Summer Is for Lovers

by Jennifer McQuiston

  “Staring at it carries far less potential for disaster than talking about it.” She offered up a prayer Mr. Branson hadn’t seen the poster, or her focused interest in it. She already had a floundering reputation, thanks to Mr. Dermott’s casual insults over the past few weeks. And if she had learned nothing else from the unfortunate experience of her first kiss, it was that the summer set thrived on gossip and ill will.

  But despite her agitation, Caroline’s thoughts crept back to the newsprint.

  The promise of a five-hundred-pound prize was a temptation so bright her eyes still stung from the encounter. The purse for the winner had increased remarkably from previous years. That, coupled with her astonishing moonlit conversation with David last night, shifted her thinking toward dangerous territory. She had promised her father she would take care of her family, and she had always imagined that she must do so through marriage.

  Her mind wandered farther afield. Such a sum might grant her a reprieve from this distasteful business of finding a husband so quickly.

  But the money wasn’t the only thing. Swimming was a part of who she was, even if it was a part she kept hidden from the world. This was a man who not only knew her terrible secret, but was encouraging her to pursue it. The idea that she might share this part of herself with someone else touched an empty place in her chest.

  She cursed the mad leap of her heart, and stomped across the wide swath of street. She pointed her feet toward Branson, who was still speaking with the haberdasher. David, damn his persistence, trotted along beside her like a stray bent on a handout.

  He had no trouble keeping her pace, she couldn’t help but notice.

  “It would be a chance to demonstrate your swimming skills,” he murmured, the words delivered in a breath so low it might as well have been the wind.

  Her thoughts tumbled chaotically, but she managed to choke out, “No.”

  How dare David Cameron make her think? How dare he make her hope?

  A woman would not be permitted to compete. The notice had been quite clear. Interested gentlemen should apply in advance. As if it was even necessary to specify such a distinction.

  “Why not give it a go?” David asked, matching her stride for stride.

  She gritted her teeth. He was being ridiculously persistent. While it might be an admirable quality in a magistrate, in a friend it bordered on just cause for murder.

  They had almost reached the storefront and were coming within earshot of Mr. Branson. Fearing what else David might say, Caroline grabbed his arm and jerked him into the shadow of a parked hansom cab. Through the slats in one wheel, she could still see Branson’s hunched back and flapping hands.

  She settled her gaze on the far more delicious—but far more dangerous—man standing next to her. “Even if I possessed the gall to submit an application,” she whispered heatedly, “and even if the race officials lost all sanity and permitted a woman to compete, such a public declaration of my abilities would be the death knell for any hope of a good match.”

  She lifted stern eyes to his, expecting to see sympathy there, or worse, amusement.

  Instead, she saw only determination.

  “Then teach me your swimming stroke,” he said. “Let me be the one to compete. And I will gladly split the purse with you.”

  HER LIPS OPENED in wordless surprise beneath the shadow cast by her bonnet. He had surprised her.

  Good. She had surprised him too. He had thought her a sensible creature, after all, and then she had gone off walking with Branson, who possessed precisely two interests in his thick head: dry goods and bubbies.

  “I am serious, Caroline.” God knew he could use the diversion the swimming competition would provide, almost as much as he could use the prize money. Though he remained determined to spend every available second with his mother, the minutes the baroness had granted him so far were negligible, at best. And his mother would be occupied with recuperative treatments every afternoon of this trip, leaving him time to spare.

  The idea had grown teeth almost since the moment he had seen Caroline staring at the poster with undisguised longing in her eyes. Despite his teasing, he knew it was an impossible idea for her to compete. But if Brighton refused to acknowledge the admirable young woman he was coming to know, it at least deserved to see the stroke she wielded with such skill.

  He had no doubt of his capacity to win if he devoted himself to the exercise and Caroline showed him her secrets, and the Scottish side of him delighted in the idea of proving a foreign swimming stroke could outpace a perfectly constructed English crawl. It would also be a convenient way to remove Caroline from harm’s way, given the fumbling interests of the boys of summer.

  He promptly squashed the unwelcome thought that it would also permit him to spend more time with her.

  Alone.

  The only sticky part was convincing her. And at the moment, she looked far from convinced.

  As her expression shifted from surprised to cautious, it occurred to him, like a sudden slap to the face, that she looked different today. The dress she was wearing this morning was not the reason—like all the dresses he had seen her in, it was cut in a less than flattering style, as if fashioned for a woman two inches shorter. But the bonnet on her head was trimmed with a pretty blue ribbon, and her white kidskin gloves looked utterly proper, if a bit too warm. There was even a reticule looped over one of her wrists, some beaded bit of frippery that would have looked at home on any of the other ladies prowling Shop Street.

  Somehow, on Caroline, it all looked out of place. The image he carried with him, the image he preferred, was that of a woman in ill-fitting clothes, her freckled nose turned up to the sun, daring Mother Nature to do her worst. Had Caroline added these fashionable accoutrements for Branson, then? The thought sent his fingers curling, even though he had spent the prior evening drunkenly encouraging just such a possibility.

