She had no idea what to do once she reached the boys. Try to right the boat? Swim to shore with one and return for the other? They were not so very far from the bank bordering the Talford Rise property. She eyed the shore, mentally measuring the distance, and saw a man wading out toward them.
“Wait, Miss Stewart. Dolley has gone for a float,” the man yelled, and with that voice of authority came recognition.
Captain Chartwell was home? Was here? He was watching her?
“Welcome home, sir,” Angus called out as if in confirmation.
“Go back, Captain.” She flipped to her back for a moment as she answered. “You’ll ruin your uniform. I can manage.” As though his uniform mattered more than the boys. But the truth was, with him nearby, she could manage. She was not alone and he would never let them come to harm.
She moved slowly in the water, catching her breath, lost more from fear than exertion. There were no more shouted instructions from the shore and Lavinia glanced back again. And laughed.
The captain was standing still as a statue, except this statue, with his arms folded across his chest, was knee-deep in water. The narrowed eyes and set jaw gave him the look of a man judging a contest.
“Do I have to wait for Dolley, Aunt Lavinia? There are fish eating my toes.”
Both boys were holding on to the boat and Angus laughed, as though he was not in danger himself. “A shark’s what’s nibbling your toes, Harry, a great big one and next he’ll bite your whole leg off. Dolley’s seen it happen.”
“But not in a lake in Sussex,” Lavinia reminded him. “Stop teasing him, Angus.”
“I’m not afraid,” Harry insisted. “It’s only that I can’t see what’s down there.”
“You have never learned to swim, Angus?” Lavinia asked, recalling Harry’s earlier shout.
“No, ma’am.”
“Remind me to teach you the next time you come to stay.”
“Yes, ma’am, and thank you.” He grinned as though this was a great adventure and she knew that, torture though it could be, this boy would always be welcome in her home.
“Harry, do you want to swim with me to the edge where the captain is waiting? It is only a little way before you can stand on your feet and wade out.”
“All right,” Harry said doubtfully.
“Can you hold on for five minutes more, Angus? Surely Dolley will have help here by then.”
“Oh yes, miss. I can hold on and I do know how to float even if this is not salt water.”
Lavinia and Harry made their way to the edge of the lake. Harry swam until the captain grabbed his arm and helped him as he stumbled ashore.
Just as Lavinia began to swim back to Angus, Dolley showed up and tossed her a float attached to a rope. She put her arm through it and swam to Angus who grabbed the float with some expertise.
Once there was something he could do, the captain was anything but a statue. He pulled the float and Angus toward shore. Dolley stood behind him and tucked the length of rope under his shoulder stump, drawing the excess from behind the captain as he pulled. There was a third man as well. He was tending to Harry, a pile of blankets dumped on the ground nearby.
As they reached the bank, Lavinia realized that she was less than half-dressed and the water made her clothing transparent.
She moved back into the water and called to the captain, “I’m going for the rowboat.”
“Wait,” he said over his shoulder. “Dolley, take Harry to his house. Chasen, you take Angus back to Talford Rise. Give me that blanket before you go.”
They all scurried to obey and in less than a minute Lavinia and the captain were by themselves.
That did not make it any easier for her to leave the water. “Where is Sara?” she asked.
“Gone to have Mrs. Wilcox warm some soup for you.” He opened the blanket and held it out. “You have to come out sometime. Unless you really are a mermaid come ashore to plague the minds of men.”
She plagued him? It sounded like something a London beauty might claim. Or maybe he merely meant that she annoyed him. Who wanted to be “plagued” by anything?
One huge shiver shook her.
“Come out of the water.” It was his command voice and with a shuddering breath as much from the cold as the embarrassment, she obeyed.
Water trailed behind her, pulling her waterlogged garments tightly against her, outlining every detail of her body. She knew her nipples were peaked, but only from the cold. She hoped he knew that. For he was not looking away, but right at her.
She stepped into his waiting arms, or rather into the blanket that he held. He wrapped it around her so that the opening was in the back and for one long moment they stood close together. Just to help warm her, just to make her feel safe. She was sure that was all it meant, but he did not let go and she could feel his hands on her almost bare back.
She could have sworn he whispered, “mermaid and mother duck,” but if she looked up to question it, their lips would only be inches apart. An embrace was one thing, a kiss entirely another. Did he think her morals as free as her brother’s?
