Sharon Sobel (20 page)

“If you would but put on your bathing costume, I can get to the business of mine,” came the voice of common sense. Janet held out the unlovely blue-and-white-striped dress with its attached capelet. Lark eyed it with unexpected resentment. The sleeves would become uncommonly heavy when wet, preventing her from any real movement, and the cloying skirt would tangle between her legs.

“I hate it,” she said.

“A fine time to decide as much, my dear, as we have no other choice. You either wear it, or jump into the waves as naked as … oh no! Do not even think it!”

Even in the dim interior, Lark saw the flush spread across Janet’s face and smiled as she pulled the costume out of her hands. Raising her arms, she wiggled into it and laced up the bodice.

“You cannot think I would do anything to endanger my one opportunity for freedom. Of course I shall wear it, as cumbersome as it is. I should not want to shock Martha Gunn into retirement.”

“Indeed, you would earn the wrath of a good many ladies if you did,” said Janet. She stood up and quickly started to change into her own costume. Lark tried to give her the same degree of privacy she had enjoyed a few moments before.

But Martha Gunn proved not nearly so gracious. The bathing machine came to a sudden halt, although it continued to rock back and forth, and a great deal of splashing could be heard outside. The door, meeting some resistance from the waves, was thrust open, and the woman’s head appeared.

“Here we go, dearies. You needn’t fret. Old Martha’s never lost a lady. Nor a horse.” Behind her back a large hoop appeared, and as Lark came to the top step of the bathing machine, she saw the hoop was attached to a lengthy handle and heavy twine. It looked like an instrument of torture, of the sort displayed in the Tower.

However, refusing the use of the device would undoubtedly gain her return to dry land, and that should make no one happy, least of all herself.

Lark stepped out onto the top step and felt the water swirl around her bare ankles. Martha Gunn dropped the hoop over her shoulders until it rested against her waist, and started to pull her out into the sea. Unresisting, soothed by the waves and the scent of salt water, Lark allowed herself to be drawn away.

The sensation was divine. She felt the water saturate her costume and tickle every part of her body, and she spread her arms in complete surrender. She opened her eyes to the vast sky and marveled at its exquisite blueness. Though she
recalled another spot in nature to rival its color, she preferred not to think of Mr. Queensman’s eyes just now and quickly put away the thought. To imagine him would tempt her to look up at the hospital, and she would not wish to see him standing on the stone terrace enjoying the show.

“It is not at all like Margate,” Janet said as Mrs. Gunn thrust her into place. “It is so much less civilized.”

“Indeed,” Lark answered. She did not need to know exactly what Janet meant, for she felt something of the same herself. “We might as well be off the shore in America.”

Janet did not laugh, as Lark expected. Instead she seemed intent on something, as if trying to decipher a riddle.

“I wonder: Do you think Colonel Wayland really participated in the American campaign?”

Lark, startled, turned to her friend. “He tells us he did. He certainly speaks of it often enough. Why should we doubt it?”

“It is not so much for us to doubt him as to wonder why Mr. Warren and Mr. Queensman apparently do. Did you not notice how Mr. Queensman disputed his placement of every map piece and questioned him about others? I do not think the colonel answered a single question without evasion.”

“Now that you mention it, I see your point. I merely attributed it to Mr. Queensman’s perfect disagreeableness.”

Janet smiled knowingly. “I see through your dislike, Lark, as readily as you see through his. You surely do not continue to despise the man. I know you too well.”

Lark looked away, fussing with the ribbon on her bodice. If her friend knew her that well and could read her thoughts, Lark should drag her out of the water and return her on the next stage to London. But Lark could not, for reasons nearly as selfish. If Janet suspected anything of the growing attachment between her friend and Mr. Queensman, she would be the only person who might provide some measure of comfort.

“It appears as if you do, dear friend,” Lark answered, though she did not look up. “Perhaps you know me better than I know myself.”

“I doubt it. Are you not ever admired for your keen insight into the human character? Surely your own is not exempt.”

