He waited for the ladies downstairs, but it was Frank who joined him a few moments later, laden down with baggage.
“Aren’t you working in the taproom this morning?” John asked.
“No sir. My orders are to come to the beach with you.”
“But I gave you no such orders.”
“No, sir, you didn’t,” Frank said woefully. “But she did. She has just given me all the bags to carry. Of course,” he added, brightening, “you could always order me to stay here.”
“And disobey Miss Campbell?” John asked with a grin. “What a hero you must be, Frank! No, I think you had better come to the beach with us and – er – do whatever she tells you.”
“You are a hard man, sir. A very hard man.”
The next moment they saw the ladies descending to join them and Frank fell into cowed silence.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Half an hour later the party left the Paradise Hotel. John and Cecilia went first, she clinging to his arm and tripping along daintily, clad in a soft blue dress that he thought was enchanting.
Behind them came Miss Campbell. Frank brought up the rear, glaring and puffing under the weight of bags.
When they reached the beach, John hired two bathing machines and he and Frank took one, while the ladies took the other.
“Are you joining us in the water?” John asked his valet. “Or hasn’t Miss Campbell given you her orders yet?”
“That’s right, kick a man when he’s down,” Frank observed gloomily. “She didn’t say anything, so I am coming in. If she objects I’ll – I’ll –”
“You’ll what?” John asked, fascinated.
“I’ll ask you to protect me, sir. After all, I work for you, not her.”
“I will do my very best to protect you, Frank,” John said, keeping his face admirably straight, “although it may well be beyond my power.”
“But you charged the Russian guns at the Battle of Balaclava, sir,” Frank pleaded.
“Yes, and having taken part in one suicidially foolish action, I have no desire to risk my neck in another. It is time you saw some action, Frank.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you possess a costume, by the way?”
“Yes, sir. I used to swim a bit in the lake at home. The butler loaned me his costume and when we left Milton Park, I sort of forgot to give it back to him.”
“Admirable forethought! Then let us go into that contraption and make a start.”
It was dark in the machine and John found it hard to see what he was doing. Just as he had finished changing, the machine gave a jerk as the horse began to drag it into the sea, stopping when the water was about three feet deep. They heard the sound of the horse being unharnessed and taken away.
“Ready?” John asked Frank.
“Ready as I ever will be, sir.”
Frank opened the door which led to the steps down into the water, stood aside to allow his master through, and then followed him down. They swam a few strokes and looked back to the other machine, which had by now reached its place in the water. The horse was just being led away.
After a moment the door opened and they had their first glimpse of a very pretty flowered cap. That was exactly the sort of enchanting creation that Cecilia would wear, John thought contentedly. But the next moment he felt a shock.
The face under the cap was Miss Campbell’s.
It was she who descended first, looking cautiously this way and that, to ensure that no disrespectful male eyes were fixed on them. She jumped quickly into the water, but there was still time for John and Frank to observe the deep pink of her costume, plus the fact that her figure was more voluptuous than they had previously suspected.
Frank’s eyes were popping out of his head, John was amused to notice.
“Sir,” he breathed, awed. “I never realised that she was so – so –”
“Certainly her normal attire does not do her justice,” John agreed. “Now, you behave yourself, my lad. You hear me?”
Frank did not answer. He was past hearing anything.
Then Cecilia appeared and John promptly forgot all about Miss Campbell.
Cecilia also wore a pretty flowered cap, very similar to Miss Campbell’s, although, to John’s entranced eyes, nobody could confuse the two women for a minute. Cecilia was divinely slender, her elegant figure sheathed in a deep blue costume.
Naturally the costume was modest, with a skirt that flared over her hips and came down almost to her knees. Even so, it could not disguise the notion that she was built like a fairy.
Seeing him watching her, she hurried down into the water, but not before John experienced an enchanting glimpse of slim exquisite ankles.
He waved and she swam towards him with easy, confident strokes.
“You are a good swimmer, madam,” he said. “I congratulate you.”
“I love swimming,” she replied. “I bathed in the sea as much as I could when we were living here. It makes me feel free of all the troublesome restrictions in my life, as well as free of my fears.”
“You are not going to be afraid today,” he stated firmly. “I will not allow it.”
Cecilia looked at him, feeling a glow of joy. When he spoke like that, she felt as if there was nothing to be afraid of in the whole world.
She looked around, rejoicing in the vast expanse of sky and sea and the glorious sense of liberation it gave her. She began to back away from him, further out into the water.
“Not too far,” he cautioned at once, reaching out a hand towards her. She evaded him and took another step backward.
“I am a good swimmer,” she responded.
He stepped forward, trying to take her hand, but she evaded him again.
“Miss Smith –”
“My name is Cecilia –”
“Cecilia, please be careful –”
“I don’t want to be careful. I seem to spend all my life watching out for danger. Now I want to be free.”
