And he didn’t know whether to be worried for her future or pleased for his.
He tried to deliver the boy to his mother, but the boy’s arms tightened about David’s neck. Not that he blamed the child. The woman was still making an unholy racket, although her screams, thank God, had reduced to a rhythmic wailing.
He pried the little chap’s fingers free and then deposited the child on the ground. The mother collapsed beside him, her noise subsiding to a more tolerable level. Sobs punctuated by hiccups. Much preferable.
He couldn’t help but think, a bit uncharitably, that if the mother had learned to swim half as well as she screamed, she wouldn’t have to rely on others to save her offspring.
Within seconds, a drenched Caroline had joined him. Her color had improved, as had her breathing, and he reached out a hand to take hers up, the crowd and propriety be damned. She had just risked her life to save a child, goddamn it. She deserved better than hushed whispers and pointed stares.
But there was no denying they were growing in volume and audacity.
“You can see right through her skirts. Scandalous, really.”
“Not the most circumspect of chits, is she?”
“Hold, everyone!” Hamilton was bent over a black box, some fifty feet away, and his voice rang out clear over the din. Most in the crowd stilled, pleased with the idea of having the moment recorded, but Caroline cringed, her hand squeezing his in panic. David fought against the urge to pull her into his arms and shield her. But there was no hiding it now, no matter how she might pray to return to a state of anonymity.
Hamilton was taking a bloody picture.
He met her gaze, the eyes so changeable, resisting definition. His heart swelled around the sight of her. Not that the intensity of his body’s response made any difference. She had accepted Dermott.
Once Hamilton shouted the all-clear, a blond head shouldered her way through the crowd, and then Caroline’s sister reached out for her. “Oh, I was so scared when I saw you swimming out there!” Her sister’s eyes shone with tears. “But you were brilliant. Absolutely br-brilliant.”
“Mr. Cameron had the harder task,” Caroline objected, threading her hand out of his and leaving him bereft. “The boy’s father was the heavier load.”
“I didn’t swim it with thirty pounds of skirts tangling about my legs,” David answered. “Your sister is right. You did well, lass. Better than well. You saved that boy’s life.”
“I think,” Penelope said, stepping back and regarding him with a watery, blue-eyed gaze that seemed to miss little, “that you were b-both brilliant.”
From the corner of his eye, David caught sight of Dermott, standing a few feet away. He looked a little green, truth be told. Or perhaps it was just the sun’s reflection off the man’s damned waistcoat.
“Is it true?” David asked Caroline, low under his breath so her sister could not hear. “You’ve accepted the duffer then?”
Caroline’s eyes darted to Dermott, and she paled again. “If you mean Mr. Dermott, yes.” Her voice was still hoarse from her battle with the waves. “Just this morning, in fact.”
David felt the impact of her words as if they were bullets fired at close range. All that was left was the ribbon of smoke and the gaping wound in his soul. She was betrothed then.
He shook his head, more disgusted with himself than her. Why, of all people, did it have to be Dermott? She was going to marry a man who had stood on the shore with his hands in his damned pockets while a child almost drowned not two dozen yards away.
He was hit by the chilling realization that despite his intentions, despite his best efforts, Caroline had circled back around to the very place he had been trying to avoid. She was pledged to marry a man who did not deserve her, and he had pushed her there. Whose fault was it, if not his own? David had repeatedly rejected her, convinced he was doing the right thing, believing he wasn’t worthy of her. But confronted with this moment, he could recognize his error. He hadn’t turned her away because he couldn’t love her.
He had done it because he already did.
“I just hope you know what you’re doing, lass,” he sighed as Dermott turned his back on them and walked away from the scene. “Because it seems clear your future husband doesn’t know quite what to think of you.”
Chapter 31
CAROLINE AWOKE TO her mother’s upset voice, echoing up the stairwell and through the open bedroom door. Bright daylight streamed through her window. Penelope’s bed had not been slept in. Familiar things, all of them.
None of them worth waking up for on a Monday.
