How to Cross a Marquess

by Jane Ashford

  Fenella felt even sorrier for Arabella, that she’d been subjected to this woman’s manipulations. And then she concentrated on getting the cord off her neck, while Mrs. Crenshaw was distracted by her remorse.

  “If I’d left well enough alone, my baby would be alive now. Living near London! I might have grandchildren.”

  Fenella dug her fingernails under the cord and pulled with all her strength. She panted and strained, and at last the cord eased. With one sudden twist, she yanked it out and up and tossed the wretched thing into the sea. Her captor screeched and twisted her free hand in Fenella’s hair.

  “You don’t know—” began Fenella. She put a hand to her hair, trying to pull free. Her eyes watered with the pain.

  “Don’t speak to me!” Mrs. Crenshaw hit her again with the pistol, so hard Fenella hoped it would go off and attract others. But it did not. “I may have made a mistake,” her captor continued. “But you killed her.”

  “No.” Her denial had no effect. Fenella doubted the other woman heard.

  “I won’t see that worm Chatton happy while Arabella lies cold in her grave! They say he cares for you. Now he’ll see what it feels like to lose someone he loves.”

  Fenella’s gown dragged at her, growing heavier with each wave that splashed over them. She clawed at the other woman and struggled to break her grip.

  “What are you doing?” called a ringing voice from the shore behind them. Mrs. Thorpe stood there, staring.

  “Get help!” answered Fenella. Her voice, still affected by the maltreatment of her throat, didn’t carry over the sound of the sea.

  But Mrs. Thorpe could see what was needed. “Help!” she cried much louder.

  Mrs. Crenshaw shrieked and threw the pistol. It spun through the air and struck Mrs. Thorpe on the temple. She stumbled to the ground.

  Then, with a grin worthy of a corpse, Mrs. Crenshaw threw both arms around Fenella and fell backward into the sea.

  Cold water rushed over Fenella’s chest and face, tried to go up her nose. The sudden immersion took her breath away. A receding wave pulled them away from the island. Mrs. Crenshaw let it, her grip frighteningly strong.

  Fenella kicked and writhed. She managed to get her head above water and drew in a deep breath. They were already yards from shore. The ebbing tide was carrying them out with ominous power. She shoved with all her strength in the cold water, raising her knees and using her legs as well as her arms. Finally, she escaped the gripping hands. Arabella’s mother lunged for her. Fenella lurched away. And then they were separated. She let the current pull her away from her attacker. In only a few minutes, Mrs. Crenshaw was well out of reach, and then she was gone, hidden by the waves’ chop.

  Fenella was free! But her heavy clothes were a death trap, a sodden weight dragging her down. She pulled her knees up again and dragged the sodden tunic up over her hips. It resisted, and a new wave swept over her, filling her mouth with seawater and turning her head over heels. She gagged, spit, and managed another lungful of air.

  Wriggling, tearing, she slipped out of the tunic. The fastenings of her skirt resisted, but finally she undid them and shoved the swath of wool down and away. It swirled in a small whirlpool and then was sucked away as if by the inhalation of a giant.

  Fenella kicked off her shoes. She was lighter now, in her shift. It was possible to swim. But she was also colder. The water sucked the heat from her body. She raised her head to get her bearings. She was well away from the island and rapidly being borne farther, out to sea, toward death. She saw no sign of Arabella’s mother.

  The strength of the frigid current was terrifying. It was like being pulled along by a racing carriage. She couldn’t fight it. No one could have. Trying to swim against the tide would be futile. But Fenella had heard local fishermen discuss what to do if they fell from their boats into a riptide. She bobbed up again to judge the angle of the shore and started paddling slantwise, partly using the strength of the sea to move across the direction of the current.

  * * *

  Roger moved through the pageant crowd, growing increasingly frantic. Fenella hadn’t appeared for the ending of the performance when they were all supposed to take a bow. And now she didn’t seem to be anywhere in this infuriating mass of people sitting, chattering, eating, and drinking. She had to be here, and yet he couldn’t find her. The fear that had been with him since she was shot roared to life.