Lark abandoned her twisted, wet ribbon. “And yet it appears that it is. How came I to forget myself when I accepted … ah … friendship from this man? He is commissioned to unmask me, to deliver me into circumstances both humiliating and hurtful. He witnessed the disastrous end to one betrothal and promotes another equally doomed. He has seen through my frailties and undoubtedly has closely examined an embarrassing amount of others. No good can come of my knowing him, and yet—stupidly—I only want to know him better.”

Janet cupped her hands and filled them with the salty blue sea. She closed her eyes as she splashed her face and then licked her lips with satisfaction. Though tempted to do the same, Lark only glared at her, wondering why her heated confession met with such casual indifference.

“Well? Do you not agree with me?” she asked. She attempted to stamp her foot, but nearly lost her footing on the pebbles beneath them.

Janet smiled, her damp face glistening in the sunshine. “Your indictments against the man are heavy indeed. One might think him the worst of men, a happy conspirator against you. But do you not think your argument is inconsistent?”

Lark sighed. “I already told you it is. He cannot both repel and attract me at the same time—”

“I am not thinking of your feelings, but of his, Lark. If he is the agent of your downfall, why does he not return you to the waiting arms of Lord Raeborn?”

It was, of course, the question Lark had asked herself a hundred times. And, for the first time, she dared to think she knew the reason why. But she could scarcely admit it to herself, let alone say it aloud.

“He will not let you go, Lark.” Janet answered her own question. “It is both as simple and as complicated as that. Once he pronounces you well, you are lost to him. He shall be invited to your marriage to his cousin and will dutifully send you a crystal vase. When your first child is born, he shall advise you on matters of the measles and daily regimens of exercise.”

“What if no child is born?” Lark said hopefully. She thought she should like to be a mother, but if it meant sharing a bed with Raeborn, she would sacrifice this wish along with all the others. “Mr. Queensman would not be so very unhappy, for it would mean he would be Lord Raeborn himself someday.”

“Did you ever meet a man more indifferent to such lofty expectations? He does not even use his professional title in an introduction.”

“Do you think him modest?”

“No,” Janet countered readily. “Do you?”

A modest man would not have accosted her on the terrace and assaulted every bit of her mind and body. Nor would he have dared to hold her close to his heart as he carried her about the hospital of which he was so proud. Lark smiled, remembering the day, and their delightful interview with the two aging retainers.

“Well, you were never as sweet or shy as your sisters,” Janet observed knowingly. “There are those who think your red hair must have something to do with it. As to that, I cannot say. But I do know I never imagined you would be happy with a husband who was not your match in temperament.”

Lark opened her mouth, ready to protest. It was, after all, a bit of a stretch to go from having an acknowledged friendship with a man to considering him as a husband. She scarcely dared to imagine it herself.

But her argument was swallowed in a mouthful of salty water as a wave nearly submerged her. The flash of a white sail not too far away suggested they bobbed in its wake.

“Have a care, dearies!” Martha Gunn called out and tugged on their connecting line.

“Come join me!” another voice sang out. Lark twisted to see Miss Hathawae a little distance away, close enough to lie within the protective arms of the little beach but surely too far out to still be attached to her dipper. Her partner, a frowning Lady Crawford, remained close to the bathing machine.

“Let us go,” Lark said hurriedly. “We are all wet in any case.”

She heard Janet’s cry of protest just as she dove out and under the ring that circled her, and into the swelling roar of the
sea. Daring to open her eyes, she thought the underwater view surprisingly clear and could plainly see the green pebbles beneath her and Janet’s kicking feet. As she arched her back to head for the surface, she marveled at the shafts of sunlight illuminating every bubble of air and drawing tiny sea creatures out of hiding. It seemed a mystical world, one she had not visited since her girlhood days in Margate.

But it was not a world to hold her for long, for she thought her lungs would burst. As she broke the restless surface, she faced seaward and saw the grinning face of Miss Hathawae.

“You naughty girl!” her experienced friend admonished, though her tone seemed all encouragement. “I hope you will not blame me for such misbehavior.”

Lark smiled as she approached Miss Hathawae with a few firm strokes and clasped her outstretched hands when she reached her.