She rolled over, wondering what had set her mother off. Perhaps Mr. Dermott had come to break off their betrothal. Caroline was expecting something of that ilk, given the outcome of yesterday’s unplanned adventure and Dermott’s cold response. Although, given that her mother did not yet even know of the betrothal, she supposed that couldn’t really explain her mother’s angry words.
She shut her eyes tight, only to have them startled opened again by a very definite, very deliberate clearing of a throat. Bess was standing in the open doorway to the bedroom clutching a piece of dark fabric.
Caroline blinked, trying to ascertain what had the servant’s color so high.
Bess shook her hand, setting the fabric flapping. “Do you mind explaining what a man’s evening coat was doing under your mattress, Miss Caroline? I found it when I was changing the sheets yesterday.”
Caroline struggled to a sitting position, finally awake enough to feel fear. “Is that why Mama is upset?” she asked, recognizing David’s evening jacket. Her fingers twitched against the servant’s unfortunate discovery. She had forgotten it was there.
A mistake, that.
If she were Pen, she supposed, she would have a ready-made excuse. But she wasn’t Pen. And she had more to worry about than the little matter of explaining away David Cameron’s evening coat.
Bess clucked her irritation. “Who knows why your mother’s upset?” she muttered, tossing the jacket onto Caroline’s bed. “Probably because your sister spent good money on the newspaper again, I would imagine. Best get up quick, now. I won’t mention it to your mother, I suppose, given that she’s already riled up this morning, but I will say this. It’s a fine muddle when you start wearing men’s clothes, Miss Caroline. You’re a right pretty girl. You’ve nothing to be ashamed of, no matter which way your inclinations lean. I just don’t recommend dressing as a man. That’s a sure trip to Bedlam, if you ask me.”
Caroline choked back a sob of laughter as Bess bustled off down the hallway. Oh, if only her secrets were so simple.
Her lavender-sprigged gown was still damp with seawater, a reminder of its brush with infamy, and so Caroline dressed in her blue print day dress, as her new dresses had not yet been delivered by Madame Beauclerc. She splashed clean water on her face. Bundled her hair up into a tight knot at the nape of her neck.
And then she went to face her mother.
“How could you,” Mama wailed, rattling the paper before Caroline even found her seat at the table. “It’s all in here. Swimming like a man. Like a foreign man, at that.” She slumped against the high back of her chair and stared at Caroline as if she had two heads of hair, both of them in need of curling. “Oh,” she breathed, shaking her head. “What would your father think if he were here to witness this?”
“I think,” Pen said, calmly scraping a burned section off her piece of toast, “that Papa would be pr-proud of what she did. She saved a child’s life, and has likely boosted the ratings of the paper to boot.”
Caroline’s gaze narrowed in on her sister. A trigger was pulled on a thought. The late nights. The meticulous notes. “Pen . . .” she said slowly, her mind reaching toward its inevitable conclusion. “Are you the Gazette’s reporter for the social section?”
Pen smiled up at her, the perfect picture of blue-eyed innocence. “No. Of c-course not.”
Caroline deflated. She had no explanation for her life’s
curious turn of events, then. If the reporter for the social section wasn’t Mr. Hamilton, and it wasn’t Penelope . . .
“Which isn’t to say I wasn’t,” Pen added, returning to her toast with a slight upward curve of her lips. “But as of yesterday, when I turned in the st-story of your rescue and they decided to run it for the front p-page, I was promoted to a position as an associate journalist.”
“So you are the one who called Papa’s cove a delightful hidden gem?” Caroline demanded, pride in her sister’s accomplishment and aversion to such a breach of trust colliding in fine shower of sparks. “A child was almost killed because of that article!” Her eyes stung from the magnitude of her sister’s betrayal. How would she live with this necessary piece of herself destroyed? The privacy of the cove was the only thing that made swimming possible for her.
Pen placed her toast and utensil down on her plate, and took a deep breath. “I am sorry about that. I did not intend for that to happen, but I needed a more dr-dramatic story about Brighton than who had d-danced with you at whose b-ball, or they would have grown suspicious.”