  Cries from the dimness behind the arches set him running. He found three men bending over a woman on the ground. He rushed to join them and found not Fenella but Mrs. Thorpe being helped to her feet, holding a hand to her brow. “She threw that pistol at me,” the actress said, pointing to a weapon on the earth. “And hit me, too, which is quite difficult.”

  Macklin rushed up with several others. “What’s happened?” he asked. “Are you hurt?”

  “Not badly,” replied Mrs. Thorpe. “I’ll have a bruise.” Before Roger could consign her bruise to perdition, she added, “Someone, a woman, pulled Lady Chatton into the sea.”

  “What?” Torn between learning more and rushing into the water, Roger was frozen.

  “She had hold of her hair. I saw her hit Lady Chatton with the pistol, too.” Mrs. Thorpe watched as one of the men bent to pick up a gun. “She wore a hooded cloak, so I couldn’t see her face. I think she must have been mad.”

  “Maid Marian,” said Roger. He didn’t care that all of them turned to stare at him. “I begged Fenella not to come tonight. But she wouldn’t listen.” He ran to the water and waded in, scanning the darkening sea, looking for any sign of swimmers.

  Footsteps splashed behind him. “Which way does the current run?” asked Macklin.

  “Out,” said Roger, straining, examining every wave crest, every irregularity in the surface. “Like a millrace at this point in the tide. To open water, and Denmark, eventually.” He saw nothing. Despair threatened to engulf him.

  “Not directly,” said the older man. “We saw that when the boys came up here. There are crosscurrents and rips.” He turned toward shore, calling, “Fetch boats.”

  In a short time, a flotilla of volunteers had rowed out to search for Fenella, pulling against the draw of the sea.

  Sometime later, there were shouts from one of the little vessels, indicating that they’d found a body. Roger plunged into shock and terror as he helped propel his boat over to it. But when they reached it, he discovered that the sodden bundle they’d pulled from the water wasn’t Fenella. Relief warred with horror and astonishment as he gaped at the pale face and recognized Arabella’s mother.

  The boat holding her moved toward shore. His own began to follow. “What are you doing?” Roger demanded. “We have to keep searching.”

  “It’s grown too dark, my lord,” said the boat’s owner. “We can’t see properly. Might miss something. We’ll wait and head back out at first light.”

  “Lend me the boat,” said Roger. “I’ll keep going.”

  But when they reached the island, all the mariners held the same opinion. It was no use going on in the dark. No one said that by this time the cold water would have sapped a swimmer’s strength and most likely pulled her down. They didn’t have to. Roger knew it. He’d lived his life by the North Sea. These waters were unforgiving.

  They carried Mrs. Crenshaw up to the tent and laid her body on a rug. Roger, his mother, and Macklin joined the others standing over her. “What was she doing here?” said Roger’s mother.

  “Can she have been the archer?” asked Macklin. “Maid Marian?” His tone was dubious. The soaked middle-aged woman before them didn’t look adventurous.

  “Yes.” Desolation dragged at every word Roger spoke. “She was a keen archer as a girl. Arabella mentioned it once. I’d forgotten. Her mother wanted her to learn, but she didn’t care to.” He ought to have remembered. He ought to have suspected. But how could he have imagined Mrs. Crenshaw
would do such a thing? She must have gone mad.

  “But,” began his mother. “Why?”

  “She blamed me for Arabella’s death,” Roger said leadenly. “And I…like a damned fool, I blamed Fenella. This was revenge. On her. On me. I’ve done this.”

  “No, you have not,” said Macklin. He pointed at the dead woman. “She did it, and no one else.”

  “She promoted your marriage,” said Roger’s mother. “Arranged it even, you told me.”

  It was true. Roger’s guilt lifted just slightly. He would not have married Arabella, and she would not have died, perhaps, if Mrs. Crenshaw hadn’t pushed the match. She had much to answer for, wherever she might be now. Then this momentary feeling of respite collapsed. Fenella was gone. Just when he’d found her after so many years, he’d lost her again. And he hadn’t told her he loved her. That cut so deeply that he nearly bent double with regret. He’d meant to. He’d tried to. But his wretched tongue had betrayed him yet again, and so she’d never heard him tell her how very much he cared. If he could be given the chance—Roger prayed for a chance—he would say it every day, every hour for the rest of his life.