She pulled herself from him and turned round to fix it so that the edges of the blanket were at her front where she held them tight around her neck with one hand. She bent down to pick up the clothes she had tossed to the ground.
She straightened and glanced at him but would not meet his eyes. “You were here all along? You saw what happened?”
“Yes.”
“And you let me do the rescue? I don’t know whether to be flattered or appalled.”
“You had it well in hand.” He made no further offer of help, turned from her, and started to walk away. Lavinia was annoyed. He was so completely lacking in sensibility.
She loosened the blanket, not quite as chilled. In fact, her temper was warming her nicely. “You looked absurd standing there in water up to your knees.”
“Indeed.” He glanced at her over his shoulder and then spoke with his back to her. “I have been in water deeper than that and managed to give orders.”
Of course he had, she thought. Even near drowning he would probably give commands. “Is that it?” She followed him. “You are so used to being in charge that actually doing the work is beneath you? Surely you were not afraid?”
He faced her again. A muscle ticked in his cheek and Lavinia stopped, but did not apologize.
He stepped toward her even as she moved away. With one hand he took one end of the blanket that had slipped down to reveal her shoulder. Pulling it up, he cinched it tightly under her chin.
“Bare feet is one thing, Miss Stewart. But standing here baiting me when dressed in nothing but a wet chemise and one of my blankets is as foolish as it is...” he paused, “as foolish as it is absurd.”
He might call her absurd, but neither one of them was laughing. His eyes held hers and they were both steely and expressive. His large hand burned hers where it lay over her smaller ones, both of them holding the blanket tightly around her.
“Is it only the that brings out the shrew in you?”
If she wanted feeling from him, she had it. He seemed genuinely puzzled and frustrated. At least she hoped that was what he was frustrated about. Given their proximity, any other kind of frustration could prove dangerous.
Before she could answer, Sara came running across the lawn and flung her arms around her aunt’s waist. “Aunt Lavinia, I am so glad you are safe. I was so afraid you all would drown.”
She watched the captain even as she soothed the child. Was this enough answer to his question? It must have been, because the anger he had held in check faded, leaving him looking tired and bruised. Despite her annoyance, she wondered how long it had been since he’d slept.
He moved away, brushing his pants as though the water stains were dust he could easily remove. “Dolley will come tomorrow for Angus’s clothes.”
She watched his retreating back. Did he not say “thank you” any more often than he said “please”?
“We will expect him for his lesson tomorrow,” Lavinia called, loud enough for him to hear even if he were a county away.
Captain Chartwell raised a hand, in acknowledgment she supposed, but did not answer her. Angus had better come, she decided, or she would go and collect him herself.
Sara pulled at her arm. “His hand, Aunt Lavinia. Look.” She noticed the white bandaging for the first time. How had she not seen that his left hand was covered across his palm and around his thumb?
He had been injured? He had only been gone a few weeks. It was only to be “a simple in-and-out action.” Apparently it had not been as simple as he and the Admiralty had hoped. She shivered again, and this time she knew it was not from the cold. While she was dealing with fractious boys and unmanageable servants, he had been facing an enemy intent on injury. And she had implied he was a coward.
She hurried after him, calling to him.
“Yes, Miss Stewart?” The three words hinted at a barely controlled anger and when he turned back to her, her words of sympathy died at the flare of temper in his eyes.
An apology was in order, but she shied even from that. “About the letter you left. The one I was to open if something were to happen.”
“Yes.”
“You are returned safely. Should I destroy it?”
He started away again before he answered and she stopped following him. “Keep the letter. Keep it for next time.”
~ ~ ~
He hurried back across the grass, and was most of the way to the Rise before anger gave way to embarrassment. She had handled the situation with the boys admirably, as well as any man could have. How was it that he was leaving, having not said thank you, having insulted her?
She was more than a mermaid. She had been Diana the huntress or Poseidon’s daughter. He wished he could name some great heroine of the Greeks. She had been all of them as she came from the water with both boys safe.
Just as suddenly the image of triumph had faded, replaced by thoughts far from noble. The way her breasts filled her light corset. The way the wet chemise clung to her legs and thighs, outlining her most feminine parts.
When she had called him a coward all his pleasure ebbed. He had hardly acted the hero, but did she truly think that he would have not helped if she had been in distress?
