Chapter Twenty-Five

I am officially in love! I have finally found my prince! Lord Anthony Argyll is perfect in every way. He’s handsome and charming, and while he isn’t rich and will never inherit anything, he is so eager to do good in the world he is determined to work for the government …

—from the diary of Miss Venus Merriwell, aged 21

“… fifteen, sixteen, seventeen…” Vee counted all the heads in a blind panic as each orphan raced off of the ice amid what had to be half of London. “Three are still missing!” She shouted this to Galahad who was still out on the ice looking for her charges. A quick scan of all the frightened faces lining the bank revealed exactly which three weren’t there that should have been. “Tommy, Sydney, and Billy!

Galahad nodded and searched the chaos for them, cupping his hands as he called out their names.

The reverend dashed toward her. “Are we all present and correct?”

She shook her head. “We are still waiting for Mr. Tubbs and the Claypoles. The little ones?”

“Are all mustered over there out of harm’s way with my wife and Mrs. Witherspoon.” He pointed farther up the path, and she allowed her gaze to leave the ice for a moment to check that it was so.

That few seconds was all it took to lose Galahad in the melee. “Take the others to safety while I…”

The reverend’s fingers gripped her arm and yanked her back from the edge. “It’s too dangerous, Vee!” She knew that but could not stand by impotent when he was on the ice for her. “You must stay here.”

“Get the others to safety!” She tugged her sleeve away, shaking her head in apology as she plunged into the fray. “Galahad! Tommy!” She was shouting into the wind, her urgent calls swallowed by all the others. Mothers. Fathers. Husbands. Wives. Brothers. Sisters. All frantic. All carrying or dragging loved ones to safety. It was a fight getting through them, but all at once she did, only to be confronted by a different kind of chaos in the middle of the lake where the ice had fractured.

Only the brave ventured there. The selfless or the desperate. Dotted like statues and frozen in fear; their focus all converged on one precise spot. One sported a ginger mop of hair, so she raced toward that like a woman possessed.

“Sydney! Oh my God, Sydney!” One down, only three to go. “Get back to the shore now!”

His body static, his eyes as wide as saucers, he shook his head. “Not without my bruvver!” He pointed to an enormous patch where the shimmering arctic blue-and-white ice had been eaten by the familiar murky turquoise of the Serpentine. Crouched upon a floating shard the size of a rowing boat were the other two boys. Tommy first. Billy tucked right behind him. Six feet away and flat on his belly on the jagged edge of the hole was Galahad.

“No sudden movements…” His voice was calm and reassuring in the strange eerie silence that now cloaked them. “We’ll do this as many times as we need until you catch my sleeve.” Up until that moment, Vee hadn’t noticed he was coatless. “Don’t panic if you miss the first time and if you don’t, don’t yank it, ya hear?”

Tommy nodded, his freckled face more serious than she had ever seen it.

“I’ll count to three and then I’ll throw.” Tommy nodded again, sucking in air as Galahad counted. “One … Two … Three…” He whipped his coat out across the channel and the boy whimpered as he missed it. “Never mind … That was just a practice run … If Billy holds you tight around the waist, you can reach a bit farther.”

Billy didn’t waste a second doing as he was told, and the coat was gathered up again by Galahad, wrung out, and rolled into a corded spiral. “One … Two … Three…” Out it snapped again and this time Tommy caught it, the precarious ice boat rocking back and forth in protest. “Stay still … Let it settle…”

Like the boys, and everyone around them, Vee held her breath until the chunk of ice calmed and Galahad made them all wait until the water beneath it was still, too, before he began to pull them in. Slowly.

Inch by painful inch.

The second he grabbed Tommy’s fingers, she rushed forward to help, only to be stayed by several pairs of hands—including Galahad’s—when the surface beneath her skates creaked menacingly.

Vee stopped dead, and for the first time looked to her feet. The ice, which had been so opaque and robust nearer the shore, was as translucent as glass out here in the middle where the afternoon sun had melted it.

“We need to keep the weight to a minimum.” Another man ushered her back. “We need to keep it spread out.” He pointed to the human chain waiting patiently to assist in the rescue.

She nodded, petrified, barely daring to breathe as she edged backward until there was no sign of the ominous bubbles of water visible through the reassuringly thicker ice beneath her feet. Then watched, impotent, as Galahad alone carefully eased first one boy, then the other from one dangerous piece of the ice to another. Only when Billy was safe and painstakingly being passed from hand to hand toward her did she sag in relief.