  They went out to a murmuring, firelit island. Groups of people stood or sat exchanging wild stories about what had happened when they had no actual idea. What was he going to do? Roger wondered. How was he going to live now?

  He wanted to snatch up a claymore and rage against an enemy, wild and invincible as a berserker. But there was no one to fight. And so little grounds for hope.

  Nineteen

  Weakened by what seemed like an eternity of paddling and the cold water, which leached strength from her body moment by moment, Fenella struggled on against the terrible power of the sea. The tide constantly fought her lateral course across the direction of the current. It wanted to carry her out into the depths. She was just another fleck in the vast flood moving away from shore and then back again, hour by hour.

  But finally, finally, the pull seemed to lessen a little. She swam on and gradually confirmed the feeling. She’d broken out of the main rush of the current. It no longer gripped her so strongly. She could go a bit faster.

  But night had fallen by this time, with low clouds, and she couldn’t see very well in the dark. She moved on by feel, praying not to stray back into the tidal reach. A sound caught her attention. Was that waves breaking? She turned toward it, daring to hope.

  A few minutes later, one of Fenella’s feet brushed solid ground. Hardly daring to hope, she felt about with her toes. Yes, the sea bottom was shelving upward! She lurched upright and pushed forward—staggering, tripping, floundering, crawling finally—and at last dragged herself out of the water. She dug her fingers into packed wet sand, profoundly grateful, and collapsed onto it.

  For a while she simply panted. It was an unutterable luxury to lie still, not to have to fight for her life, not to crane her neck to stay above water and catch a full breath. She could ask for nothing more.

  Slowly, she revived a little. Her breath slowed. She pushed up and sat on the sand. Judging by the sound of lapping waves and dim outlines in the night, she decided that she’d reached an islet, hardly more than a sandbar. She couldn’t see the real shore. She needed more light for that, to decide how she might truly escape the sea. This place was a temporary refuge in the ebbing tide. At high tide, it might not even exist.

  Fenella shivered. She was freezing in her soaked shift. Her wounded arm hurt, as did her head where Mrs. Crenshaw had hit her, and her throat where she’d choked her. She almost laughed. A regular litany of pains. The relief of being out of the sea made her giddy. She’d survived. But she had to do something more now, or she would perish of cold.

  Shifting to hands and knees, Fenella crawled slowly around the perimeter of her refuge. She came across no bushes or trees, no rocks, just wet sand, confirming her opinion that this speck of land was covered at high tide. It offered no shelter from the wind that was chilling her skin and making her shudder.

  But at the far end of the bar she did find a sizable pile of seaweed, coughed up by the waves. “Beggars can’t be choosers,” she muttered as she yanked the bundle of fronds away from the water toward the center of the islet. There she scraped a shallow depression in the sand, pushed some of the seaweed into it, curled up on top, and arranged the rest over her. The fronds were cold and slimy, but they did cut the wind. Fenella pulled her knees up to her chest and nestled her icy hands in the space between. Slowly, she grew a little warmer as the heat of her body filled her bizarre cocoon. This wasn’t comfort by any means, but it did mean survival. She rubbed her hands together to encourage circulation.

  The waves repeated their lulling rhythm. The wind sighed over her dark burrow. She fell into a state that wasn’t quite sleep, yet wasn’t true waking either. Drifting in a kind of dream, she found the unexpected events of the last few weeks—the revolution in her existence—floating through her mind. She’d been the target of sly malice and curious whispers, lost her last parent, eloped, been shot, swum for her life. She put one hand to her wounded arm with its damp bandage. The catalog seemed fantastical. Yet it had all happened, like a trip through a labyrinth where one couldn’t see what came next on the twisting path.

