And though the last thing in the world I needed at the moment was more moisture, a tear trailed down my cheek and plopped onto William’s shirt.
He’d saved me, yet again. Just like he’d promised.
Chapter 16
From the shade of a tree, I rocked my doll back and forth, making her march across the grass in search of ingredients for dinner. The sweltering air was so hot, it smelled like the washroom where the maids did the ironing. Raucous cries from the direction of the river met my ears. I looked up. There was no one there. Then it came again: the laughter of young boys.
I wandered over to the bank of the pond, peeping over the bushes. Water splashed back and forth as Peter and William dove under and flailed around, their torsos bare.
I eyed the water hungrily, conscious of the thick layer of sweat clinging my day dress to my skin.
Peter noticed me. “Go away, Eliza.” I didn’t say anything as I came out from around the bushes. After a moment, Peter groaned. “You can’t come in with us. You’re too little.”
My hands went to my hips. “I’m eight years old.”
“Not old enough.”
“And even if you were old enough,” William added, “you’re a girl. Everyone knows girls can’t swim.”
“I can.”
They both laughed at seeing my determined face. “No, you can’t! Don’t you remember last year when you fell in the river? Gave Mama a fright the way you swallowed all that water.”
I went quiet. I hadn’t been submerged in water since that tumble in the river.
As a baby, I was born sickly. Mama had gone through several wet nurses before she found one I would suckle—and she’d often told me what a strenuous time that had been for her. But as the months passed, a bloom entered my cheeks, I plumped up, and I got better.
Yet, Mama’s paranoia never went away. All my life, she’d fussed over me, made me wear extra layers of clothing without the slightest hint of a draft.
After the incident last year with the river, it had worsened. For weeks, she hadn’t let me leave her side. Climbing trees—a favorite pastime of mine—was strictly forbidden, dinner came in pre-sliced bite-sized chunks, and all baths were supervised by my governess, if not Mama herself. Little girls were not given nearly as much freedom as boys, but over the past year I’d had even less than the average eight-year-old. I was trapped in a prison of safety.
But that didn’t stop me from imagining towering mountains, barren deserts, and ravaging seas. With only a little imagination, I could go anywhere, do anything I pleased.
And I’d often imagined what it would feel like to be free in the water, weightless, floating, like a duck or a mermaid. Licking my lips, I eyed the sparkling pond again.
“Mama wouldn’t like it.”
I glanced up to see Peter frowning at me. He obviously didn’t like it either. Just like Mama, he was too protective of me.
Seeing that Peter was never going to let me dive in, I pouted and sulked away. As soon as I was out of sight, I turned and dashed for the bushes again, taking better care to conceal myself in their branches as I spied on the boys.
“. . . wants to follow me around,” Peter was saying. “Why can’t she find her own things to do? Girl things.” He paused as he dove under the surface. When he came back up, he began trudging to the bank. “And it always seems to happen whenever you’re here.”
William grew silent. He must’ve been at a spot where he could stand, for he was suddenly still. “At least you have a sister,” he said quietly.
Peter stopped wading, sobering. “I’m sorry, Will.”
His head dipped to his chest a little. “It’s all right. It’s been two years now. I should just get over it.”
Peter sloshed out of the pond, grabbed his discarded shirt, and put it on. “Well, if it’ll make you feel any better—if you’re ever in need of a sister, you’re welcome to mine.”
William laughed as he re-dressed too, his somber mood suddenly vanished. “That makes it sound like you’re giving her to me.”
Peter shrugged, but his eyes sparkled. “If you want her.”
Shaking his hair, William said, “Now it sounds like you’re giving her to me to marry.”
Peter gave another shrug, a large smile stealing across his lips. “If you want her.”
Wrinkling his nose, he shoved Peter, who shoved him back. They did it again, only harder, and then they were running away, chasing each other back to the manor.
Once I was sure they were gone, I crept out of the bushes and approached the water lapping at the shore. It scintillated under the hot sun, looking so cool and inviting. Abuzz with anticipation, I removed my shoes and dipped one big toe into the water. It was cool.
A large smile pulled at my mouth.
I dove in, moving out to the middle of the pond. Instant relief flooded across my skin, no longer exposed to the scorching sun. For one glorious moment, I had gills. I had wings. I was free.
Then I started to sink.
Water splashed into my mouth, nose. I thrashed in the water, straining to stay afloat, but my ankles were weighted, dragging me down into the depths. My head disappeared under the water.
Moving my arms and paddling my legs, I tried to move up, up. But the more I paddled, the more I sunk. All I could do was stare at the glimmering surface, where the air was. Out of reach.
There was a tugging on my arm before suddenly I emerged and there was air again and my lungs started coughing up the water.
“What were you thinking!” William pulled me up shore by my arms, letting my heels drag in the shallow water, then the mud of the bank. “Did you want to get yourself killed?”
He dropped me in the mud as I continued to cough. When I finished I wiped my mouth and said, “I wanted to prove to you and Peter I could swim.”
“By dying? We’re six years older than you, Eliza. We told you—you can’t swim.”
