Lady Savage

by Donna Lea Simpson

  But no, with Lord Gaston-Reade’s attention clearly on her, she stretched her nearly bare arms over her head and attempted the same sideways flip, tumbling onto the beach and laying back on the wet sand, laughing as Miss Zazu stood over her and urged her to try again. She stood, flipped her hair out of her way, and executed a perfect turn, her dark hair tangling, her slim white legs exposed by the motion.

  Lord Gaston-Reade was gesticulating and shouting from his rocky viewpoint, but Miss Roxeter gave one long, cool gaze in that direction, then turned and walked toward Tony’s rocky ledge. He hastened to hide his laughter, but when the two young ladies achieved his vantage point, he saw concealment wasn’t necessary. Miss Savina, her cheeks pink and her dark hair clogged with wet sand, was laughing, her eyes sparkling in the tropical sunlight. Out of breath, she took his offered hand and let him pull her up to the rocky point, as Miss Zazu followed, clambering independently up.

  “That was a display worthy of some acrobats I saw in Persia many years ago,” he said.

  “Are you not shocked?” she asked with a mocking frown, pursing her lips and pushing them out in a good imitation of her fiancé’s most outraged expression. “Are you not appalled that I behaved so, and in front of an audience?”

  “If you had done so in the middle of Hyde Park at the promenade hour, I suppose I would have been. But we find ourselves in such different circumstances that I am not at all shocked.”

  “I am,” she confessed, sitting down on the rocky surface beside Zazu, who watched her mistress with a secretive smile on her face. “I am shocked at myself, a little. But it looked like such fun.” She glanced at Zazu. “And she dared me to try it, you know.”

  “I am a bad influence, certainly,” Miss Zazu said gravely.

  Tony examined Miss Savina’s face; her skin was becoming tanned, the freckles darkening, and he reflected that but for this awful circumstance he would never have come to know her as he now did. She would have remained, to him, a lovely but dull enigma. Instead, he now knew her to hold the same defiant beliefs as he had. Gaston-Reade had no idea, clearly, and when he found out would be appalled at the viper he had clasped to his bosom. Freedom for slaves? Reform of the plantation system? One or the other of them would have to give up their values, and with all of the power in their society held in the husband’s hands, how could it help but be Miss Savina who would be vanquished?

  He cast aside his gloomy thoughts. It was out of his power to correct mistakes already made. For now she was his friend, and they would be friends until rescue parted them and thrust them back into their well-defined roles. He stood and offered her his hand. “Miss Savina, Miss Zazu, shall we begin the fishing lessons?”

  “Better to start with swimming lessons,” Miss Savina said wryly. “I have never swam before and would drown if I flung myself off this promontory as you do.”

  Ten

  Down on the beach, Anthony Heywood led them into the water; Savina found her cursed skirts a nuisance, so she knotted them up between her legs as best she could. The morning sun rose above the jungle behind them, but dark clouds lingered on the horizon. As she waded in, she stared down through water so clear she could see her own feet and she wiggled her toes in the sand, giggling with Zazu, who was doing the same.

  “As far as swimming goes,” their tutor said, leading the way, “salt water makes one more buoyant, so it will aid you in staying afloat. Swimming is an extension of our natural instinct when in the water to tread and thrust our arms, keeping ourselves afloat. Come further . . . the water is calm today and safe.”

  Savina grasped Zazu’s hand and they both waded out further to where Mr. Heywood awaited them. Zazu’s hand trembled as much as her own, she was happy to note, so the nervousness she felt of the engulfing waters that swirled around her waist was not her own alone.

  “Are you sure,” Zazu asked, her teeth chattering, “that this truly is safe?”

  “Would I bring harm to you two ladies?” Heywood said, a grin on his tanned face. “Who else would make the meals?”

