Water surrounded her arms and legs.
She wasn’t far from the house. Did her godmothers hear the dogs growling? Would Mr. Halloway emerge from his ale stupor in time to grab his old musket and scare them away?
Water surrounded her neck and ears.
She’d never see Captain Mariner again.
Her arms began to burn with pain as she flailed uselessly, and then they became as heavy as anchors so that she could no longer raise them. It isn’t fair. Give me another chance!
Winnie wanted to die fighting, not miserably drowning in the stream. She didn’t want to sink beneath the chill waters, but that’s what was happening. The water now covered her nose and mouth, and it was too deep for her to push against the bottom of the stream to propel herself above the surface and gulp air.
She opened her eyes as she sank into the water and searched in desperation for a foothold… a branch… anything to grab as the current pushed her under and swept her downstream.
At the same time, she felt a stinging sensation in her hand where the dog had bitten her, apparently more than once for its sharp teeth had cut into the flesh of her palm as well as her finger. Streaks of red mixed with the water’s blue.
She closed her eyes and fought with all her might against the fast current.
Her lungs felt as though they were about to burst.
She was going to die.
Chapter Eight
Ardaric dove into the water, praying he wasn’t too late. Damn Miss Allenby-Falk’s traps. He’d lost precious moments, forced to take a longer route to Kingsley Hall than the madwoman had used.
He’d seen Winnie go under but couldn’t get to her, for Miss Allenby-Falk had set her dogs on him. He’d quickly dispatched the creatures, and Mr. Halloway had arrived at that moment to take custody of the madwoman.
But precious time had been lost fighting them off. How far had the current dragged Winnie?
Or was she caught among the grasses?
How long could she hold her breath?
He stayed under and searched until his lungs began to burn. He was about to swim up for air when he saw her limp body entwined in a patch of grass on the opposite bank of the stream. He swam to her in two long strokes and pulled her to the surface. “Winnie, breathe!” he cried as soon as he felt the cold breeze on his face.
He released his own breath in a gasp.
But Winnie didn’t gasp.
She didn’t move.
She wasn’t breathing.
“No, sweetheart! Don’t give up.” He’d seen her fend off the dogs and knew she had a fighting spirit. “Winnie, please. Come back to me.”
He lifted her out of the water and set her down on the grass, sparing only a glance behind him to make certain Mr. Halloway still had the madwoman in his control.
Mrs. Halloway lumbered to his side and saw Winnie’s motionless form. “Oh, no! Not our Winnie!” she wailed.
“Luv, send for the magistrate at once,” Mr. Halloway said, “and better call for the doctor too.”
Mrs. Halloway burst into tears. “What shall I tell the Merridale sisters?”
“Luv,” Mr. Halloway said softly, “it doesn’t look good. Tell them to pray.”
Ardaric had never been one for praying, but he was doing so with all his might right now. He wasn’t certain what else to do, but he’d seen a sailor revived once after drowning, so he mimicked the actions of the ship’s doctor, pressing on Winnie’s chest in a pumping motion. “One, two, three… four.”
No response.
He tried again. “One, two—”
She lurched forward, heaving and gurgling as the water that had been trapped in her lungs began to spill out.
“Winnie! Thank heaven!” But she wasn’t safe yet. Her eyes were glazed and unfocused. She was coughing and gasping as she struggled for each hard-fought breath.
But she was breathing and that’s all that mattered now.
His Winnie was alive.
He lifted her into his arms, her slender body light and frail, and carried her back to Kingsley Hall. Her lips were blue, and her eyes had drifted closed so that he could no longer see their glow. The pins had fallen out of her hair so that her rich curls tumbled wet over her shoulders and spilled over his arms, dark ginger against the white lawn fabric of his shirt.
He kicked open the front door ahead of Mrs. Halloway, who was doing her best to keep up with him in spite of her old legs slowing her down, and called for Winnie’s godmothers as he marched up the stairs. “Prudence! Serenity! Har—”
Harmony was the first to scramble out of the parlor. “Upon my honor! You can’t sweep a girl into your arms and carry her to bed as though you were a heathen or a highlander. What are you doing? And why are you sopping wet?”