Gathering my legs to my chest, I rocked back and forth. Then, burying my face into the wet fabric at my knees, I wept. Great, heaving sobs wracked my chest.
William was silent for several minutes, letting me cry as his anger dissipated. At length he came before me, blond hair dripping over his eyes. He picked me up and set me down on a large flat stone nearby, before prodding my chin up to look into his hazel eyes. “All right, that’s enough. Why don’t you tell me why you really jumped in.”
Eyes puffy and no doubt red, I stared at him with slow blinks. I sniffed and used the back of my hand to swipe my nose. “Because . . .” I said quietly, “Because I wanted to have an adventure.”
Mama let Peter run and jump and climb, but not me. I was never to do anything, and just once—just once—I wanted to experience something thrilling. Even if it were something so simple as swimming in a pond.
William’s face turned thoughtful. “You like adventure then?”
I nodded.
A slow smile crept onto his lips. “Then you and I—we are like two beats of one heart. My father was an admiral, you know. I ought to be getting into the navy anytime soon. Sailing the seven seas! Perhaps when I do, I’ll teach you to swim like a proper sailor.” He ruffled my hair, wet, black tendrils that clung to my face.
“What if I start to drown again?” Fear struck my core. “Or what if there are sharks? Or pirates?”
“We already know I can save you from drowning, and sharks don’t eat little girls. But—goodness, I hadn’t thought about the pirates. That may be a problem.” He stroked his chin in contemplation, even as the alarm coursed through me. He inhaled through his teeth, making a hissing sound. “Now that I think on it, I don’t know that I’d want to save you from pirates. They’re dastardly blackguards—wouldn’t want to risk my neck.”
I wriggled my hand out of his grasp, turning to run and lock myself in my room, far away from any pirates.
William caught my arm and laughed. “Oh Eliza, I am only joking! Don’t be such a ninny.”
“I am not a ninny!” I pulled on my ar
m.
“All right you’re not a ninny. Now sit down. I wasn’t finished.”
After a moment, I drooped and let William guide me back to the rock.
He smiled down at me, before a serious expression overtook his features. A look so solemn it made me shiver. “Eliza Wycliffe. From this day forward, I vow to save you from the ocean’s depths, rescue you from sharks, and keep you from danger in all its forms. Even pirates. No matter what adventure you undertake, like parallel lines, you and I will be always together—so that when you need protecting, I shall be there to be the one to do it.
“And even when you don’t think you need protecting . . . I vow to do it all the same.”
I held completely still. Sitting there on a warm rock beside him in the summer sun, I believed he could. I looked up into his green eyes, trusting. “Promise?”
His face set, jaw sticking out a little. “I am no liar.”
He scooped me into his arms and carried me back to Ambleside.
William had kept the promises he’d made to me that day, in more ways than one.
But he most certainly was a liar.
Chapter 17
In a private sitting room at The Green Man Inn, a warm fire crackled in the hearth, drying my dress and stockings which hung nearby. My toes clenched as I extended my hands toward the flames, eagerly absorbing the warmth.
A rapid knock sounded. Still trembling in my chilled skin, I grabbed the shawl draped over a chair and wrapped it about my shoulders. From beyond the door, William called, “Are you decent?”
“Yes.”
He entered and shut the door behind him. “Good, because I just spoke to the innkeeper. Our carriage will be ready in half an hour. Though, I hope you are not hungry because—” He halted, noticing my feet peeking out from the simple dress I’d borrowed from the innkeeper’s wife. “Good heavens, Eliza, your feet are bare!” He laughed, eyes travelling up the gown. “You look positively—” He cut off again when his assessment reached my hair. His smile dropped.
Only then did I realize I’d taken the pins out to let my hair dry. It hung loose over my shoulders, black from the dampness, falling nearly to my waist. And William only continued to stare at it, every muscle frozen besides the little parting of his lips.
I blushed under his intense scrutiny, but made no move to pin my hair back up. To do so would break him from his trance, and I didn’t know if I’d ever see this burning look in his eye again. With him looking at me like this, it made me believe I could declare my love, and he would declare his right back.
Slowly, William turned his head away, as if the motion would break his stare as well; but it remained transfixed upon my hair, upon my feet, my face. I saw him swallow.
“Positively what?” I prompted, hesitantly.
His eyes whipped up. He cleared his throat. “Positively . . . different—is it hot in here to you?” Stalking over to the fireplace, he tugged at his cravat. “Yes, there is far too much wood on this fire. Are you not warm?”
“I’m fine.”
He spun back, his voice a mixture of amusement and frustration. “Gads, Eliza, I thought you said you were decent.” He stared religiously at the corner to my left—but his eyes strayed a time or two, barely reaching me before they snapped back in place.
My mouth fell open. “But . . .” I looked down at my dress, the drab gray color that was made for a much larger woman and covered me neck to ankle. It was not revealing or alluring by any stretch of the imagination. “But I am.”
“Never mind,” he said. He unwound his cravat from his neck and tossed it away. It fluttered to the floor near my feet. “The carriage will be ready soon. The man’s wife said you could keep the dress—well, after I paid them handsomely for their services, of course—and at any rate, we should be ready to leave soon. I said that, didn’t I?” Gaze catching on a decanter of brandy, he halted and poured himself a glass. After taking a swig, he situated himself by the fire—despite having declared it too warm only a moment before—and braced an arm against the mantle as he stared into its scorching depths.