  “You want me to teach you to swim?” she asked, her eyes wide.

  He nodded, encouraged by the fact that she was no longer handing him a vehement no. “You’ve a brilliant technique. And I would like nothing more than to beat Dermott using it.”

  Her eyes flew wider still. “Dermott is entering again this year?”

  David permitted himself a careful, casual shrug. “I would imagine. The man is quite the swimmer, to hear him tell it. The braggart challenged me to a race last night even though he could scarcely put one foot in front of the next. I cannot see him forgoing such an opportunity.”

  Caroline’s jaw tensed. “The competition is less than a week away,” she told him, though her voice had turned breathless. “That is not enough time.”

  “Lucky for you, I am a quick study.” David chased his words with one of his most rakish grins, enjoying the flicker of emotion that his words conjured on her face. He had offered her almost the same phrase last night, during the middle of their kiss—the kiss that, if he was brutally honest with himself, he wanted to repeat. The mere memory of it sent his body perking up in interest. He quelled it with a muttered oath. He needed to stop going down this perverse path. If she agreed to this bit of proposed lunacy, they would be engaged in swimming instruction, nothing more.

  “We would have to practice every day,” she warned, her lips finally tipping upward into a smile. “Including today, we would have only five opportunities until the day of the competition.”

  The tension ebbed from David’s shoulders. She was going to do it. He had to reach for the bit of maturity it took to not rub his hands together in anticipation as he imagined the look on Dermott’s face when he was bested.

  Or the look on this woman’s face when he provided her with the financial means to carve out an independent life.

  “Given that I suspect you swim nearly every day, I can’t imagine it will be too much of a hardship.” He nodded toward Branson, who had ceased his animated conversation with the haberdasher and was now scanning the street in confusion. “Five lessons, including Sunday. We can start this aftern
oon, as soon as you inform your admirer his company is no longer needed.”

  Or welcome, he added silently.

  “He’s not my admirer.” Caroline sighed, stepping out from behind the carriage and raising a hand to snag the man’s attention. “I don’t know why he wanted to walk with me in the first place. He seems far more interested in the potential of an empty shop than the thoughts I might keep in my head.”

  “He seems to be interested enough in you right now.” David couldn’t help but notice the way the boy’s face lit up like Christmas morning as his gaze fell on Caroline.

  “He will want to tell his father about the empty shop. I shall claim a headache and have him take me home, then encourage him to run along and speak with his father.”

  David nodded, his eyes fixed on the young man. As if summoned by David’s stare, Branson began to walk toward them, the merest hint of a swagger infusing his stride. Damn it, the fop looked all of sixteen years old. No matter his encouragement of the young buck last night, this was not the man David would choose for Caroline. Hell, this was not a man at all.

  And what sort of gentleman abandoned the lady he was walking with to peer moon-eyed through empty windows?

  “Will you be able to meet me on the beach in an hour?” The thought of leaving her alone with Branson for even the quarter hour it would take for the man to return Caroline home chafed, but David could see no way around it.

  She nodded. “My mother is used to me going for walks most afternoons. It will not be a problem to slip away. And with the store as an excuse, disengaging Mr. Branson’s company should be a simple enough matter.”

  David forced himself to step away and put a more respectable distance between them as Branson rounded the side of the cab. Yes, it should be a simple enough matter. Today.

  But as the sandy-haired swain approached Caroline with a bright, besotted smile on his face, David had a sinking suspicion that convincing this suitor to permanently cry off was not going to be anything close to simple.

  Chapter 13

  IT SOON BECAME clear to Caroline she hadn’t given proper thought to the mechanics of a swimming lesson with David Cameron.

  Oh, she’d had an hour’s hike to sort out how she would teach him. She intended to go about it the same way her father had taught her, starting him off on the rocky shelf about two dozen yards from shore, where he could get his feet under him if he ran into trouble. She would have David practice the overhand stroke first, then work on his kick after he became accomplished at the arm motions. Eventually, she would test his skills against the wrath of the ocean, working him first at low tide and progressing to deeper and more dangerous waters.

  Only, in agreeing to this plan, she had neglected to consider the necessary matter of clothing. Or rather, the lack of clothing.

  David was waiting, still dressed, when she arrived. But as she approached, he tossed the leather satchel he was carrying onto the shore and began to shrug first out of his coat, then his shirt. Seeing him strip on this very beach under the moonlight had been a lung-crushing enough experience. But seeing him emerge now, under bright sunlight, every glorious imperfection highlighted, was something else entirely.

  Today she could see a small scar that traversed his left rib cage. The tiny lines at the corner of his eyes reminded her that this man was older than she, and far more experienced. The whorls of hair on his chest sent her imagination hurtling downward to where the trail disappeared into his trousers.

  Trousers that even now were being unbuttoned.

  “You should leave them on,” she objected.

  He offered her a tilted grin. “You saw me in my unutterables last night.”

  “Nonetheless. It was dark last night.” Her voice pinched within her throat. “And you did not give me a choice.”

