[Cornick Nicola] The Last Rake in London(Bookos.org) (21 page)

Sally smiled, but was not reassured. She knew the nature of the problem that must be troubling Jack. It was the same matter that had kept her tossing and turning all night. Their engagement was surely at an end now. She had finished it the previous night when she had told Jack he should not marry until he had found love again. When they travelled back to London the following morning they would go their separate ways.

‘Thank goodness that Greg Holt has gone,’ Charley added irrepressibly as the choir procession heralded the start of the service. ‘I think his continued compliments to you would have made Jack intolerably bad-tempered!’

It did not help Sally that the vicar preached on the benefits of a happy marriage and Connie beamed and sat with her wedding and engagement bands on prominent display. Lady Ottoline nodded sagely at various points in the sermon and when the vicar quoted that the value of a good woman was above that of rubies, she shot Connie a very hard look indeed.

Jack excused himself immediately after Sunday lunch and he and Stephen went off to look at the hedge-laying work on the home farm, whilst Connie and Bertie set out to look at properties for sale in the neighbouring villages. Charlotte had turned pale at the news that she might have Connie as a neighbour and had sworn to bribe anyone with property on the market not to sell. She and Sally and Lady Ottoline took their parasols and took afternoon tea on the terrace overlooking the lake.

‘It is entirely delightful,’ Lady Ottoline opined, as she watched Lucy playing by the lake, ‘to see children enjoying themselves here at Dauntsey. When you and Jack are married, you must encourage your sister Petronella to bring her children here. Jack is very good with children.’

‘I have observed it,’ Sally said. The sadness clutched at her heart.

‘Perhaps,’ Lady Ottoline continued, ‘you have talked about setting up your own nursery?’

‘Great-Aunt Otto!’ Charley said, laughing. ‘Sally and Jack are but recently engaged!’

‘I am only asking,’ Lady Ottoline said mildly. She turned her bright stare on Charlotte. ‘If Sally were to become
enceinte
, it might even encourage you to increase your nursery, Charlotte!’

Charley laughed again. ‘Stephen and I have only been married for four years, Aunt Otto, and we have already produced Lucy. Give us time.’

‘You could have had at least three children in that time,’ Lady Ottoline observed. ‘I cannot think why you delay.’

‘Perhaps,’ Charley said, her mouth full of sultana scones and jam, ‘because we are simply enjoying one another’s company, Aunt.’

Lady Ottoline sniffed. ‘If you enjoy each other’s company that much, Charlotte, you would
definitely
have more children by now!’

Charley caught Sally’s eye and rolled her eyes. Sally hid her smile in her teacup. It was pleasant sitting here by the lake in the afternoon sunshine—so soothing that she could almost forget that her engagement to Jack was a sham that would shortly be at an end and there would certainly be no children for them, not now, not ever. It was even more pleasant to be wearing one of Charley’s tea gowns, blessedly free of the constraints of the corset beneath. Its loose and flowing lines were cool on such a hot day and made her feel relaxed and sleepy.

‘I expect that Jack will be purchasing a country estate for the pair of you shortly,’ Lady Ottoline said, turning her observant dark gaze on Sally. ‘Of course, he will have both Saltires and Kestrel Court in Suffolk one day, but a man cannot have too much land, I always say, and at least he has the income to support it.’

‘We have not discussed it, your ladyship,’ Sally said truthfully, wishing that Lady Ottoline would leave all questions relating to their imaginary future.

Lady Ottoline snorted. ‘You seem to have discussed nothing! Young people today are remarkably lax in their planning!’

Charley opened her mouth to spring to Sally’s defence again, but there was a sudden scream from the lake where the nursemaid was supervising Lucy’s games. They all turned to see what was going on. The maid was shrieking ineffectually and running along the edge of the water. Of Lucy there was no sign other than her bonnet floating out on the lake.

‘Lucy!’ Charlotte said in a horrified whisper. She was half-out of her seat, the china cup falling from her hand to smash on the terrace. ‘She’s fallen off the jetty into the deep water! What can we do? I can’t swim.’

Sally did not hesitate. She ran down from the terrace towards the lake. All she could see was a hot day in June on the River Isis so many years ago, and her father losing his footing in the punt and toppling backwards, oh so slowly, into the water. She had waited then, waited for him to surface and swim to the bank, but as several frantic moments had passed there had been no sign of him. She had never seen him alive again.