Prudence followed her out. “Hush, Harmony! Can’t you see that Winnie’s injured? Why, you’re the gentleman from the inn.”
Serenity darted in front of him to open Winnie’s bedroom door. “What happened to our girl?”
“First, help me get her out of her wet clothes.” He frowned at the Merridale sisters. “I have plenty of questions for you three. For starters, who is Winnie really? And why does that Allenby-Falk woman want her dead?”
Winnie heard Captain Mariner’s voice issuing instructions, but after a few moments all turned silent. Perhaps she’d lost consciousness again. How much time had passed since she’d fallen in the water? She moaned. “Sweetheart,” he said in a soft rumble, “you’re awake.” She sensed him beside her and reached out to touch his hand.
She loved the tender ache in his voice. He’d called her his sweetheart, but what did it signify? She opened her eyes and smiled at him. They were in her bedchamber, she in bed, and he seated in a chair beside the bed. “What happened? You’re all wet.”
His shirt was pasted to his muscled body, and his hair was slicked back. The leather boots and pants he wore were no doubt ruined. In other words, he looked magnificent.
He grinned. “So were you until a few moments ago. Your godmothers changed you out of your wet clothes and put you into a very proper nightgown meant to protect your modesty, but my thoughts about you still remain shockingly immodest. However, I’ve promised to behave myself with you and I never break a promise. Regretfully, in this instance.”
“That’s gallant of you. So you find me attractive?” Her words came out in a croak because her voice was raspy from her near drowning, and she sounded like a frog.
He leaned forward and tweaked her nose. “Prudence has now gone off with Mrs. Halloway to summon the magistrate and the doctor. I will engage an excellent Bow Street runner by the name of Homer Barrow to hunt down the Darkwells and bring them to justice. Serenity and Harmony are destroying the kitchen as we speak, attempting to make you some broth.”
“Oh, dear.” Winnie laughed, but her chest still burned, so her laughter ended with a groan. “You’d better check on them before they do more damage to the house.”
He shook his head. “No, sweetheart. I’m not leaving your side.”
She eased back against her pillows. “Until I’m better? My birthday party is tomorrow. Will you stay here until then?”
He nodded.
She hadn’t planned on crying, but a madwoman had tried to kill her today. As if that weren’t bad enough, she’d fallen in love with a handsome stranger and didn’t know his name. But what finally brought tears to her eyes was that she still didn’t know her own name. “I’ll turn twenty-one tomorrow and I don’t know who I am. Miss Allenby-Falk said I was someone’s missing daughter.”
“You will know before this day is through… I promise.”
By late afternoon, the doctor had seen Winnie and declared her recovered enough to attend tomorrow’s surprise birthday party that had never been much of a surprise. Mr. Mortimer, the acting magistrate in Lord Darkwell’s absence, took Miss Allenby-Falk into his custody with assurances to the captain that she would be forever locked away. The captain had spoken quietly to Mr. Mortimer while th
ey were outside, so Winnie couldn’t hear everything that they were saying, even though she’d poked her head out the bedroom window and was doing her best to eavesdrop on their conversation.
Whatever the captain had conveyed to Mr. Mortimer made him turn pale. It also wiped that irritating leer off his face. She tried to ask the captain about it when he returned, but he refused to tell her what he’d said to scare the man.
He’d planted a kiss on her forehead and gone off again.
Winnie was too curious to stay in bed, so she sat by the window as Mr. Halloway and a dozen or so villagers left Kingsley Hall to scout Miss Allenby-Falk’s property. They needed to be sure there were no more dogs caged in her barn or prowling loose on the grounds.
Winnie didn’t know what they would do if they found any. Those animals had been trained to kill. Could they ever be gentled?
It took another hour before her godmothers and Captain Mariner were ready to begin their overdue discussion. The captain set four chairs around her bed, and he and her godmothers took their seats. Winnie fluffed her pillows and sat up, her back propped against the headboard.
