by Nancy Butler
KEEPER OF THE SWANS
Nancy Butler
I have looked upon those brilliant creatures.
And now my heart is sore.
All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.
Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.
—“The Wild Swans at Coole”
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
I want a hero: an uncommon want.
—“Don Juan”
LORD BYRON
Chapter 1
It was definitely not good ton to flee your own betrothal ball. But that didn’t prevent Diana Exeley from slipping through one of the French doors that edged the ballroom of her sister’s house and hurrying across the terrace. She had to get away—away from the heat and the noise, the crush of people and the cloying odor of overly scented bodies.
“Just a moment,” she promised herself as she moved rapidly away from the bright light of the ballroom, toward the deeper shadows of the wide lawn. Though the rain had finally stopped—after a solid fortnight of downpour—the lawn and the surrounding willows were still dappled with moisture. A mist rose up from the grass, blending seamlessly with the wispy fingers of fog that reached up from the river.
Diana recalled the sum of money her sister’s husband had laid out for her ball gown, so she dutifully rucked up the skirts of the silk and lace confection as she tripped across the wet grass toward the breakwater that fronted the river. Jutting out from that breakwater was an elegant boathouse with a narrow dock, and it was this shadowed refuge that beckoned to her.
She continued her flight until she reached the end of the dock. Resting her elbows upon one of the cobbled stanchions, she gazed out over the water, trying to calm the ragged beating of her heart. She hoped the sound of the river racing past would soothe her spirits—the Thames usually eased her, even when it was in wild motion, as was the case tonight. But her heart would not be soothed.
She knew she should have been pleased by the evening’s events. As the daughter of an impecunious Yorkshire baronet, she should have been dancing with delight over her betrothal to a man of wealth and breeding. But Diana felt nothing but numb disbelief. Especially since the ramifications of that betrothal had not hit home until this evening, when her fiancé’s many acquaintances, the cream of London society, had arrived at Mortimer House with the pointed intention of appraising her.
Diana wrinkled her nose. She did not want to have her every movement scrutinized by the ton; she had little care for that many-headed hydra. But it was clear that her future husband, Sir Beveril Hunnycut, did not share her distaste. She heard again his supercilious laughter, rising over the strains of the orchestra, as he bantered with his cronies beside the punch bowl. The sound had positively set her teeth on edge.
What had she been thinking, to allow herself to be coerced into marriage with a man she barely knew? Even if he did possess a tolerable fortune, and was nephew and sole heir to Baroness Hamish, the wealthiest landowner along the river. His position weighed little with her. But, unfortunately, the same could not be said of her sister, Helen, or her husband, James Mortimer. They had both worked very hard to procure this match for Diana. Not completely out of concern for her best interests, however.
James Mortimer had political aspirations which a man like Sir Beveril, who was a member of the Commons, could handily promote. Helen repeatedly reminded Diana that they both owed a great deal to James, and that requiring Diana to marry where it might do him some good was not a lot to ask. Diana thought that it was indeed a great deal to ask. But then Helen had always been prudent above everything.
Helen had met James at an assembly in York, while he was visiting relatives there. He’d been smitten by her dark beauty and had begun to court her almost immediately. Helen held him at arm’s length while she weighed her options. James was a man of considerable wealth, but, alas, not nobly born. Although yet thirty, his manner was stuffy, and he tended to prose on about politics far longer than was tolerable. And he had neither dash nor style, qualities that were important to Helen. Diana had kept her own counsel on the matter. She doubted she could ever wed a man who had not won her heart. (A foolishly naive sentiment, she now thought, considering her present predicament.) When Helen made her decision at last—to marry her wealthy suitor—Diana saw it as just another instance of practicality over passion.
After returning from her bridal journey, Helen had written to Yorkshire, to insist that Diana visit her and make her comeout in London society. Diana had balked at first, unwilling to leave her father alone. It was she who saw to his comfort, prepared his favorite dishes, and distracted him when his arthritis troubled him. But her father had seen the wisdom of Helen’s plan. He knew Diana would meet few marriageable men if she stayed in the East Riding. And so she found herself posting south only days after Helen’s letter arrived.
Helen had made it clear that she expected Diana to seek a mate from the crop of influential politicians who went about in the ton. She had quickly scotched Diana’s initial and horrified resistance to this scheme by pointing out to her sister that seeing Diana safely married would do a great deal to relieve her father—whose health was indifferent at best—from his worries over her unsettled future. And even without Helen’s constant reminders, Diana knew what she owed her sister’s generous spouse, who had not demurred at presenting her to the ton or at dowering her handsomely. It seemed she could do little to object to the Mortimers’ machinations without seeming the veriest ingrate.
Diana had been surprised by the number of suitors who had flocked around her when she arrived from Bothys a month earlier. She knew herself to be past prime marriageable age, being nearly twenty-one, and she was not possessed of any particular graces or skills, other than the ability to dream bright, vivid dreams. Which was more of a liability, she often thought.