“I surely will never blame you for anything, and certainly not for this delightful respite. Whatever choices I make, I take full responsibility for them. Such is my nature,” Lark declared, to a chorus of shouts behind her.

“Dear girl. I only hope your instincts serve you well,” Miss Hathawae sighed.

Lark thought more might be forthcoming, but Miss Hathawae leaned back into a backstroke and allowed the buoyant waves to set her on her course. Beyond her, at some distance, the sailboat passed them again.

Lark glanced towards the scowling face of Martha Gunn and prayed those instincts would serve her very well indeed. The dipper looked like she would like nothing so much as to drown her recalcitrant charge and surely had the muscular strength to accomplish it. She raised her fist in a gesture of anger, but then, quite unexpectedly, seemed more intent on the men in the sailboat.

Fascinated, Lark turned back to the intruders, but flinched as something whizzed by her face. A bee, surely, or some other insect daring enough to risk its safety as it skimmed the waves. Then another, so close Lark could feel the breeze as it passed her nose. The white sail turned abruptly into the wind and set upon a new course.

Lark began a dive, but caught herself up shortly. Martha Gunn
was still shouting, but her tone took on a new urgency and her hands clutched her forehead. Squinting against the glare, Lark saw something red spreading across her splayed fingers just as the stout woman began to topple, like a felled tree. Janet, caught in the hoop, struggled to release herself.

Lark hesitated no more than a moment before changing her direction and diving for the direction of the bathing machine. She only briefly considered the danger of her own heroics, for she knew she could not live with her guilt if any danger should befall those who were responsible for her safety and whose advice she had decidedly disobeyed. She did not at all consider the probability that what had befallen Martha Gunn had nothing to do with her.

She came to the spot where she had last seen the downed woman and plunged into the sea after her. She did not have to go very far, after all, as her hand immediately fell upon the knot of Mrs. Gunn’s grizzled hair. Pulling upon it, Lark then leveraged her arm under the woman’s ample breast and thrust her to the surface. Gasping for air, but entirely single-minded in her purpose, Lark fell onto her back, hoisting Martha Gunn’s weight against her, and attempted to backstroke to shore.

Several minutes of hard work played out as an eternity as Mrs. Gunn slipped twice from her grip and waves of water washed over their faces and into their mouths. Lark gagged on the salt and on another taste, most surely that of blood.

But then firm hands gripped her shoulders and relieved her of her burden. Miss Hathawae’s dipper and Janet acted in unison as they pulled Mrs. Gunn to the steps of the waiting bathing machine. Lady Crawford, usually incapable of doing so much as adding sugar to her chocolate, held tightly onto the reins of the horse and barked her orders to the other two women.

Lark stood, both astonished and relieved, in breast-deep water and took painful breaths of fresh air as the enormity of their danger finally struck her. Shocked and suddenly bereft, she started to tremble as great sobs racked her body and threatened to topple her anew into the ceaselessly churning waves.

Suddenly she was caught again from behind and pulled against
something hard and solid. Strong arms held her just as she had held Martha Gunn only moments before, but she was nether indifferent nor unconscious to the hands of her protector. She allowed him to turn her half towards him and found a safe haven in the circle of his shoulder.

“Should you not attend to Martha Gunn?” she asked against his neck. “She is injured, though I do not understand how or why.”

“I know the how of it, and I suspect the why, but that is a discussion for another day, my lady. Matthew is with her just now, so you are my only care.”

Lark pulled away from Mr. Queensman and looked suspiciously at his body. Indeed, he would have been properly dressed if he were but dry, but the water made his trousers and linen shirt all but nonexistent. She could feel every muscle of his chest with her hand and other parts of his anatomy against her own wet skirts. Plastered against his head, his dark hair glistened in the sun.

“And yet there is no reason for me to be in your care at all. I am quite unharmed and perfectly capable of returning to shore unassisted.” She chose not to allude to her recent moment of weakness, and neither did he.

“Indeed, I know it as well as you, Lady Larkspur. But did your adventure so much distract you that you do not recall no one else is aware of the fact? If you manage to walk out onto the beach unassisted, you will attract as much notice as a mermaid. And astonish them all.”