for one part—my heart is no longer my own.” He tipped her head back and gazed into those gentian eyes that had haunted his dreams since the night he pulled her from the river. “It is in your keeping, Allegra. For all time, if you will have it.”

  “For all time,” she echoed.

  * * *

  They spent the morning together, free at last to give voice to the feelings that had lain unspoken in their hearts for the past week—and trying, fruitlessly it turned out, to keep a safe distance between them while they talked. The instant either of them got anywhere near a piece of furniture, they were both, in short order, entwined upon it in the most improper manner. Rom’s chair, her chair, the chaise beside the dressing room. Every place but the wide bed, which, by mutual consent, they stayed well away from.

  For a man just out of his sickbed, Diana thought with a sigh, her river god was surprisingly agile.

  Lady Hamish came peeking into the room while they were sharing their luncheon—and Rom’s chair. She beamed at them, said, “Lovely, lovely,” with her hands raised in a fluttery benediction, and then quickly withdrew. Diana saw Romulus trying to hide a blush behind his hand.

  Something was up between those two, Diana sensed it in her bones. And it had to do with Rom’s abrupt change of mood this morning. But she didn’t have the heart to ply him with questions just then.

  By early afternoon, the wind storm had increased to gale pitch. Rom’s eyes were troubled as he stood and watched the willows and oaks on the front lawn bending and tossing in the wind. “This isn’t good,” he observed to Diana, who was sitting on the carpet teasing Remus with a piece of string.

  “The river’s risen,” she said, craning up to look out the window. “Will it affect the birds, do you think?”

  “I cannot say. I’ve never seen such a wind, even in the Channel. But tonight there’s a full moon and, since the Thames is tidal until it reaches Hampton Court, there’s bound to be a storm surge along here.”

  “What is that?” Diana had risen to her feet and was gazing out the window past his shoulder.

  “The tides from the sea will be enormously high, and all that water will come inland, carried here by the Thames. Look—” He tugged her in front of him, held her close with one arm, as he drew back the drapes to reveal the full vista of the river which ran along the entire front of the property. The water was moving even more rapidly than the night she had been trapped in the one-oared rowboat. But something was very wrong, she realized, as she saw a tree branch race by in the direction of Mortimer House.

  “Sweet Jesus!” she cried in shock. “The river is flowing backward!”

  Romulus let the drapery drop. “The surge has started. The tidal flood is running all the way up past Richmond. I believe something like this happened once before, years ago. But not in my lifetime.”

  “I want to see it up close,” she said, enthusiasm lighting her eyes. “Something to tell our grandchildren.”

  Romulus leaned to place a lingering kiss on the back of her neck. “If you get caught in the surge, my intemperate witch, you won’t have any grandchildren to tell.”

  Diana was about to make some pert response, when Lady Hamish came hurrying into the room.

  “Romulus,” she said breathlessly. “There is a man downstairs who insists on seeing you. He rode here in this awful windstorm.”

  Joe Black came pounding into the room in her wake, a protesting footman still clinging to his back like a barnacle. “Leave off there!” Joe cried, at last able to brush the man away. “Mr. Perrin, sir,” he said as he rushed forward. “I know you haven’t been well. But you are the only man who can help me.”

  “He is not yet fully recovered,” Diana interjected fretfully.

  “I know it, miss.” His worried eyes shifted to Romulus. “I see how thin you are, sir, and how washy. I’d thrash that Argie Beasle within an inch of his life, if he hadn’t taken himself off to God-knows-where. I’d not bother you with this, but it’s my family. My little girl and her cousins.”

  “What is it, Joe? Tell me, man. If there’s anything I can do for you, I will.”

  “It was the swans, sir. A nest of them on that narrow island downstream from yours. We saw them yesterday, me, an’ my wife, an’ our little girl when we rowed across from Treypenny to visit my sister’s family. We had taken Wald Chipping’s boat—he’s another one who’s scarpered off, sudden-like. Four boy cousins, my Bessie has, an’ each one more trouble than the next. They stole that boat this mornin’ sir, to go see the swans. And they took my girlie with them.”

  “No.” Rom said the word as if by merely pronouncing it, the children’s theft would be undone.

  “Indeed they did. Rowed it over to that island. And there they be, with the water rising, and them stranded. It’s killing my wife and my sister to see it, sir. To see their own babbies trapped like that. They’re only seventy feet from the shore, but they might as well be on the moon.”

  Rom was pacing about the room now. Diana and Lady Hamish darted alarmed glances at each other.

  “What’s happened to their boat?” Romulus asked in a clipped voice.

  The publican shrugged. “If I know my oldest nevvy, he never thought to tie it up. There’s no boat there now, not that anyone can see.”