  Savina splashed him using her free hand, and he returned the favor. “Drat these heavy skirts,” she exclaimed as the sodden material tugged at her. “Even knotted up they are such a nuisance. I wish I could take them off.” When she caught the expression of merriment in his eyes, she blushed furiously. “I didn’t mean I would! Merely that . . . that—”

  “Never mind,” he said. “When you ladies practice on your own perhaps you can strip down to something less confining. For now, we will get the rudiments. Miss Zazu, come to me. You can try first.” He put his hands on her waist and lifted her in the water and, her eyes wide, she began to flail her legs. “No, calm! Relax yourself. Move your legs, but don’t flail, just easy.”

  He helped her float in the water and she was soon moving her legs and arms, and when he let her go, she clumsily moved a few yards before stopping.

  “That’s a beginning,” he said. “Practice, and I’ll show Miss Savina.”

  Zazu paddled away toward shore, and Mr. Heywood moved toward her. Savina felt shy all of a sudden, but could think of no excuse to stop the lesson.

  “Here,” he said, putting his arm around her waist. He lifted her and she leaned forward, feeling the strength of his arm as he held her close to his body and encouraged her to move her legs and arms, gently. But she was breathless and gasping for air, part panic at the unaccustomed feel of weightlessness in the water, and partly a surge of yearning as he held her close.

  He let her go and she stood, head down, aware of his body close to hers.

  “Are you all right, Miss Roxeter?”

  “Yes,” she said, feeling foolish. “I’m fine. Let me try that again.”

  He took her waist in his hands and lifted her, and she looked down at him, the rising sun reflecting on the sharp planes of his angular face. He stopped, gazed steadily at her and wrapped his arms around her for a moment, gazing directly into her eyes. She stared back. He swallowed and pushed her away, holding her lightly by the waist.

  “Uh, relax in the water, let it carry your weight, Miss . . . Miss Savina. Just relax; I won’t let anything happen to you. Trust me.”

  Zazu was rapidly perfecting her swimming, and she stroked efficiently back to them. “I think I have it! It’s so much fun. I used to paddle in the river at home, but it was shallow and I didn’t go in over my knees. This is much better!”

  “Yes,” Savina said. “Much better.”

  Zazu splashed to a halt by them, and looked from one to the other. She muttered something in her people’s patois, a language she only rarely used around anyone but her own family, and shouted out a laugh, then splashed away, leaving Savina and Anthony Heywood staring at each other.

  Anthony put his hands on her shoulders. “Miss Roxeter, may I say that I think you are . . . are wonderful. You will try anything, you work hard, you are so good to your father—”

  “Stop! Mr. Heywood,” she said, drawing away, “I think the swimming lesson is done for now. I have the rudiments, and I’ll practice for a while with Zazu.”

  His expression dimmed and he stepped back. “Yes. And I should begin to fish. Learning to fish we will leave for another day, for you still must learn how to dive.” He turned and dove into the water, swimming with quick, efficient strokes until he came to the rocky promontory, where he clambered up, stripped off his shirt and commenced his hunt for fish.

  • • •

  “Savina, my dear.”

  Savina turned at her father’s voice behind her. She had come down to the beach at sunset to watch the horizon and wonder if their signal fire would be visible. Were they even on the right side of the island? Perhaps the east side of the island, toward the Atlantic, would be more sensible. Or should they be on the higher ground in the center of the small island? “Yes, Papa?”

  Her father approached and put his arm over her shoulders. She glanced over at him, thinking how weary and troubled he appeared. He had even fallen from his usual immaculate appe
arance, and the stubble of gray beard on his chin was unfamiliar and oddly alarming.

  “His lordship came to me after dinner tonight.”

  “Yes?”

  Her father stared out at the horizon and pulled at his stained neckcloth with his free hand. “Uh, he is, uh, concerned . . . that your . . . hmm, your friendship with Mr. Heywood is . . . is influencing you to behave immodestly.” He sighed, as at a burden shrugged off.

  “Behave immodestly?”

  Still staring out at the horizon, he replied, “Yes, uh, your performance on the beach this morning, and your behavior while learning to swim.”