Sir Beveril had been the least objectionable of the men who courted her. He was not too old, not too prosy, and was accounted to be quite handsome, though she had never been fond of robust men. Helen assured her she would come to feel a proper affection for him, but Diana still harbored a great many doubts.
So far Beveril had been charming and courteous, and he’d even flirted with her at a champagne breakfast the week before. He’d raised her hand and kissed the palm of her crocheted mitten. It was a minor gallantry, but Diana had been flattered by the attention. The last man who had attempted any familiarity with her had been the young shepherd who lived on the hill behind her home in Bothys. The youth had not only been unconscionably forward, he had smelled unpleasantly of dung. After he had tried to kiss her on the mouth, he’d had his shepherd’s crook jabbed in his ribs for his trouble. What Diana lacked in inches, she made up in spirit—she had a temper the size of Gibraltar. And a hard head to match, as Helen often reminded her.
Perhaps Sir Beveril would not make such a bad husband, she reflected. And he must truly care for her, to have proposed so soon after their first meeting. Diana scuffed one foot along the planking. Maybe it was time she put her foolish dreams of heroes behind her. They might have been tenpence a dozen in the stories from Greek and Roman mythology she was so fond of reading, but they were scarce as hen’s teeth in the ton. Nelson was dead, and if he hadn’t been, Lady Hamilton, for all her girth, would still have a hold on him. Wellington was married and, anyway, who wanted a hero who was never at home?
And who knew? One
day Beveril might prove himself a hero…if he ever did anything in Parliament besides vote down reform bills or grumble about the prime minister. But somehow she doubted it—Beveril seemed to think that exhibiting a cleverly tied neckcloth was a major accomplishment in statesmanship.
She was so lost in her thoughts that she did not hear the sound of people approaching the boathouse. A woman’s laughter fluted out across the lawn behind her, and Diana turned. A couple was strolling in the shadow of the willows, heading toward her refuge. She could have merely walked from the dock, and nodded a greeting to them as she made her way back to the ball, but she saw that they were walking with their arms entwined. She had no desire to interrupt a tête-à-tête. Nor did she want to answer any awkward questions—such as why she had needed to escape her own betrothal ball.
A rowboat was tied to the piling where she had been leaning; she’d heard it rocking against the dock. Usually the rowboats were kept in the boathouse, but in light of all the rain, which had caused the Thames to crest dangerously, one of them had been left outside. Earlier she’d seen the groundsmen using it to clear the debris, the branches and wooden planks, that the racing water had cast up onto the retaining wall.
Diana quickly scrambled down the wooden ladder and stepped into the boat, tucking her skirts around her to keep the hem out of the dank water in the boat’s bottom. Taking hold of the nearest piling, she shifted the boat under the dock. She crouched there in the shadows, hoping to remain undetected, and thankful that the water in the lee of the boathouse was relatively calm compared to the wild stretch of river beyond her.
“I don’t know how you can stand it,” the woman was saying as the couple’s footsteps echoed over Diana’s head, “To be leg-shackled to a little country nobody.”
Diana thought the speaker might be Lady Vivian Partridge, one of James’s neighbors. She was a dashing widow with a questionable reputation. It figured she would be luring men out onto the rain-soaked grass.
“Oh, I’ll endure it right enough,” her companion responded.
Diana had a more difficult time placing his voice, especially since he spoke in a low, gruff tone.
“A month in the country with my wife, to satisfy the gossips, and then I’ll be back in your arms.”
“You don’t sound very dismayed by the prospect of being with her.” The lady’s tone was peevish.
“A man’s got to do his duty, Viv.”
Ah, it was Lady Vivian.
“She’s such an unschooled little thing,” the woman continued. “No graces, no small talk. I shouldn’t wonder if you’re bored to tears inside of a week.” She paused, and then added in a glib tone, “Not that I’ll be bored, mind. You’re not the only handsome man who lives along the river.”
The man’s voice deepened. “You stay away from that rascally knave, Vivian. You think I haven’t seen you making sheep’s eyes at him every time you chance to meet.”
The lady sniffed. “What’s sauce for the goose, my love, is certainly sauce for the gander. You’ve no right to object to my little flirtations, when you are set on leaving me behind for another woman.”
“Only for a short time, sweetheart. Now, hush.”
There was a long silence, during which Diana assumed the couple were engaging in a kiss. The man’s voice then continued, a bit more raggedly than before. “You see, my feelings for you haven’t changed, Vivian. But you know I cannot marry you, as much as I want to—your jointure barely supports your own expenses, and until my aunt pops off, which might be years yet, I need to get my hands on some blunt. The cents-percenters are hounding me to death, God rot them! The chit’s brother-in-law has agreed to pay my debts in addition to her dowry, I know she’s a bit gauche, but perhaps she’ll improve once she’s had a little town polish. And she’s not a positive antidote, though I could wish she had more of her sister’s looks.”
Diana sat up suddenly, rapping her head sharply on one of the dock’s crossbeams.