  “Maybe the island won’t get covered over,” Diana suggested hopefully.

  Romulus turned and touched her hand briefly.
“Unlike my island, that one does have a name. Hereabouts, they call it the Sinker.”

  “Oh,” she said weakly.

  He went to the window and gazed out. His eyes gauged the current height of the river. “The island will be underwater inside of an hour. Maybe less.”

  He tugged off his dressing gown and tossed it onto a chair. Beneath it he wore a cambric shirt and dark broadcloth breeches—courtesy of Lady Hamish. A pair of gleaming top boots stood beside his bed. He sat down and quickly pulled one on.

  “Romulus, no!” It was Lady Hamish who had cried out.

  Diana was surprised she wasn’t the one protesting. But she knew this call to action was one Romulus couldn’t refuse. Not without imperiling his still tenuous self-esteem. This was exactly the sort of thing he thrived on. He was a rescuer, as she had good cause to know—he would no doubt be answering someone’s cry for help long after they were in their dotage. She told herself she’d just better get used to it.

  “You’re not taking a boat out—” Lady Hamish clutched his arm. “You’re still ailing, Romulus, and the river is a deathtrap.”

  “You’ll not get far, sir, if you set off from here,” Joe Black concurred bleakly. “The water’s reversed its flow, it’s coming down from London. I thought we could ride north to Richmond, find a boat there. Then you’d be headin’ with the current.”

  “There’s a boat near that island,” he told his astonished audience, and then winked at Diana.

  “Of course,” she breathed. “Mortimer’s rowboat.”

  “It’s beached on this side of the river—north of the Sinker.” As he spoke he thanked the Providence that kept him from burning the boat, and the river sense that had made him drag it far above the waterline.

  Diana ran to crouch before him, “Can I do anything to help?”

  He shook his head. “No. Best keep out of the way.”

  “Romulus…” she muttered, leaning forward with a set, mutinous expression on her face.

  “Sorry,” he said wryly, “I forgot that you rarely take no for an answer.” He rapidly ticked off a list of items. “I’ll need a coach, and rope—two hundred feet, should do it. A grappling hook, a knife, blankets, and as least four strong men. Can you gather those things in the next five minutes?”

  “Like falling off a log,” she said briskly as she started for the door. She glanced behind her as she reached the entryway, noting the worried faces in the room. Her river god was the only one who looked calm and untroubled. She ran back and kissed the side of his face. “I love you, Romulus Perrin,” she whispered. And then she bolted from the room.

  “Oh, and two sets of oars!” he shouted after her.

  After he had tugged on a coat of melton cloth he went striding from the room with Joe Black and the footman hurrying after him. Lady Hamish went to her room to fetch a cloak, and one for Diana. She had no intention of letting Romulus go off alone into danger, and she suspected the girl would be of the same mind. She then ordered up her barouche, thanking God her horses were not flyaway high-breds, but more passive plodders. It wouldn’t do to take flighty cattle out in such a tempest.

  As she stepped from the rear of the house, the howling wind caught at the hood of her cloak and sent it billowing behind her. The sky had gone yellow, the color of soured buttermilk, and the wind shrilled like a banshee over the top of the tall house. In all her fifty-two years she had never seen the like.

  As Diana came out through the stable entrance, dragging an unwieldy coil of rope behind her, she saw Lady Hamish standing silhouetted against the dark kitchen doorway. She marveled at how regal the woman appeared, like Elizabeth Tudor about to send her fleet against the Spanish armada.

  Lady Hamish came resolutely across the cobbled yard, and after throwing the cloak over Diana’s shoulders, she helped her carry her burden toward the coach that awaited Romulus. Lady Hamish waved away the driver’s offer of assistance, and the two women hauled the rope into the coach’s interior. The footman came listing around the corner then, his narrow frame buffeted this way and that by the gale, as he juggled the four oars he had fetched from the boathouse.

  Rom came out of the stable, still issuing instructions to the four grooms Diana had recruited. The grooms climbed into the coach, stepping over the rope that lay coiled there, like a long, braided serpent.

  Romulus gave Lady Hamish a swift hug. Her eyes were wet with tears when she released him. He turned to Diana then. “Thank you,” he said into the wind. “Thank you for not being afraid.”

  “I’m petrified,” she called back, holding her hair away from her face with both hands.

  “So am I,” he said, as he bent her back and quickly kissed her. “Be brave, my darting. Stay with Lady Hamish—she will need you if anything goes wrong.”