That had been her mistake, to take no action, to wait. She had blamed herself for failing him and she had been terrified of water ever since. But she could not afford to let that fear rule her now.

Sally could feel the planks of the wooden jetty hot underneath the soles of her thin slippers. The maid had stopped screaming now and was running back up the slope of the grass towards the house. Charlotte had already disappeared around the corner of the stables to get help.

Sally ran to the end of the jetty and jumped. The water was deeper than she had imagined, closing over her head for one brief, terrifying moment before she broke the surface, gasping for air. It was shockingly cold and thick with weed and sludge. The beautiful lacy tea gown was immediately soaked and wrapped around her legs, weighing her down.

Gulping a breath of air, she dived under the water and felt a mixture of inexpressible relief and abject fear as she saw Lucy’s frighteningly inert body floating beside the jetty uprights. She swam over and grabbed the child, hoping and praying that Lucy had not swallowed too much water or hit her head on the wooden frame of the jetty when she fell. The little girl’s body felt heavy, weighed down by water, threatening to slip from her grasp. Sally’s arms ached as she tried to hold her up.

People were running down the lawn now; one of the grooms with a ladder, another with a rope, and Jack in front of them all, ripping off his jacket as he ran and dropping it on the grass so that he could dive straight in and catch hold of Lucy from Sally’s arms, passing the little girl up into the eager grasp of the grooms.

Sally felt her skirts hitch on something under the water and struggled ineffectually to free herself, gulping a mouthful of clammy weed-filled water in the process. Her limbs suddenly felt weighted with lead, her shoulders aching, and the drag of her skirts pulling her down. She thrashed about, reaching for the rope that snaked into the water beside her, missing it and going under again. For a second she had a terrifying vision of what it must have been like for her father as the water closed over his head, and then Jack was beside her, his arm hard about her waist, dragging her up into the daylight again and she could feel his strength and knew that she was safe. He scooped her up in his arms and her sodden skirts ripped and then she was rolling over and over on the warm wood of the jetty and someone was wrapping a blanket about her and the heat of the sun started to penetrate her chill and she began to shiver and shiver with reaction.

Charlotte was holding Lucy in her arms and rubbing her chilled body with the blanket. Lucy had recovered her consciousness and been violently sick, which Sally could only think was a good thing. Lady Ottoline was marshalling the servants, sending a groom to Dauntsey village for a doctor, despatching housemaids to warm some water for baths and to fetch fresh towels and blankets. Stephen had just arrived, pale and distraught, to support his wife and daughter back up to the house.

‘Come on.’ Jack swept Sally up into his arms. ‘We need to get you out of those wet clothes and into a warm bath.’

‘Thank goodness,’ Sally said, through chattering teeth. ‘Thank goodness you came, Jack. I was so afraid I was going to let her go. I thought she was dead!’ Her voice broke on the word and she turned her face into the warmth of Jack’s neck and breathed in the reassuring scent of his skin. For a second she thought she felt his lips brush her cheek in utter tenderness although his arms were as strong as steel about her.

‘You did very well,’ he whispered. ‘You saved Lucy’s life.’

Sally closed her eyes as he carried her up to the terrace, into the house and directly up the stairs to her bedroom, ignoring the ineffectual fluttering of the servants and shutting the bedroom door in their faces.

‘Take those wet clothes off,’ he ordered, as he put Sally gently on her feet in the black-and-white tiled bathroom and turned on the taps so that the water gushed into the bath.

Sally blushed. ‘I will do no such thing with you in the room! You can send one of the maids to attend to me.’

Jack shook his head. ‘They are all at sixes and sevens and would be no use at all. You will have to make do with me. I’m going to fetch some hot water to top up the bath; by the time I get back, I expect you to be naked and in the water.’

The hot colour deepened in Sally’s face even as she shivered in the wet folds of the tea gown. She heard the door slam behind Jack and started to struggle with the buttons and laces of the dress, but her fingers felt cold and were shaking so much that the fastenings slipped from her grip. When Jack returned, what seemed like a mere few minutes later, he found her half-out of the gown and struggling helplessly while the material dripped a puddle onto the floor.