And he did not look at me.
I studied his profile, lit by the glow of the fire, more memories returning—old friends that wrapped me in their forgotten embrace. A curtain being swept aside to reveal William’s smirk at winning hide and seek; a rolled up astronomy chart left on our doorstep on the eve of my birthday; a race across the meadow that ended with me shoving him into the brambles when I discovered he’d taken the shortcut through the woods; attending to those bramble scrapes with liniment and laughter. Taps on my nose, ruffles of my hair, tips of my chin to look into soft green eyes.
I joined him by the fire. He looked over but didn’t say anything. And as I stared, I thought about my promises to Mama. Marriage to a complete stranger was not a thought I relished, but . . . in the end, did it really matter what I wanted? If I could not create my own happiness, perhaps I could at least create hers.
“What would you do if you were forced to marry?” The words escaped before I could stop them. I hugged myself, quivering despite the warmth of the fire.
William gave a compulsory laugh, swirling his glass. “Forced to marry? Highly unlikely.”
“Indulge me,” I said, pushing through the warning of caution that rang in my mind. William was my closest friend—and though my promise to Mama prevented me from explaining my predicament and seeking his opinion, I still desperately needed his advice. Only through a hypothetical question would I be able to obtain it.
Yet, my desire to know his answer went beyond friendly curiosity. I needed to know I wasn’t making an irrevocable mistake in choosing him. I needed to know he could be different, that he could come to love someone. Say it, I soundlessly begged him. Say that you could come to love someone. Could come to love me.
He blew a long sigh. “I suppose I don’t know what I’d do. Of a surety I wouldn’t be able to see Miss Nagel anymore.” He flashed me a teasing grin.
I offered him a weak smile in return, but couldn’t help the way my frame deflated. Why could he never tell me his true feelings? Why did he never open up and show me his heart? My jaw hardened before I even recognized the determination beginning to churn in my gut.
“But you would marry?”
“What would happen if I didn’t?” he said, deciding to play along.
“Something very bad, something . . . You would break someone’s heart.”
He snorted. “I break girl’s hearts all the time by not marrying them. It is nothing new.”
“No—that is not what I meant—” I rubbed my lips together, thinking on how to phrase it properly. “What if, upon your refusal to marry, you would wound someone very dear to you? And after you broke their heart there was no way to ever repair the damage, for you would never see them again?”
His eyes narrowed shrewdly, perhaps suspecting that my question was not purely hypothetical. He didn’t say anything, even as he continued to study me. After the longest of pauses, he asked in a low tone, “Are you being forced to marry, ‘Liza?”
I gulped, hugging myself tighter. “No one is forcing me to do anything.”
Eyebrows knitting, he looked me over, but at last said, “Well. I suppose I would marry, then.” He took a swig of his drink and set it on the mantelpiece before adding in a light tone, “If only to spare my own conscience.”
“But whom would you marry?”
I had meant what kind of person, but it wasn’t until the question left my mouth that I realized it sounded as if I were asking after her identity.
William shrugged with one shoulder and leaned it against the mantle. “It wouldn’t much matter, I should think. Women are all the same.”
A disappointed surge swelled in my breast. I ducked my head before William could see the frustration pulling at my features. He viewed the world through a broken lens, and then insisted that the whole of it was shattered. And because of the ruined world he saw, he refused to trust his heart to anyone, refused to see tho
se who would love him.
Refused to see me.
I was going about this all wrong. What a fool I was to think I could confess to him! For even if I did, he would never hear me. What made me think he would accept my love, when he’d pushed it away—pushed everyone’s away—for years? I inhaled a long breath to steady my emotions. It wouldn’t do at all to break down into tears in front of him.
“Why the sudden sullenness?”
I looked up to find him analyzing me intently.
“Where is that happy girl I know, hm? Cheer up—I’m sure someone would take me. In fact, I have reason to believe I could have my pick of the lot of them!”
“I know you could,” I said quietly.
“At the very least, take comfort in the knowledge that Lady Prima would accept me in a heartbeat.”
After a delayed moment I closed my eyes in a chuckle; and just like that, despite my heavy spirit, William had managed to make me laugh again.
“Heavens, it’s a frightening picture,” he went on. “Can you imagine me lying on the same bed as the woman? I’d be kicked to the floor seven times every night!” I laughed harder. “Likely she would talk my ear off—if she didn’t eat me out of house and home first.”
With lingering chuckles I looked up, surprised to find William staring at me, lips quirked in a soft way.
“Or perhaps I would marry you, ‘Liza.” The glow of the fire flickered on his face. “Peter did promise you to me, you know. What would you say if I asked you?”
My pulse raced, faster and faster. One word from me, and I’d reveal the biggest secret of my heart. Breath catching, I squeezed my arms until my knuckles were white. But instead of answering, I turned it back on him. “What if I accepted?” The words escaped on a breath.
A Lord of Many Masks (Wycliffe Family Book 2) Page 16
