‘Could we not just cling to it, as it drifts with the current?’
‘No, Lizzie, I’m afraid not. The water is too cold for us to survive in it for very long. That was why I wanted to get you out of it as swiftly as possible.’
‘We could use it as a kind of flotation device? Hold it and kick our legs...’
‘No, that won’t do either. The mast and sail will act like a drogue. A kind of anchor used to slow a craft down,’ he swiftly explained when she wrinkled her nose at the technical term. ‘I saw the sail had come unfurled on one of my, uh, forays beneath the surface.’
‘Did you see...anything else? Anyone else, that is?’ She’d seen Bolsover and one other man plummet to the depths in a swirl of bubbles. But of Cottam, and the other two smugglers, there was no sign. ‘Are we the only survivors?’
‘I’m afraid so, Lizzie.’ His voice sounded grim. ‘When the boat overturned, the ropes and what have you spilled out on top of us all. Only you had a knife at the ready and the presence of mind to use it to such purpose that we escaped the tangle.’
He paused for a moment as Lizzie let that awful truth sink in. Nevertheless, she strained her ears for some telltale clue that there were other people nearby, over the sounds of the ocean.
There was nothing. No splashing. No cries for help. And even though she’d wanted to escape those horrible men, the thought of them all going to the bottom in a tangle of netting and ropes and rocks was so nasty she couldn’t help shuddering.
‘We’d better start swimming,’ said Harry. ‘The cold is getting to you already.’
It wasn’t the cold. But she didn’t argue. A keen sense of revulsion had her pushing herself away from the boat, and all it represented, with a mighty shove.
She heard another splash and interpreted it as Harry doing the same. Then realised that, in the dark, she had no idea what direction she ought to be swimming in.
‘We’ll have to trust the current,’ she said aloud. ‘But we might need to just float for a bit and let it find us.’
‘Good thinking,’ said Harry, who, from the sound of it, was following her. ‘Only we must take great care not to drift apart. I know that we will both be trying to keep in the current, but it may have vagaries about which you know nothing. The edges might flow more swiftly, or more slowly than the middle, for instance. And it is growing dark already. We won’t be able to see each other for much longer.’
‘Have you any suggestions,’ she said ‘as to how we might do that?’
‘Perhaps by simply talking to one another. That way we can check on each other’s positions even when it is completely dark. Assuming that it is going to take until well after sunset to reach shore?’
‘Probably.’ She rolled on to her back and began to kick her legs gently. ‘Although nobody has ever tried this, to my knowledge.’ She heard a swoosh to her left, followed by regular splashing sounds. Harry was clearly doing just what she’d done. And never mind whether it was light or dark, you simply couldn’t check where anyone else was in the water, when you were lying on your back.
‘Usually,’ she continued, ‘it is inanimate objects which wash up in Whitesands Bay. Objects which have gone into the sea some days earlier. Oh, dear. This isn’t going to work, is it?’ She felt panic clawing at her insides. ‘It took days between Mr Kellet going missing and his body washing up on the beach. And Jenny—’
‘Lizzie!’ He cut through her mounting hysteria with the one sharply spoken word. ‘Don’t forget they were weighted down with rocks. And they would have had to wait for the ice to melt before the ropes tethering them to the seabed would have released them. How long do you suppose it would take for a block of ice as big as the one that weasel was fastening round my legs to melt?’
‘It...it... I have no idea. But it would account for quite a bit of the time, I should think.’
‘Exactly. And we are not inanimate objects, just drifting, either. We are both alive and swimming. That will speed things up considerably.’
‘Harry?’
‘What?’
‘I just...’ She swallowed back a sob. ‘I just got a horrid vision of what nearly happened to us just now. Reverend Cottam...’ She would have shaken her head in disbelief if she hadn’t been swimming for her life.
‘Unbelievable, isn’t it? That explanation he gave, of how he made his murders look like accidental drownings...’
‘He was boasting about it. Gloating.’ She shivered. And not just with revulsion and reaction at what they’d so narrowly escaped. She was cold. And her eyes stung from salt water and her throat was raw.
Escaped? They had nowhere near escaped yet.
‘You...you understand now, why I was so determined to do whatever it might take, to bring him to justice? Why I... Lizzie, I hope, that is, you...’ He sighed.
‘Yes. Once he boasted about the way he’d tricked so many people and practically explained how he intended to do away with us, I could see exactly why you felt you had to go to such lengths to stop him.’ Not that it hurt her any less.
She swallowed again. Past a lump in her throat that felt like a knife.
‘Lizzie? Say something. Please.’
‘Something.’
He gave a bark of surprised laughter.
‘I do love you, you know.’
She flinched. ‘You don’t need to say that.’
‘Yes, I do. Before it’s too late.’
‘I would rather you be honest with me. That’s what I’ve always wanted.’
‘I am being honest with you. Now there is nothing I need to hide from you. Think about it. What do I have to gain by pretending to be in love with you? When we might never even make it safely to shore.’
That was a fair point. She was so cold. And her limbs felt so heavy. And Whitesands Bay was miles and miles and miles away. And she’d skipped breakfast. The odds were not in her favour.