  And with that curious pronouncement, he climbed into the coach. The driver pulled out, whipping his horses into a gallop once the coach had passed from the stableyard. The barouche, its canvas top up, drove into the stableyard in the coach’s wake. Diana tugged open the door and aided her hostess up the steps. She tumbled in after her, the wind sending her cloak flying about her like a shroud.

  Lady Hamish’s eyes were liquid with fear. “Can he save them, do you think?”

  “He can, if anyone can,” Diana stated, as she settled herself on the opposite seat. A cold, trembling hand reached across the space; that separated them. Diana took it and squeezed reassuringly. “Romulus knows the river,” she said stoutly. “And I do believe, my dear Lady Hamish, that the river knows him.”

  * * *

  He’d seen it done once, in Tuscany, while he and his father were living there.

  The rivers of that Italian province were ancient; they had carved deep gullies into the ruddy landscape. For the most part they were placid—slow moving and serene. But occasionally, when there was too much rainfall high in the Apennines, those rivers became raging torrents. Villages which had stood for centuries were carried away before the tons of water that were unleashed from the mountains.

  A farm family had been trapped on the roof of their barn by such a flood. The swollen river raged on either side of the barn, making it impossible for a boat to reach them without being carried away by the plunging water. But the Tuscan farmers had figured out a way to combat the current. They had attached two lines to a rowboat, fore and aft, and then launched it upstream from the beleaguered family. Once the boat was in the river, one group of men held the stern rope, keeping the boat stationery in the water, while another group went downstream and manned the bow line. After the boat had been rowed across the flooding water and the family rescued, the second team quickly hauled the boat to shore, working with the current. It had taken all of ten minutes to accomplish, and Romulus had never forgotten the sight.

  He had also not forgotten that the only difficult part had been getting the boat across the current to the stranded family. The man who had worked the oars that day was a giant of a fellow. And he had taken another man with him, to push away the tree limbs and wooden planks that were borne along by the racing water. Romulus knew he could organize the rescue, but wondered if he had the strength to get the boat across to the island. He was, however, probably the only man fool enough to try.

  When the coach reached the bank opposite the Sinker, Romulus saw that a group of people had gathered there—two tearstained women among them. The mothers of the lost chicks, no doubt. He looked across the white-capped water, saw the children clinging to the lower limbs of a pitching maple tree, their hair and clothing whipped by the wind. The river was already lapping partway up the trunk of their refuge. Another clutch of villagers stood on the opposite bank, braving the fierce wind to discover the fate of the stranded children. There was nothing like human drama to draw folks from their homes, he knew, even in the worst weather.

  He leaped from the coach and struggled through the underbrush to where the Mortimer’s rowboat lay, its camouflage now blown away. He breathed a prayer of thanks that it was still there, as he swif
tly righted it and then attached the two ropes, fore and aft. He cursed as his shaking fingers refused to do his bidding. There was so little lime. Already the river was licking at his boots.

  He sent the grooms to their respective stations, watching as the two men who were to stand opposite the downstream end of the island waded through knee-deep eddies along the bank. His mother had chosen her servants well, he saw. Not a weak-hearted fellow in the lot.

  He climbed into the boat, set the oars, and was about to push off into the maelstrom, when Joe Black came huffing up to him. “Let me come with you, sir. To push away the debris.” He motioned as a large, deadly-looking piling shot past. Romulus wondered wryly if Joe Black had any Italian blood.

  “Climb in, Joe.” He passed him one of the spare oars to use as a gaff, and then cast off.

  The current caught at the craft as though it were made of paper. Rom felt the abrupt tug of the stern line, the twang of the rope as it caught and held. The two men upstream labored at the shore, knees bent, feet digging into the muddy bank, keeping the boat stationary in the water. Rom put his back into the oars, feeling every muscle protest as he set off across the current. It was like pushing against a wall of stone.

  Joe Black leaned over the side and fended off a tree limb the size of a pony. “Sweet bloody blazes!” he cried over the wind. “I’m going to have my nevvy’s hide for putting us through this.”

  Rom said nothing. From his vantage point, the island seemed to be miles away. There was no way he’d get the boat across. But he kept on rowing, in spite of his aching weariness. The distance to the island slowly decreased—he could see the children in detail now, desperation evident in their numbed faces.

  Now that he had his quarry in sight, Romulus rowed with renewed intent, stretching every sinew to the limit. But his overtaxed body, still depleted from the five days in the shed and weakened by his wretched nervous condition, began to fail him. His arms were trembling now from exertion, and he felt as though his heart would burst. With one last mighty heave, he brought the boat to within ten feet of the tree. Joe Black quickly stood up and hurled the grappling hook over the nearest stout branch. He then reeled the line in until they were directly below the maple. Romulus looked up at the five frightened faces.