Prudence began first, her hair appearing a little grayer and her plump body sagging as though in defeat. “We thought we were protecting you,” she said in a tremulous whisper.
Winnie reached for her hand and gave it a light squeeze. “I know. But I must be told the truth now. Who were my parents?”
“Your mother was Aurora Brayburn, a lovely girl, just like you,” Prudence replied. “She and I were childhood friends. I was with her the day she met your father. He was one of the kindest gentlemen we’d ever met, a handsome vicar passing through town on his way back to his parish. He caught sight of your mother, and in that same moment, she noticed him.”
“They fell in love,” Serenity said, her eyes misting as she continued the story. “That’s all it took, one glance and your parents knew they were meant for each other. He wasn’t titled or from a particularly important family, but that didn’t matter to your mother. They married soon afterward. His name was Peter Avonlea. You are Aurora Winifred Avonlea, their only child.”
“Avonlea?” The mention of that name appeared to surprise the captain, but he said nothing more. “Go on. Forgive the interruption.”
Harmony withdrew a handkerchief from her sleeve to wipe the tears now falling on her plump cheeks. “Winnie, your mother was killed just before your first birthday. You see, your father had been receiving strange little love notes from someone unknown that he never took seriously until he married and those missives became lurid and disquieting. He continued to receive those notes after your mother’s death, so fearing for your safety when those notes began to mention you, he asked us to take you in.”
Prudence also had her handkerchief out. “We willingly did so, and when he suddenly died a few months after he’d buried your mother, we got scared and packed up. We lived in Dover at the time and thought it best to move us all north to Grasmere.”
Harmony nodded. “We wove a tale about your father being a baron to throw the killer off the scent, should he… or she… be looking for us. We hoped this unknown person would not think to look for a child who was a lady. We thought our plan quite clever. Even your father had been careful in making the arrangements to deliver you to us. No one knew you’d been sent to us, or so we thought.”
“We were all distraught and still reeling from the loss of your mother,” Serenity said, picking up the conversation, “and suddenly, your father was gone. Protecting you became our only concern. I still don’t understand how that madwoman found us.”
Prudence sighed. “We’ve been in hiding since your first birthday.”
Winnie’s hands were now curled into fists, and she was struggling to control her anguish. She wanted to bury her head against the captain’s shoulder and cry until all her tears were spent, but she didn’t know what he was thinking and could not bear to be spurned by him after everything else that had happened today.
She’d regain her strength by tomorrow and could pretend that her heart wasn’t breaking when he walked away. “How did my mother die?”
Serenity continued the story. “She had been sitting with you by the pond near the vicarage on a lovely spring day when your father and several parishioners heard her screams. By the time they reached her, she was dead. Stabbed… and you were floating in the water, somehow still alive.”
The captain leaned forward. “Did they not investigate Miss Allenby-Falk at the time?”
“No,” Serenity said. “Nobody knew who Peter Avonlea’s secret admirer was. The person was like a ghost, an evil specter swooping down upon the Avonlea family.”
Prudence shook her head and tsked. “I wish we had discovered Miss Allenby-Falk’s identity sooner.”
Harmony sniffed. “Though how did she find us? She couldn’t have followed us all the way from Dover.”
Winnie wiped a tear that had fallen onto her cheek. “Obviously, she did. But didn’t you find her arrival here suspicious at the time?”
Harmony shook her head. “No, indeed. She moved here about five years after us. Rumor had it that she’d inherited the tumbledown house on the outskirts of town from an uncle, so no one thought it odd when she suddenly appeared and took up residence there. She went about her business quietly and seemed nice enough, although she was always a bit eccentric.”
Serenity cleared her throat. “But so are we, dear.”
Winnie exchanged a grin with the captain.
The shared jest felt intimate and helped to ease the pain she was feeling.
“As the years wore on,” Prudence continued with a sigh, “we dropped our guard and thought you were safe. So much time had gone by, you see, and all was well.”