“Suspicious of what?” Caroline countered, still reeling from the realization that she would likely never be able to swim at her cove again. “And how did you know about Mr. Duffington’s proposal? I hadn’t even had a chance to tell you yet.”
“Suspicious of me, of course. I admit, I’ve b-been using my influence with the newspaper to help the town see how special you are. And I overheard Mr. D-Duffington tell Miss Baxter he asked you to marry him.” Penelope flushed pink, whether due to her confession of eavesdropping to gain a story, or her admittance of meddling, Caroline couldn’t be sure. “ ’Tis nothing nefarious, I assure you.”
Caroline stared at her sister, her mouth hinged open. Why did people keep doing this to her? First David had betrayed her by talking about her to the summer set, and now Pen was manipulating their interests.
Only—and this was definitely a sticking point—Caroline knew Pen loved her. Though her methods were flawed, Caroline didn’t doubt her sister’s motives. Pen’s attempts to be helpful were born out of love. But they also mirrored David’s, and that had Caroline’s thoughts spinning off in a new direction.
She had accused him yesterday of spreading lies about her, had assumed that Dermott’s renewed interest could have only been influenced by David’s bold exaggerations. But now that she realized Penelope had been working toward a similar cause, and indeed, that the town’s residents were so susceptible to influence, she had to wonder if she had been a bit harsh in her judgment of David.
Not that it mattered. She had set a torch to that bridge, and there was no going back.
“I am sorry about your beach, Caroline. I . . . d-didn’t think of what the article might mean for you.” Penelope sighed. “I’ve been frightfully selfish, haven’t I?”
Caroline’s throat closed on a spasm. “It is all right, Pen. Someone was bound to discover it eventually.” Through the lingering haze of anger, she could reluctantly acknowledge that her sister’s betrayal was not the end of all future happiness. After all, swimming was not the only thing that defined her. This summer had shown her she was more than a girl who was as comfortable in the water as she was on land, more than the girl who invited ridicule and speculation among Brighton’s summer visitors. She was passionate and desirable and increasingly comfortable in her own skin.
David had helped her see that, even if he seemed unable to realize it himself.
“Well, you are the one who t-told me it was a nice swimming b-beach,” Pen added, picking up her toast. “I had no idea that you have been sneaking away to swim in such a d-dangerous place.”
A fresh wail escaped their mother. “You’ve been sneaking away to swim, Caroline? And Penelope is working for the Gazette?” Her lips trembled. “Sometimes, I think you are trying to thwart my efforts to fulfill the promise I made your father.”
Caroline and Penelope swiveled their heads toward their mother in perfect, shocked unison. “What?”
Their mother mopped a sheen of moisture from beneath one eye with a long, aristocratic finger. “I’ve done what I felt he wanted. I have tried to guide you as proper ladies. But look how it’s all turned out. You are in the paper, Caroline. Not just the social section, which I am pained to admit might have worked, but splashed across the front page headlines. And Penelope”—she gasped, waving her hand in the direction of her fairer daughter—“is the one who put the evidence of your impropriety there, for all of Brighton to see!”
“The child I saved is fine,” Caroline said dryly.
“I know the child is fine,” Mama snapped. “I read Penelope’s article.” Her breath hitched downward on the last syllable, as if the mere act of admitting that news item had come from her daughter’s hand was a secret to be stashed away.
“You speak of propriety as if it is something I have squandered. As if I chose to behave poorly. Would you have preferred I let an innocent young boy drown then?”
“No,” their mother said, shaking her head. “Of course not. Saving a life was the Christian thing to do. But can you not understand why I am upset? It isn’t just the matter that you swam yesterday, in front of half of Brighton. It is that you have been swimming, all these years, and hiding it from me. And Penelope, with her secrets, is no better!” She lifted a shaking hand to her temple. “Your father would turn over in his grave if he realized the true extent of my failure to fulfill the promise I made him, of that I have no doubt.”