  Points on her treacherous body pulsed with remembered sensitivity, and Savina reflected on the day, and her own mixed feelings during the swimming lesson. The unaccustomed feel of the water, warmed by the sun, had been unsettling at first; it felt like bathwater, but to be sharing it with Mr. Heywood felt shockingly intimate, especially when Zazu had splashed away from them for her own private practice. The sensation became agreeable and she soon grew to relish it. But then came her lesson, and the agitating sensations that had coursed through her as Mr. Heywood talked her into surrendering to the buoyancy of the water and reclining in it, and she had felt his strong hands at her waist, holding her up, and then pressing her to his chest.

  The longing in his warm brown eyes had been unmistakable and mirrored her own craving for his touch; everything was etched in her memory and left her confused and shaken. Supported by his hands, thrust against his torso, the gentle motion of the water rocking their bodies together; it had all given her much to ponder of the physical relations between women and men, and as she went mechanically about her business for the rest of the day she had thought how wise, perhaps, were those matrons who limited interaction until a firm commitment was made by the gentleman to wed the young lady. Temptation to prolong those moments of contact was strong.

  And yet Zazu, later, when questioned, had claimed not to feel those same feelings. Was it because she was already committed to Nelson in her mind and heart, if not in fact? Her own engagement to Lord Gaston-Reade, then, ought to have protected Savina from any mere physical response. Unless there was something between Mr. Heywood and herself that needed to be expressed . . . or quashed. She already knew she liked and admired him, but was it more?

  She glanced over at her father, who was casting her worried glances. Having said what he had to, he was silent now. She doubted if he would even have noticed her swimming lessons, much less her burgeoning friendship with Mr. Heywood, if not for Gaston-Reade’s interference. Even if he had noticed, he would never have said anything to her, but his dread of his future son-in-law’s disapprobation was more powerful than his reluctance to broach the subject with his daughter. “So, Lord Gaston-Reade sent you to admonish me to behave myself?”

  “It was not quite like that, Savina, dear.” Her father was looking at her with alarm, and she understood in that moment that even in his eyes, she had changed. He didn’t know what to make of those changes.

  “What is your feeling in this, Papa?” she asked, kicking at the sand with her bare toe. “Am I behaving immodestly?”

  He looked askance at her. “Savina, you must know you are. I understand that we are among friends, but really . . .” When she was silent, he bolted back into speech. “I beg you, Savina, not to risk your engagement to such a wealthy, well-thought-of, prosperous, dignified, powerful fellow as his lordship for the friendship of his secretary. Is it worth it? Truly.”

  Savina caught sight of her fiancé depositing a load of wood on the rock promontory where the signal fire was. Mr. William Barker had volunteered to take the first night’s tending of it so his fiancée could get some rest, as he solicitously put it. The earl said something to the other man, then began back toward the camp. Excusing herself from her father, she raced across the beach to meet Lord Gaston-Reade as he clambered down from the rocky outcropping.

  He stopped and waited as she approached him. Once she stood before him, she gazed up at him. Somehow, even in the primitive circumstances of their tropical marooning, he managed to stay relatively impeccable, waistcoat on, cuffs exposed the right amount, cravat tied, even though it was wilted and stained. She felt grimy in comparison, her dress salt-rimed from the morning swim, her hair gritty and her skin chapped from wind and sand. It made her feel even more irritable, but as angry as she was, she wasn’t sure her fury was justified. Perhaps he had every right to expect more circumspect behavior in his fiancée. It was a dilemma, to be sure, between her true feelings and her uncertainty about those feelings. But it was not his anger over her behavior that infuriated her.

  “Albert,” she said, trying to calm herself enough to hide the trembling of her voice.

  “Savina.”

  “I was speaking to my father. He tells me that you find in my behavior today much of which to disapprove.”

  “I would not say I disapprove, merely that I expressed my concern.”

  Staring into his cool gray eyes, Savina searched for something, anything, to show what he was feeling. Was it jealousy at her easy friendship with Mr. Heywood? That she could understand, and in that it would indicate some emotional attachment toward her, would alter her behavior to appease him.

  “If you had a concern,” she said carefully, broaching the real source of her anger with him, “why did you not raise it with me? Why did you approach my father, as if he is in control of my conduct?”