“Until that horrid witch tried to kill you,” Harmony concluded.
Winnie was suddenly too overcome to speak. Captain Mariner had more questions, and she was glad he had the voice to press on when she could not. “What is the significance of Winnie’s birthday?”
“Her father wasn’t a wealthy man by any means, but he had a little bit of money tucked away. He left it in trust for Winnie until she came of age. That will happen tomorrow. The trustee is a brother-in-law of Vicar Avonlea. His name is Jason Pivens. He’s managed the trust quite wisely and built it up so that Winnie shall never lack for funds so long as she manages her inheritance prudently.”
The captain shifted in his chair. “Sir Jason Pivens, vice-chairman of Lloyds Bank?”
Winnie’s eyes rounded in surprise. “You know my uncle?”
“Quite well. He’s my banker and a good friend. His sister is married to one of my cousins. It was at his request that I met him in Windermere. And at his request that I—” He scowled at Winnie’s godmothers. “It was on his advice that I stayed at the inn where I met you three. You’ve known all along who I am.”
Winnie looked from him to her godmothers and back to him, her brain too clouded to absorb all the information coming at her in quick succession. “Are you saying that you trust my uncle? That you don’t believe he was secretly scheming with Miss Allenby-Falk to harm me?”
Her godmothers appeared shocked at the suggestion that he might have been involved. “He has a sterling reputation,” Prudence assured her. “That madwoman used only the Darkwells for her evil purpose. Sir Jason is wonderful. We can’t wait for you to meet him.”
Winnie leaned forward eagerly. “Tomorrow? Is that my surprise? I’m to meet him on my twenty-first birthday?”
Harmony hemmed and tittered and finally groaned. “Oh, Prudence! You’ve ruined the surprise.”
“No,” Winnie said softly, tears now spilling down her cheeks. “I think I’ll have sweet dreams for the first time in years.” But she hastily wiped them away and turned to Captain Mariner. “There’s one mystery still left, although I appear to be the only one who isn’t in on your secret. Who are you?”
He raked his fingers through his hair and frowned. “This doesn’t change a thing about me.”
Winnie shook her head. “Why do I suddenly think it will? Who are you?”
“Ardaric Sinclair, fourth Duke of Blantyre.”
Chapter Nine
A duke?
Her Viking warrior-pirate was actually a duke!
One who’d walked out of her bedchamber shortly after the family discussion had ended. She’d heard the front door swing open and then close shut and knew he’d disappeared into the evening.
Everything had now changed.
He wasn’t coming back.
A knot formed in her chest and her lungs felt squeezed in a vise. It had nothing to do with her almost drowning and all to do with losing the man she loved.
Winnie slept fitfully that night, hoping that she would see her Viking warrior-pirate again and knowing he had no reason to stay. She had nothing to offer him, for she was no one of consequence. She wasn’t a princess. She wasn’t even a lady.
She was Miss Aurora Winifred Avonlea, a vicar’s daughter.
Winnie slowly made her way downstairs the following morning and walked outside to clear the mist of confusion from her brain. There were tables and benches scattered around the garden in preparation for her birthday. The sky was a perfect, cloudless blue, and the breeze was crisp but just gentle enough to keep hats from flying off the heads of the guests who were due to arrive shortly.
Amid yesterday’s commotion, Mrs. Halloway had managed to bake a lemon cake and an assortment of tasty treats, so that the heavenly aroma of lemons, cinnamon and chestnuts, and warm apples wafted from the kitchen.
Winnie was ready for her party. She had done up her hair in a simple bun and dressed in her finest gown, a pale green silk that brought out the green in her eyes and managed not to clash with the ginger of her hair. She’d been up for hours and eager to talk to her captain, who wasn’t actually a captain at all, but a duke.
He was nowhere to be found.
She began to fret that he really would miss her party. Her captain had promised to stay, but dukes did as they pleased and answered to no one but the royal family.
Romantic Legends Page 58