  His grin turned rakish, but his fingers fell away from the buttons. “So I’m to sacrifice a perfectly good pair of trousers to preserve your delicate sensibilities?” His voice softened, though his gaze remained sharp. “Clothing is expensive. You should know this isn’t just a lark for me, Caroline. I need the money every bit as much as you do.”

  His admission of his financial state was jarring, but not enough to smother her desire to see him clad in something more than smallclothes. “When you win, you shall be able to afford a dozen new pairs of trousers,” she pointed out. “But you shall not win without my assistance, and you shall not receive my assistance without some degree of modesty.”

  He heaved a sigh, and made a great show of stepping toward the ocean with his trousers on, hands up and out, offering his bare back as penance. “At the risk of pointing out the obvious,” he called back to her, “how do you propose to teach me if you remain trussed up in a corset?”

  “Do not worry about that,” she shouted, startled by the thought as much as the blasted man’s phrasing. The gown she had on buttoned in the front, at least, or else she never would have attempted this. She glanced toward David, who was standing, knee-deep in the surf. “Face the horizon. Stretch your muscles vigorously. Your body should be limber before you attempt to swim.”

  A low chuckle reached her ears, but he began to make a great show of flapping his arms.

  When she was satisfied the lout at least knew how to follow instructions, she crouched to pick up the discarded satchel, turning over his words in her mind. Somehow, in spite of her mother’s probing questions on the matter, she had presumed David solvent. Given her family’s own precarious finances, she could appreciate his desire to pursue this opportunity.

  But this was a lot of pressure to place on her shoulders, which were already weighed down by the promise she had given her father. Worse, his frank explanation of the matter established, in no uncertain terms, how unsuitable a match with him would be, no matter his father’s title, and no matter how the sight of his bare chest made her body flush hot.

  Not that it mattered. He had made it quite clear he was not interested in her that way.

  She was here to teach David Cameron how to swim, not to convince him to offer for her. If he did not look at her with longing, there was little she could do about it. At the very least, he looked at her with respect, which was more than Dermott had ever offered. And so she would relish the moments of friendship he offered. She would try to be brave.

  Or at the very least, try not to be nauseous.

  Caroline stepped behind the large rock that dominated the shoreline and undressed down to her shift. She ran her hands over the fabric, testing the weight of the cotton and finding it woefully lacking. Her lack of curves might have been hidden by shadows last night, but there would be no missing their absence today.

  Still, he was right. She couldn’t very well teach David to swim while encumbered by crinolines and corsets. She would be dragged under the water the minute she stepped into the ocean.

  Caroline opened the lid of the satchel and rummaged a moment. Slippers, gown, corset. Leftover reminders from a night that should not have happened. But she could not bring herself to regret the experience, not when David had guarded her reputation by gathering up her lost things, and not when she was here with him again.

  She pulled out the navy serge dress in her hands, contemplating her options. It still bore traces of sand and crushed shells, remnants from her brush with stupidity the previous evening. It didn’t even fit her properly, having been fashioned some years back before her shoulders had sprouted. She had worn the dress to Miss Baxter’s dinner party like an unattractive shield, hoping it would protect her against the slashing talons of the summer set. The fabric was a winter weight, thick and substantial.

  Even wet, David would not be able to see through it. And he had sacrificed his trousers.

  “Do you happen to have a penny knife?” she called out to the man she prayed was still standing to his knees in water.

  “In my coat pocket, lass.” His brogue came rumbling over the sound of the waves, doing delicious things to her insides. She peeked over the top of the rock, and when she
was satisfied he still had his back turned, she scrambled for the knife.

  Wielding it in her right hand, Caroline set about removing as much excess fabric from the old dress as discretion permitted, then stepped into the ruined garment. It was still not ideal. The bodice was too constricting for deep breaths. The ragged hemline swung somewhere around her knees, leaving her legs free for the necessary movements but revealing too much skin for comfort.

  But it was better than nothing, and nothing would not do.

  Perhaps this, in the end, was why ladies didn’t swim. Not because of a lack of ability, or a dearth of want, but because of a preponderance of fabric in all the wrong places. As near as she could tell, a lady determined to swim in the presence of a gentleman had only two options: death by drowning, or expiration from embarrassment.

  Either would do a girl in right quick.

  HAD CAROLINE TOLBERTSON been born a man, she would have made a brilliant drill sergeant.

  She wrangled David’s limbs into ruthless formation as she barked her commands. She declared Britain’s revered breaststroke “a waste of time and energy” and made him practice the new steps over and over again, pitting him against the hellish current, positioning him to meet the fury of the ocean head-on. It was exhausting work.

  And yet, it was over far too soon.

  He’d barely begun to wrap his head around it, barely begun to imagine he might be able to apply these skills in an actual race, when she nodded for shore. “That’s enough for today. Your stamina is not quite up to the demands of open water yet.”

  David coughed, his chest burning as much from exertion as from the multiple mouthfuls of seawater that had found their way inside his lungs. He had only four more lessons to master this stroke, and he was beginning to realize that for all she made it look easy, Caroline’s unique style of swimming required a degree of skill that he wasn’t sure he possessed. “I’ll have you know I can march twenty miles a day in full military regalia,” he choked out.