Sweet Lord above! It was Beveril! The man who had been kissing the alluring Lady Vivian was her own fiancé. She rubbed one hand over her crown, wondering which was more painful, the ache in her head or the dispirited fluttering of her heart. It was too mortifying! They always said eavesdroppers rarely heard good of themselves, but it was still a blow to discover that Sir Beveril thought her gauche and unattractive. Not to mention how distasteful it was to hear oneself being discussed by one’s betrothed and his mistress. And in such a disinterested manner, as though Diana were a leftover joint of mutton he was ordering up for dinner.
She attempted to block out the remainder of their conversation, which was not difficult, since neither of them spoke again for a long while. Over the brisk chuckling of the Thames, she could occasionally hear sighs and soft groans. She sat there, her chin resting on her fists, for what seemed like an hour, trying to tamp down her quivering feelings of betrayal and humiliation.
She couldn’t possibly marry Beveril now. It didn’t matter that half the husbands in the ton had mistresses, she would not be a party to such a sham marriage. It was far preferable to return to Yorkshire than to barter herself into a loveless, bleak future. Helen would be furious, she knew, and James would be disappointed. And her father would be upset that she had thrown away her one chance at a matrimony. But she would remain firm. Let them send her back to the East Riding. It was where she belonged. Not among the hypocritical members of London society, with their strict conventions and oddly loose morality.
“We must return, Beveril,” Lady Vivian murmured. “Someone is bound to notice our absence. Oh, dear, my hair must look a fright.”
“You look stunning as usual, Viv. Here…let me help…. Lord, how I shall miss these golden curls.”
“And you will help your wife do up her hair?” the lady asked archly.
Sir Beveril grunted and said disparagingly, “That wild mane? I’ve seen street urchins with better-tamed hair. There must be Gypsy blood somewhere in her family, by the look of her. But Mortimer’s money is what I’m after, and a little thing like tainted blood isn’t going to stand in my way.”
Diana ground her teeth. She believed her hair to be one of her few good features. It was true it was a bit coarse and tended to curl more than was the fashion, but it was a vivid blue-black, and she always thought it set off her white skin and pale blue eyes very nicely. But Sir Beveril was clearly immune to any of her charms, save the financial ones. She had to get free of him, whatever it took.
She heard the muffled footsteps receding above her head as the couple moved off toward the house. Diana had every intention of following in their wake and announcing to the entire company that the engagement was off. But then reason prevailed. She realized with a sinking heart that such an act would create a scandal that neither Helen nor the benevolent James deserved.
Still, she was not to be married for another six weeks. Surely in that time she could convince her stubborn, single-minded sister that Beveril’s unsavory character made him totally unacceptable as a husband, no matter how sterling his political connections. She purposely put Beveril’s last pronouncement out of her mind. Even if he was totally unwilling to break off the betrothal, surely no one could force her into matrimony with the man. At least she prayed that was the case.
With a little oomph, she grasped the piling and guided the boat out from beneath the dock. But before she could grab the edge of the ladder, the boat drifted away from it, putting six feet of water between Diana and the dock. She didn’t understand how it was possible, since the boat had been secured to the piling when she’d climbed into it. But then, as the current snatched at the craft and drew it farther into the river, she saw the sodden bow rope snaking along in the inky water. Somehow the boat had come untied.
Diana was unalarmed at first. Rowing along the shoreline was one of her chief pleasures at Mortimer House. But that was on sunny days when the river ran at a normal pace. Now the current was swift and strong, propelling Diana rapidly away from the dock. She groped in the bo
at’s bottom for the oars and came up with only one. Scrambling to the stern, she tried using the single oar as a rudder, to steer the boat back toward the river bank. Instead, the craft began to slew in the water, going sideways first, and then nearly turning completely around. Water splashed over the sides, soaking the skirt of Diana’s gown, and as the boat rounded a bend in the river, Mortimer House was lost from sight.
Blind fear rose up in her now, gut-clenching, heart-thudding panic. She’d never seen the river as wild as it was tonight, white-capped and full of eddies. The little boat raced on, pitching wildly from side to side as Diana crouched in the bottom, holding onto the gunwales for dear life. The scenery that flashed past was unfamiliar, though she gauged she had to be somewhere near Hamish House, the home of Beveril’s aunt.
At least there were no waterfalls to contend with—she knew the river ran a winding but level course up to London, where it widened enough for commercial shipping. Diana could just imagine her fragile craft ramming full speed into the side of an India merchantman, or an anchored man-of-war. All they would find would be the splintered remains of the rowboat, and a few of the silk roses that adorned her gown.
Diana was a capable swimmer, and she weighed the prudence of leaping from the boat and striking out for shore. But as hefty tree branches and ragged pieces of planking raced past her boat, she realized that even if the current did not wear her down, she risked being struck by one of those lethal objects.
“No!” she cried out into the night. “The river is my friend—it won’t harm me!”
It was an odd sort of prayer. But as though the river gods had heard her, an island suddenly loomed up on her left. Frantically Diana thrust her oar into the water on the left side of the boat, keeping the paddle flat against the current. It was enough to shift her course toward the foliage that obscured the end of the island.
“Thank God!” she breathed as the boat was caught in an eddy produced by the jutting tip of the island.