She moved back quickly, yet her hand was extended to him, inviting him to follow where she led. John accepted the invitation with all his heart, telling himself that he was concerned for her safety, yet secretly knowing that he could not resist joining her.
She began to swim with determined strokes. He followed her, heading out into deep water. Sometimes she would turn and swim backstroke so that she could watch him and make sure that he was following.
She is enchanting, John thought, as she was drawing him ever onward and out to sea. Just as a mermaid might lure her prey after her on a journey to mysterious echoing caves, where the sirens sang. And he would follow to whatever secret unknown destination she led him, because he had no choice.
He was amazed at the way she swam. Women were supposed to be feeble and delicate, but she could move strongly, cleaving through the water with sure swift strokes.
He began by holding back, so as not to overtake her, then realised that he was falling behind and had to put on a spurt to catch her up. She smiled, understanding the game and swimming even faster to tease him.
Way, way out they went, until they seemed to be floating in their own perfect world.
“Cecilia,” he called.
She turned and leaned back in the water, watching him with an enigmatic smile.
“I don’t think we should go any further,” he said.
Her head told her that he was right, but it was as though she had turned into another being, one who could say outrageous things and mean them.
“I am not afraid,” she told him. “Are you?”
“Do you know, I am beginning to think that I am a little afraid,” he said. “Afraid for you, but also afraid of you. I don’t know you any more. It is as though you are no longer a woman, but have become a mermaid.”
Her heart leapt at his words and even more at his tone. He sounded like a man bewitched and suddenly she knew that she wanted to bewitch this man more than she wanted anything else on earth. She wanted to charm and enchant him, she wanted to baf
fle and confuse him. She wanted him to lie awake all night wondering about him – as she had done last night.
She swung away from him, gliding delicately through the water and he followed.
“Stop,” he gasped at last. “Have mercy, mermaid. This mere mortal cannot keep up with you.”
She took his outstretched hand and they trod water, each gasping and exhilarated.
“You madwoman!” he exclaimed, laughing. “How could you do such a stupid thing?”
“It is not stupid for me,” she cried. “I am a mermaid and I can swim anywhere. I can swim round the world.”
“Take me with you,” he pleaded suddenly.
The sea and the sky moved into a dizzying spin. For a moment the whole world belonged to her and everything was glorious.
“What – what did you say?” she asked.
“I said take me with you,” John repeated with quiet intensity.
He was not aware that his hand had tightened on hers, but Cecilia felt it and her heart soared. Perversely she would not let him suspect.
“I cannot take you with me,” she asserted. “We mermaids swim alone and no man may follow us. It is forbidden.”
She pulled away from him and dived swiftly, so that he saw a flash of shapely ankle before she vanished into the depths. Instantly he dived as well and felt a moment’s panic because he could not see her in the dark blue water.
At last he sensed her gliding past him as though she was indeed the mermaid she had claimed to be. This time he was taking no chances. He put on a spurt and caught up with her, seizing her waist.
Above them the water was pale from the light above. Up and up they climbed until they broke the surface and the sunshine streamed over them again. At first they laughed into each other’s eyes, but suddenly they stopped laughing and trod water, looking astonished at what had come over them.
The shore was so distant as to be almost invisible. Overhead the blue sky was empty and the sea stretched far away into the distance. They might have been completely alone in the world with no one to see what they did next.
Slowly John drew her towards him. Her arms enfolded his neck and the next moment he was kissing her, and she was kissing him.
For Cecilia it was her first kiss, except for those that Sir Stewart had forced on her that she had fought so hard to avoid. Secretly she had always dreamed of her first true kiss from a man who had captured her heart and made her want to be his.
Now it was happening and in that one moment she knew that this was the man she had been waiting for. There were so many places she might have gone, in her flight, but some instinct had directed her to the place where he was.
In some dim distant corner of her mind she knew that it was shocking for her to be behaving like this with a man she hardly knew, especially when both of them were so lightly clad. But she could not believe that it was improper when everything inside her reached out to him.
He was the man her heart had chosen, for now and for ever. He was her friend and her protector and now she longed to call him lover and husband.
They drew slowly apart, not releasing each other, still treading water as they drew back slightly to regard each other in a new light.
“Cecilia,” he murmured, “forgive me –”
“There’s nothing for me to forgive,” she interrupted him joyously.
“It was wrong of me to take advantage of you – out here, where you are defenceless –”
She almost laughed aloud. She did not feel defenceless. She felt strong and in control. After all, if was she who had insisted on swimming so far out and he who had followed helplessly. She put her head on one side and looked up at him with teasing humour.
He understood her. It was he who was helpless under her spell. But he knew he must force himself to behave with propriety.
“I – think we should return,” he said unsteadily. “You are so lovely that I – I might forget to behave like a gentleman.”
She chuckled.
“Now you sound like Papa. He was always talking about acting ‘like a gentleman’ but I am afraid people always knew that he was not one. You don’t have to pretend with me.”