  She’d also found more happiness with Roger than she’d ever known before. No one in her family, not even her grandmother, who genuinely loved her, had made her feel so cherished. All the tender moments she and Roger had spent together passed through her memory. She was so fortunate, blessed as she had never thought to be. The difficulties were as nothing to this gift. Despite her current predicament, a pulse of joy ran through her, a heady mixture of pleasure and gratitude.

  But she hadn’t told Roger how much she loved him! She’d meant to, but somehow she’d never come to the point of speaking the words. If she didn’t see him again…but she would see him! She’d escaped the sea. She would reach home. Tomorrow. And when she did, she would let him know how much he meant to her. Every day, from now on. Because disaster could descend at any moment and make that forever impossible. On this firm resolve, Fenella sank into restless sleep.

  Light came with a splash of cold water, dripping through the nest of seaweed that now admitted thin rays of sunshine. Fenella lifted her head and saw that the tide was rising, and her refuge was losing inches with each incoming wave. She sat up, pushing off the seaweed. It left brown slimy trails over her shoulders and arms. Her bandage looked filthy.

  A larger wave broke, running along the sand toward her knees. Fenella pushed herself up and stood. It was time to go. The rest had helped. Yes, she was still cold, and very thirsty. Her muscles were stiff from her efforts yesterday, and she had painful bruises from the attack. But she was alive and ready to go on.

  She turned in a circle on her sandbar, evaluating her position now that she could see the landscape. The tide had carried her away from the Lindisfarne priory, and her sideways swim had taken her around a higher spit of sand, so that she couldn’t see the holy isle from this low vantage point. The closest bit of shoreline was south, judging by the sunrise, a promontory thrusting out into the channel. The tip didn’t seem so very far away. She could see ripples that promised strong currents, however.

  She didn’t want to go back into the sea, Fenella acknowledged. Perhaps ever. She longed to sit here and wait for someone to come for her. Surely they were searching. She was confident that Roger was searching. If a boat appeared, she could wave them down. If only she could light a signal fire. But there was nothing to burn and not much time before the sandbar was engulfed. Which would put her in the water anyway. “Spineless and shivering,” she said aloud, and was surprised by the croak her voice had become. She couldn’t wait for rescue.

  Still, she had to lash herself to enter the waves. Their touch on her feet made her shudder. At least the tide would carry her in the right direction this time, toward shore.

  Fenella waded into the sea. The water reache
d her knees, her hips, her chest. She began to swim.

  The tide did pull at her, but the journey was easier in the light. She could see her goal ahead, growing closer with each stroke. She swam harder. Her lungs began to pump and her pulse to pound. Slowly, painfully slowly, the spit of land neared.

  The water grew shallower. The effort lessened. Fenella found purchase for her feet near the end of the promontory and started to stand up. A morass of sand sucked at her, eager to pull her down. She flopped forward and floated, propelling herself along the bottom with fingers and toes until the water grew too shallow. She tried rising again. This time the sand was firm. She hurried on and at last reached dry ground, sinking to her hands and knees and breathing hard.

  Shivers brought her to her feet again. She wasn’t done yet. The narrow peninsula was empty of all but scrub. She had to find her way to help.

  She walked along the crest, dipped down to cross a small channel running with water up to her ankles, and finally reached the mainland proper. She could see grain fields ahead. There would be people about surely. She hoped to come upon them soon because she was freezing in the early-morning chill. She pulled at her shift, clinging damply to her body. Not the way she would wish to meet countrymen, but she had no choice.

  * * *

  Roger rowed because he felt just slightly better when he was doing something, rather than sitting and scanning the empty sea and shore as their small boats crisscrossed the waters around Lindisfarne. He could feel the opinion mounting among the searchers—that Fenella couldn’t be alive now, that the strong currents must have overwhelmed her, that the cold water would have leached her life away. And the moment he stopped moving, he might have to accept that. So he wouldn’t stop, because he refused to give up hope. There was still a chance. Until the tide returned her body, he would go on. He realized that the other oarsmen in his boat had eased off.

  “There’s nowhere else to look, my lord,” said the vessel’s owner. “We’ve been all over.”