  “He is in control of your conduct.”

  “He is not! Nor has he ever been.”

  “Then he should be.”

  She was taken aback by his emotionless tone. His expression was unreadable, his eyes cold and dark, the gray like lead. “He is my father, not my . . . my jailer. He cannot command me in matters of my personal deportment.”

  “Then that is a failure of his that I did not notice before. You are under your father’s protection and control until the moment you marry—I should not need to remind you of this, Savina—and then it becomes my burden to assume.”

  “Burden? I am my father’s burden, and then I am to be yours. Do you mean that I am never in my own control?”

  “Really, Savina, you must know this is so; by law as well as by obligation I will be your keeper . . . or rather, your protector, and it will be up to me to correct and admonish you when you stray from the path of virtue and moral probity.”

  Said with such finality and acceptance it sounded like the voice of doom rather than the tones of a loving fiancé. She would be his burden, his chattel. Though she had always known it was so, she supposed, spoken aloud it had the air of death about it. Surely if he cared for her, he would not have said such a thing. But then, if she had offended his moral sensitivity perhaps he felt he had to say it aloud.

  Her anger had changed to a cold dread of her future. She turned on her heel and walked away, toward the ocean, facing the horizon as the signal fire blazed and lit up the sky with new orange flames.

  Eleven

  Days passed, blending into each other and yet each unique for Savina in that she learned something new either about the island or about her fellow castaways. Lady Venture had, after an initial period of silent fury over being expected to perform the same task every day, become quite managing and particular about whomever took over her task for the night. She was, as Zazu called her, the mistress of the flame, and took her duty seriously.

  From intense dislike, Savina had come to at least respect aspects of the other woman’s character and understand her a little better. Manipulating William Barker into an engagement had, Savina believed when she considered it, been Lady Venture’s attempt to grasp control over her own life by choosing as a suitor one who would never dare deny her, restrain her or attempt to assert his mastery in the marriage. She could sympathize with that goal, seeing, as she now did, what her own life would be with a man who would not allow her any personal freedoms. How constrained such a life would be, every day aware of the expectations of a rigid husband, wary of fail
ing at some impossible task, that of being perfectly bland, perfectly controlled, perfectly perfect.

  Though she had long thought Mr. Barker weak-willed and insignificant, she had come to appreciate his self-deprecating humor, his kindness, and his chivalry . . . true chivalry, the kind that had as its source a profound respect and genuine affection for femininity. He was invariably courteous and good-natured. But such gentle good nature could become a shortcoming for the gentleman. Lady Venture was turning him into her lackey; soon, there would be nothing left of him but what Lady Venture allowed. Savina couldn’t respect his lack of firmness, but she could still appreciate his kindness.

  Zazu she had come to cherish as a sister. Their differences were many, but their similarities more numerous. Without speaking the words they each knew, Savina felt that she could depend on the other for anything, even life. It changed everything. How could Zazu be her maid when she was her friend and sister? That was a conundrum she needn’t solve while they were on the island, for with no larger society to tell them otherwise, they were no longer maid and mistress, but survivors.

  Of the others, the surprises were more subtle. Her father she worried about. He was at his best when Lord Gaston-Reade and he bent their heads over a problem concerning the raft they were building down on the beach above the tide’s reach. He was at his worst when faced with the food, which he despised, the insects that feasted on him and the lizards, of which he had an unreasoning fear. The sleeping arrangements he considered scandalous and could not conceal his perturbation over.

  Annie, Lady Venture’s maid, troubled Savina, but it was in some way she couldn’t fathom, and she feared she was being unfair to the girl, who appeared to do no more than become more comfortable with the men of the group than she may have in other circumstances. Annie’s easier manner was no different, Savina told herself, than her own friendship with Tony Heywood, and since even Lady Venture didn’t comment on her maid’s demeanor, Savina could only keep her thoughts to herself and reflect on the secret wellsprings of suspicion in a woman’s heart; she must be jealous, she concluded, or the girl’s artlessly beguiling manner wouldn’t concern her.