Her words forced him to remember that she was ignorant of his rank. She saw him as no more than a hotel manager, and therefore not a gentleman. He was deceiving her.
“I think we should go back,” he repeated hurriedly. “We are a long way out.”
She sighed.
“Yes,” Cecilia agreed reluctantly. “I suppose we must come back to earth.”
He did not ask what she meant. He too had felt transported to the stars.
They turned and began to swim towards the land. For the first time Cecilia realised just how far away the shore was. The distance had seemed like nothing when she swam out, full of strength and courage for the adventure.
But now the beautiful moment was over. The sun had vanished behind clouds and an ache of disappointment pervaded her. She was not sure what she had expected to happen, but she felt suddenly sad. The shore seemed to be moving away as she headed for it and she was tired.
“Not much further,” John reassured her.
“I suppose you were right,” she said. “I should have listened to you. It was too far.”
“Do you regret it?” he asked.
She shook her head. There were no words for what she felt or if there were, they were words she could never say to him. She was full of feelings and sensations that she had never known before, and she realised that she would not fully understand them all until she could shut her bedroom door and be alone for a long time, coming to terms with the new life that had begun to unfold for her.
But now she was tiring fast and the shore looked no closer.
“Hold on to me,” John urged. “Put your hands on my shoulders.”
She did so, floating above him, feeling the strength in his muscles as he forged ahead and the sudden movement of the water beneath her body as he kicked his legs. Now a new sensation pervaded her, that she could rely on John to defend her forever.
‘Oh, Papa,’ she thought, ‘what would you think of me now? You wanted me to marry a Lord and now I have fallen in love with a tradesman. How disappointed you would be! But I cannot help it. I love him more than all the Lords in the land.’
Then she saw something that made her look more keenly.
“Is that rowing boat coming towards us?” she asked.
John raised his head.
“Yes and I think that’s Frank rowing,” he replied. “And there’s Miss Campbell.”
Frank had his back to them, but Roseanne faced them and he saw her suddenly lean forward, pointing in their direction. Frank looked back over his shoulder and redoubled his efforts. In a few minutes the boat was beside them.
“Well done, Frank, you are a very welcome sight,” John said breathlessly. “We are both tiring a little.”
“So I thought, sir. But it’s not just that. He has come back.”
“Come back? You mean Sir Stewart?”
Cecilia gave a little scream.
“Oh, no. He can’t have.”
“He turned up at the hotel and Mrs. Jones sent a message down to the beach. So I rowed out to collect you. Climb aboard quickly, sir.”
John lifted Cecilia high out of the water and Miss Campbell helped her into the boat. Then Frank hauled his master in.
“Heavens!” Cecilia cried. “What am I going to do? Suppose he comes to look for me on the beach. Suppose he sees us land?”
“I have thought of that, miss,” Frank said, pointing to some towels in the bottom of the boat. “I brought these. If you lie down we can cover you with them until we reach land and then – then we’ll think of something else.”
“But you had better lie down at once,” Miss Campbell suggested. “We must take no chances.”
As she spoke she was drawing towels over Cecilia until she lay, completely covered, in the bottom of the boat. John took one of the oars and he and Frank rowed the rest of t
he way to the shore, while Miss Campbell lay back, trying to look like a lady of leisure being escorted by two cavaliers.
The two men rowed with their backs to the shore and it was left to her to study the crowded beach for any sign of danger.
“I can’t see him,” she said. “I think we’re in luck – oh, no! There he is!”
Cecilia gave a little scream and pulled the towels further around her.
“Where?” John asked, trying to squint over his shoulder.
“Don’t turn round in case he sees your face,” Miss Campbell said quickly. “He is walking away along the beach. If we’re quick we’ll get ashore before he turns back.”
They began to row very fast while Miss Campbell scanned the shore.
“Hurry, hurry,” she urged. “I can still see him in the distance – he is turning round now –”
They were nearing their bathing machines. As they reached them John leapt out of the boat, helped Cecilia over the side and hurried her up the steps of the first one he came to. He slammed the door, locked it and turned to find her collapsed on the floor, shivering.
“It’s all right,” he said, dropping down beside her and taking her in his arms. “I will not let him take you.”
“He will, he will,” she whispered in anguish. “I will never escape him. Wherever I go he will always follow me.”
John drew her closer in a gesture of fierce protection.
“You must not talk like that,” he stressed. “That is the talk of despair and you are too young and beautiful to despair. Your life must be full of joy and love.”
“I used to think so,” she said. “But not now. He’ll catch me one day, I know he will.”
“I will not let him,” John declared again aggressively. “I will protect you against anything, I swear it.”
She looked up at him with a look of admiration so intense that he was dazzled by the glory of her face. For a long moment he gazed down at her sweet upturned face, fighting the temptation to kiss her. The feel of her body pressed against him was almost shockingly intense. The thin material of her bathing costume provided her with scant covering. He could feel every curve of her soft flesh and the fact that it was wet only increased the sensation.
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