‘One of these days,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘I will get you out of your clothes without destroying them in the process.’

He ripped the sodden shreds of the tea gown from Sally’s body and dropped them on the floor.

Sally gave a gasp. ‘Charley’s dress!’

‘You surely don’t think that it would be fit to wear ever again, do you?’ Jack countered. He looked at her. ‘Do you want me to take off your chemise as well?’

‘No!’ Sally said. ‘Go away!’

Jack grinned. ‘I’ll wait for you in the bedroom.’

After he had gone out, Sally managed to struggle out of the clinging remnants of her underwear and slid into the scented waters of the bath with a little sigh of relief. She lay back, eyes closed, whilst the hot water lapped about her shoulders and soothed her cold body. But the little shivers that racked her would not go away. Unbidden, the image of her father’s lifeless body came into her mind. His face had been grey when they had finally dragged him from the river, the weed clinging to his body, sodden and unmoving. She shuddered, remembering the weight of Lucy in her arms and the terrible conviction she had that the child would slip from her grasp and be lost to her for ever, just as Sir Peter had been…

‘Sally?’

She had not heard Jack’s voice through the tormenting images in her mind, but now she realised with a pang of shock that she must have been sitting there a long time; the bath water was cooling and he had come into the bathroom to find her and once again she was shaking and shaking as though she could not stop. Jack gave an oath, grabbed a towel and plucked her bodily from the water, wrapping the material around her and holding her close as he carried her into the bedroom and dropped her on to the bed. A second later he was back at her side with a glass of brandy in his hands. He held it to her lips.

‘You’re in shock,’ he said harshly. ‘I should have realised.’

Sally shook her head. ‘No—’

‘Drink this, then we’ll talk.’

The spirit burned Sally’s throat and helped her to pull her thoughts back from the brink. She put the glass down and drew the towel more closely and protectively about her, reaching for the eiderdown and drawing it up to her chin.

‘I am sorry,’ she said. ‘I think I am more shaken than I realised. It is true that the accident reminded me of my father. He died of drowning.’

Jack swore again. ‘I did not realise. I am sorry.’

‘I do not speak of it,’ Sally said, burrowing beneath the covers and feeling the warmth gradually banish the chill in her bones. ‘It was a long time ago now. We were punting on the river and he lost his footing and fell. I thought he would swim ashore and I tried to grab his hand, but he disappeared. I waited and waited—and only realised too late that there was something dreadfully wrong.’

‘What happened?’ Jack asked. He sat down on the edge of the bed and sought her hand beneath the covers, holding it in a comforting grasp.

‘When I realised he had not come up to the surface again, I screamed and screamed,’ Sally said. ‘Some of the other boatmen came then and helped me search, but it was too late. The police recovered his body from the river that evening. He had hit his head on the edge of the punt as he fell and sank like a stone.’ Another shudder racked her. ‘I have been terrified of water ever since.’

‘And yet you jumped in without hesitation to rescue Lucy,’ Jack said, his grip tightening on her hand.

‘I could not let it happen again,’ Sally said. ‘It was my fault that Papa died. I learned to swim after that, in case I ever needed it.’

Jack was very still. ‘What do you mean when you say that it was your fault your father died?’

Sally freed herself from his grip and fidgeted a little with the edge of the eiderdown. She avoided his eyes.

‘I could have saved him,’ she said.

‘And then Nell and Connie would not have had to fend for themselves?’ Jack suggested. ‘I had wondered at your determination to take care of them.’

Sally was shocked by his perception. She had not intended to say so much. She had not wanted to reveal her innermost fear and guilt.

‘I am the eldest,’ she excused.

‘But that is not why you struggle so hard to defend them,’ Jack said. Sally saw something change in his face. ‘You feel guilt for something that is not your fault.’ Abruptly, Jack stood up. He walked across to the window before turning back to look at her.

‘Do you remember telling me last night that I should not take the blame for something that was not my fault?’ he said conversationally.

‘That was different,’ Sally said.

Jack smiled. ‘Was it? Strange how it is always easier to see the beam in someone else’s eye. Think about it.’ His smile broadened. ‘And at the least you need not worry about taking care of Connie any longer. That is Bertie’s responsibility now.’