She hugged both boys close, shivering more from the fear of what might have been than the cold. “Go back to the bank slowly. One at a time.”

“Y-yes, Miss M-Merriwell.” Poor Tommy’s teeth were chattering, and his brother quickly stripped off his coat to wrap it around him. As the much thinner Billy was practically blue with cold, she gave him hers, then turned to where she assumed Galahad would also now be heading toward her.

Except he wasn’t.

He was still perched on his knees at the thinnest edge of the ice issuing calm instructions again.

That was when she realized that her boys weren’t the only ones left stranded by the failing ice. The little, ragged chestnut seller was, too, and to her complete horror, the much farther-away and smaller shard of ice that he was clinging to for grim death was sinking.

“Try to keep still, little fella.” How Galahad could sound so controlled when the situation was so perilous was a mystery, but he was as cool as the ice around him. “Give us a minute to make a line long enough.” The few men who remained were frantically tying together coats, cravats, and scarves to span the thirty feet between the boy and the man, but by her best guess it was still several feet too short. “At worst, you’ll have to swim for a little bit—but we’ve got you.”

“I can’t swim, mister!” The boy’s breath sawed in and out as his grubby face crumpled with terror. “I can’t swim!”

“It’s a good job that I can, isn’t it?” That he had the wherewithal to smile at the lad in reassurance suddenly told her everything she needed to know about Galahad Sinclair.

Whatever façade he hid behind genuinely did mask a prince among men with a heart of pure gold.

Her prince.

Who had always been right under her stupid nose.

“In case I have to, I’m going to get ready—all right?” Galahad shifted, never once breaking eye contact with the boy, so that he could carefully remove his boots. Boots that still had his hired skates attached. “You just hold still a few moments more…”

Needing to do something to prevent Galahad from plunging into the frigid water and potentially killing himself from the shock of it, Vee wiggled out of her petticoat and set about ripping the soft linen into strips. She knotted them quickly, then picked her way tentatively toward the others so that it could be joined to the whole.

Beneath their feet, the ice creaked ominously as a fresh crack began to form within its surface. Everyone stilled, paralyzed by the filigree of dainty fingers that sprung like twigs on a branch from it. A spider’s web of death ready to fail.

“We’ve not got long,” said one of the men quite unnecessarily, the whites of his eyes filled with terror. “It’s going to go any second.”

That was all it took to make the boy panic, and as he scrambled to grip the shard tighter, it listed.

“You have to keep still!” But Galahad’s stark warning came too late, and the shard tilted some more, then flipped over, taking the boy with it.

Without a moment’s thought for himself, Galahad sank into the water. Gasping at the impossible cold, but undaunted, he swam toward the flailing boy. Without mercy, the Serpentine inhaled the child, the weight of his many coats sucking him down more effectively than any deadweight could. Before he could be reached, he disappeared without a trace, but that didn’t stop Galahad from searching.

Twice he sucked in a lungful of air and dived under, and twice he came up empty-handed.

“Leave it! He’s gone!” One of the men beside her tossed their makeshift lifeline out toward him. “This ice is about to fail! You have to save yourself!”

Galahad shook his head and dived deep into the dingy depths once more and then …

Nothing.

Nothing but the stillness and silence of the water.

He was gone for five seconds … ten … fifteen … until Vee could stand it no more. She rushed to the edge, ready to jump in herself to save the man she loved, until he emerged like a volcano. Coughing and spluttering but clutching the limp child as he groped for the end of the rope of sodden clothes.

Everything that happened next occurred in a blur.

The pair were dragged from the water, then hauled to safer ground. Two men worked on the boy, pumping the water from his chest while Vee hugged Galahad tight, trying to use the warmth of her body to stop his shaking when he refused to leave the scene.

Anonymous hands draped them all in coats as they watched trickles of water seep from the boy’s lifeless blue lips and over his ghostly gray cheeks, while shouts from the shore signaled others had now taken charge.

“Make way for the physician!”

She recognized the reverend’s voice.

Recognized the prayer he began to mutter as he knelt beside the prone child and the doctor rolled the boy onto his side.

… Look down from heaven, we humbly beseech thee, with the eyes of mercy upon this child…”

“Come on, kid! Fight!” Galahad’s voice was choked now, laced with panic. “Don’t give up! Don’t you dare give up!”

… save his soul for thy mercy’s sake…”

The water ceased spewing from the boy’s mouth but still the doctor persisted.

Still the reverend prayed.

After an eternity, the boy coughed and wretched, and while she clung to Galahad crying, he clung to her right back.