Nevertheless, if she gave in to despair, Cottam would have won. She clenched her teeth on a growl. She had to survive, if only to tell the world what a horrible, two-faced, murdering swine he was.
‘Lizzie...’ came his voice from the darkness. ‘Lizzie, will you permit me to explain myself?’
‘Very well then.’ They were going to have to talk about something. And she did deserve an explanation. Which had better be a jolly good one. ‘At what precise point,’ she said with sarcasm, ‘did you fall in love with me?’
‘I am not certain.’ He went quiet. ‘But I started to understand certain aspects of my behaviour while I was lying in the bottom of that boat. It hit me with as much force as...well, as whoever knocked me cold. Though looking back, I think I must have begun to fall under your spell that first day, when you tried to be so mysterious.’
‘Mysterious? I never did.’
‘Yes, you did. You would not give me your name, remember? Miss Terious.’
‘Ah, yes.’
‘It was adorable. And then, when we danced together, it felt...’
‘As if we matched, yes, you said.’
‘And then, when you were in danger... God, Lizzie, why the hell didn’t you make a run for it when I gave you the chance?’
‘Just how far do you think I would have got down those tunnels when I can barely see my hands in front of my face in broad daylight? I could never have escaped that way. Anyway, what do you take me for? Do you think I could really have run off and left you at their mercy?’
‘I wouldn’t have cared about that, as long as you escaped. You had to survive. That was all that mattered. Not the investigation. Not a single one of my vows. And then when Bolsover actually struck you, all reason went overboard.’
‘Literally.’
‘Hah!’ He let out a bark of laughter. ‘At least I knew you could swim. You told me so, remember? And as we went overboard, I thought at least with them all fighting the sea, they woul
dn’t have any energy left to try to harm you. I wouldn’t have left it so late, if all the time I hadn’t been hoping that they meant to kill only me. It had never seemed all that likely, of course, not once they knew your suspicions about the supposed lovers’ drownings. But still I hoped against hope that they would do as Cottam had suggested and return you to your grandfather once they’d disposed of me.’
She recalled the way he’d squeezed her foot, as if to reassure her. And wondered if he truly would have meekly surrendered his own life without a struggle if he could have been sure it would ensure the safety of her own.
But it had never come to that.
‘Once he explained himself, so fully, that hope died, didn’t it? Yes, I came to the same conclusion, when Bolsover took my reticule.’
‘I didn’t imagine it, did I? That you’d decided to tip the boat over about the same time I made my move?’
‘You give me too much credit,’ she said. ‘I just couldn’t bear to think of that man using Sam’s telescope when he never got the chance to do so himself.’
‘Just as I couldn’t bear to lie there and do nothing when he struck you. Still, it just goes to show, doesn’t it?’
‘Shows what?’
‘That we make a great team. We acted as one, without even having to discuss tactics. Together, I shouldn’t think there is anything we cannot overcome.’
Except the sea. And the dark. And the awful, creeping cold...
Chapter Twenty-Five
‘Lizzie.’
‘Unh.’ She roused herself to reply, even though all she wanted to do was close her eyes and drift.
‘Lizzie!’ His voice was insistent. ‘Lizzie, listen! I think I can hear waves breaking on a shore.’
She could hear it, too. It wasn’t just wishful thinking. She really could hear the rhythmic sound that meant they were drawing close to land.
‘Lizzie, we’re almost there. Lizzie, please, sweetheart, rouse yourself. Just one more effort and then you can sleep.’
She summoned the last of her strength and forced her legs to kick.
‘I think,’ he said a few moments later, ‘I can—yes, my feet can touch bottom.’
The words had scarcely left his mouth before his arms came round her and he lifted her to his chest.
And, oh, it was heaven to just let him take her weight. She let her head loll into the curve of his shoulder. No more swimming. He was going to carry her to shore.
Though as soon as she got out of the water and the air struck her skin, it felt like being pummelled by shards of ice. She wriggled closer to Harry’s big, warm body, no longer scandalised by his nudity. All she wanted was to burrow into the warmth exuding from the slab of hair-roughened chest beneath her cheek.
The water was only to his knees now. He was leaving a wake of glistening foam in his path as he ploughed his way through the deep black waves, though how she could see that when she could see so little else was a puzzle.
‘I can’t imagine how you have the strength left to carry m-me, either,’ she marvelled. He’d made so much of being almost an invalid when she’d first met him, and even here in Dorset, he’d kept on saying he wasn’t up to his full strength. Had even that been a lie?
‘I haven’t,’ he gasped, collapsing to the sand with her still in his arms. ‘Lizzie, thanks to you, we’ve made it.’ He rolled her into his lap, somehow, and took her face between his hands. ‘You have seaweed in your hair,’ he said. Then kissed her.
His lips were as cold as hers. But somehow they warmed her. She wrapped her arms round him, not caring that what they were doing was highly improper. She just wanted to get as close to every manly inch of him as she could, while she had the chance. In case, for some obscure reason, she never got another.
He soon started running his big hands all over her, as though he couldn’t help himself.
Or was he trying to get her warm?