Angus came barreling out of the house, down the steps, and across the grass. His hair was wet, but he was in dry clothes. Clearly the mishap in the lake barely registered on his scale of “disasters averted.”
“Oh, sir! Oh, Captain, you are here. You are back.” Be came to an abrupt halt, straightened, and with a grin announced: “Esse homo multarum literarum.”
“Great learning? Is that so? Exercitatio optimus est magister.”
“Practice is the best teacher—but I practice all the time, sir!”
“Indeed?”
“During lessons, sir, really, though Mr. Arbuscam could make even the Trojan War boring. And sometimes when Harry and I wish to trick Sara, we will plan in Latin.”
Angus was all but dancing around him, then suddenly stopped short. “Your hand, sir.” He stared at the bandage, shocked out of all proportion to the injury.
“It is nothing. A deep splinter during a small disagreement. It turned putrid.” He had decided in the carriage on the way from Portsmouth that a splinter was a far easier explanation than a stab wound.
Angus nodded in understanding, but his high spirits had disappeared. He walked around the captain as if inspecting for any further injuries, and then took his other hand.
They walked in silence, William fully aware that this little injury reminded Angus that his guardian was no less impervious to harm than his father had been.
“Is your uniform ruined?” Angus asked timidly.
William shook his head. “My uniform is soaked worse than this in a rain squall. You know that. I’m so used to wet boots that dry feels odd.”
They reached the door and the boy moved to push it open. William brushed his hand across the boy’s head and pulled him close for a moment. “Hoc certum est.”
“What is certain, sir?”
“I am not the only one who saw battle. Come up while I get out of this uniform and tell me about the duck attack.”
~ ~ ~
William had changed into buckskin breeches and a linen shirt long before Angus finished the telling of his adventures of the last two weeks.
He pulled his favorite coat from the clothes press. As he struggled into it he noticed that the cuff was beginning to fray. He had yet to find another steward half as good as Crask and wondered if he had recovered from the fever that made it necessary to leave him behind in Brazil. A valet must be next on his list of staff if he was to continue ashore.
“I know taking the berries was bad, sir, and believe me, we were punished. Cleaning pots is the worst sort of work and it is endless.”
“Well, that is why it is called punishment. Would you have preferred the switch?”
“Well, no, sir,” Angus said after actually considering the idea. “But it was like a double punishment. Mrs. Wilcox never stops talking; her insisting that Miss Stewart works too hard and we should help her instead of making her life miserable.”
William stopped buttoning his jacket. “She works too hard?” Doing what, he wondered. She was swinging in a hammock when first he saw her.
“She says that Miss Stewart does the work of three housemaids.” He ticked the chores on his fingers, for all the world a male pint-sized version of the dreaded cook. “She starts the bedroom fires on the mornings we need it, brings hot water, helps with breakfast, keeps the school room clean, mends our clothes, airs our beds, and helps with the cooking.”
“There are servants, aren’t there, Angus?” When did the lady of the house call on the neighbors, do fancy needlework, and write letters?
“She says Miss Stewart’s brother hires sluts who do nothing when he is away and are only good for one thing when he is at home.” He narrowed his eyes and asked, “Would that mean that the maids at the Vale are like the women who spend time aboard when the ship is in port?”
“Probably.” And that was an odd makeup for a household with a woman and children.
“That’s what I told Harry.”
What could he say to that? No doubt young Harry was far more worldly wise than he had been a fortnight ago.
“You are to go to lessons tomorrow.”
“But of course, sir! Miss Stewart is expecting me.” Angus made it sound as though there was no decision to be made.
“This schooling suits you?”
“Yes, sir. Very much, sir. Harry is the finest. And,” he went on with real excitement in his voice, “we are to start on the geography of the Americas.”
William spent some more time listening to the boy’s description of his studies, which seemed to involve Dolley as much as it did Mr. Arbuscam. Finally, he sent Angus to supper and then to bed. As he left the room, Angus asked one last question, “Do you think Harry will be in trouble for standing up in the boat, sir?”
“Washing more pots?”
“Or forbidden to see me?”
“You will find out tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir.”
William let him leave on those two sorrow-filled words. He might be dejected, but it would not last long. At least the boy was no longer worried about the possibility of his guardian’s death.