Caroline gritted her teeth. “What did Papa ask of you, precisely?”
“He asked me to take care of you, that awful day when he lay dying.” Their mother slumped back and gave a shuddering sigh. “Terrible, dear man that he was.”
Pen’s chair scraped against the floor boards. “B-b-but . . . I promised Papa I would take care of you b-both.”
“That can’t be right, dear.” Mama shook her head. “You were scarcely more than a child.”
“He asked it of me, nonetheless. And once you t-told us about the state of our finances, I knew I had to do something. I met Mr. Hamilton, and he mentioned the opening at the paper. I thought it would provide us with some small amount of income. I was happy to finally have a way to help, and fulfill Papa’s dr-dr-dream.” She paused, and then added with a touch of guilt, “As well as fulfill my own dream, of c-course. I have wanted to write for the Gazette since I was a little g-girl. Papa always told me I could do anything I set my mind to.”
Caroline leaned back in her chair, stunned. She had spent over a decade feeling as if she was the only one who could make things right. And yet, her father had not singled her out to bear up his burdens. He had ensured that each of them looked out for the other.
“He extracted the same assurance from me, as well,” she said, her mind racing. “I thought by marrying well, I would be fulfilling the promise I made him.”
Her mother raised a hand to her throat. “That is why you have been so keen on marrying one of these young men?”
Caroline nodded. A dull throbbing had taken up behind her eyelids, whether due to the revelations of the morning or her own regrets, she could not be sure. “And . . . and there’s more. I accepted Mr. Dermott’s proposal yesterday.”
“B-but why?” Pen demanded. “You d-don’t love him.”
“I accepted him because I cannot see an alternative.” Although that wasn’t precisely true. She hadn’t needed to make such a rash decision. She could have muddled over her choice for days. Her pride, however, and David’s rejection, had hurried her along to a rash decision.
Pen regarded her with solemn blue eyes. “What about your feelings for Mr. C-Cameron?”
“He doesn’t want me.” Saying it out loud made it somehow more tangible, and that made it more painful. She knotted her fingers in her lap. “So it’s to be Dermott or no one.”
“Then choose no one,” Pen demanded. “You don’t need to marry. I have a job now. We d-don’t need you to provide for us.”
Caroline sighed. She had spent the last few days mired in the certainty that she needed to make this sacrifice for her family’s financial security. The realization that she didn’t was hard to accept. “Money is not the only reason I wanted to marry,” she admitted, realizing for the first time that it was true. “I would like a husband, and children.” Indeed, the problem wasn’t that she didn’t want to be married.
It was that she wanted to marry a specific man, a man who made her feel cherished, a man who made her forget how to dance.
But that man had not asked her.
“There will be repercussions if I break off the betrothal now. I told Mr. Duffington and Mr. Branson about my decision yesterday, and they will have told others.” She shook her head, facing the impossible and realizing she might be too much of a coward to tempt fate. “If I call it off, I am quite sure I would never receive an offer again.”
Mama leaned forward, palms spread wide on the table. “There are worse things than being a spinster, Caroline Rebecca Tolbertson. And marrying the wrong man is one of them.”
“You mean, the way you married Papa?” Caroline said, her throat closing around the question. “Do you regret us so very much?”
Her mother bristled beneath her black bombazine. “What kind of poppycock is that? I made the right choice in your father, and I have never regretted it.” Her eyes narrowed across the space of the table. “I think I need to come to the race today.”
Caroline gaped at her mother. “You . . . you would come?” She mentally tried to ascertain the last time her mother had willingly left the house. Came up alarmingly blank.
“I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting this Mr. Cameron that Penelope speaks of, and I would like to judge for myself if you are making a mistake in marrying Mr. Dermott. We didn’t have much, your father and I, but we did have love and respect. And that is the one thing I know he would wish for you.”
CREAK’S BATHHOUSE WAS closed for the day, due to its role in organizing the annual swimming competition, and so David had no easy alternative to his mother’s suggestion that she might like to watch the race.
Summer Is for Lovers Page 28