For some reason, the thought that he might be acting in a life-saving capacity, rather than a lover-like one, made her very conscious of the fact she was only wearing her stays and the shredded remains of a shift. She unwound her arm from his waist, to check that Sam’s knife was still where she’d put it for safekeeping. When her hand felt the handle, made from some kind of oriental wood that Sam had carved himself, the relief was so great that a great sob shook her frame.
‘Hey, hey, hush now,’ he crooned. ‘You look adorable with seaweed in your hair. Like a mermaid.’
‘It isn’t m-my h-hair,’ she stammered through teeth that were starting to chatter. ‘It’s...oh, ev-everyth-thing, I sup-pose.’
‘But we’re alive,’ he said. ‘And we defeated Cottam.’
And then he kissed her again.
As though he meant it.
And this time she made no attempt to staunch the fire that lit her up from inside. She kissed him back with every ounce of her strength, winding herself round him like seaweed. They were both still wringing wet and cold, but as he bore her down to the sand beneath him she gloried in the feel of his hands roving all over her, stroking, and grasping, as if he felt the need to make sure she was all there. Making her feel as if every inch of her was precious.
As every inch of him was precious to her. And wondrous, in his nudity. She could feel the muscles beneath the satin of his skin. Damp hair on his chest and his legs. And his...
‘God, what am I doing?’ Harry suddenly jerked away from her as though someone had yanked him away with an invisible cord. ‘I need to get you to shelter, warmth, not ravish you on the beach.’
To her disappointment, he knelt up and against the backdrop of a starry sky she could see his outline, his head turning from side to side as he scanned the area.
‘There’s a light over there,’ he finally said. ‘A fisherman’s hut, or something.’ He bent down, scooped her into his arms and got to his feet in one fluid motion. And then he was striding across the sand, with her in his arms like a hero out of a book...
Although, actually, a hero from a book wouldn’t be panting for breath, nor weaving from side to side. The poor man was clearly almost at the end of his strength.
‘P-put me d-down,’ she suggested through chattering teeth. She was far too heavy for him. And if he could walk, then so could she.
‘Not a chance,’ he grated. Just as the stars began doing something very peculiar overhead. They were all sort of wheeling round. She had to blink to try to get them to stop it.
‘Lizzie, stay with me,’ he said in a worried voice. ‘Don’t give up now.’
And then the world was tilting and she could hear him banging his fist against a door. Though she couldn’t see him any longer. Couldn’t see anything. Darkness was pressing in from all sides.
‘Please, mistress,’ she could hear him saying, from very far away. ‘Boating accident...lost our clothes in the water...’
‘Come you in, then, m’dears,’ said a motherly voice. And then a wall of heat hit her. ‘We need to get the rest of them wet things off the young lady and get her warm. You, too, me duck. Good Lord, if it ain’t Miss Hutton! Such a to-do there’s been about you...a boating accident you say, sir?’ Harry was putting her down and rough, yet gentle hands were pulling at what remained of her clothing.
‘Sam’s knife,’ she protested as the woman removed her stays.
‘Just you let Nan see to your things,’ said the woman. ‘Dry ’em all out nicely over the fire, we will, and you can put them all back on in the morning.’
She then started rubbing at her with some sort of towelling, before heaving her to her feet, getting her across a packed earth floor, and down on to a bed.
‘Get you in, too, sir,’ said the woman, just before Lizzie felt Harry flop down next to her. He put his arms round her and then it felt as if the woman, Nan, threw just about every blanket and coat and tablecloth she had over the top of them.
‘There ain’t no doctor nearer than Peacombe,’ she heard Nan saying. ‘Besides, he won’t do nothing more than what I’m doing. Best to send for the Colonel, if you ask me. Out of his mind with worry he is over this young lady going missing. And his place is nearer, as the crow flies.’
‘Do you happen to have a crow handy?’
Nan cackled with laughter. The laughter faded and she heard a door opening and closing.
‘Lizzie,’ Harry whispered, though she was pretty sure they were alone. ‘When your grandfather comes, please let me do all the talking.’ He stroked a strand of hair from her face. ‘I will tell him everything. But we need to agree on a story to account for what has happened today, to tell everyone else.’
‘Is that really n-necessary? C-can’t we just tell the t-truth?’
He redoubled his chafing.
‘We cannot let the truth get out. It involves too many people who want it kept quiet. Please, can you just trust me on this, Lizzie?’
‘But Reverend C-Cottam tried to k-kill me! And he did k-kill Mr K-Kellet. And Jenny. You c-can’t want to let him get aw-way with it?’
‘He hasn’t got away with anything. He’s dead, darling. At the bottom of the ocean where he belongs. And no good will come of raking up...’
She turned over so that she lay with her back to him. And shut her eyes.
She felt him kiss the crown of her hair, but it didn’t feel the same as it had on the beach. There was thought behind it. Deliberation. As though he was trying to...to turn her up sweet.
Which was what he’d been doing since the very day they met.
Even on the beach...it might have felt real...but what did she know? She’d never kissed any other man. And though she’d poured her heart and soul into it, that didn’t mean he’d been doing the same.
The Captain Claims His Lady Page 20