"DEAR LORD! HE'S GONE into the water!"
Katherine Adair — Kat to her friends and beloved family —
gasped and leapt to her feet.Just seconds before,she'd
been sitting on the deck of her father's vessel — sadly
misnamed The Promise — reading and indulging in dreams.The
day had been like many other Sundays she had spent
throughout the years with her small family aboard the boat
on the Thames. Often, as they'd watched the elite in their
far more magical vessels, she had smiled as her sister,
Eliza, mimicked the upper-crust accents, then joined her
in singing old sea chanties — all the while looking to see
if their father was about before adding a few of the more
risqué lyrics.
But there were times, of course, when she did nothing but
indulge in dreaming...about the very fellow whom a wave
had just swept from the deck of the far finer leisure
yacht The Inner Sanctum!
David. David Turnberry, youngest son of Baron Rothchild
Turnberry, brilliant student at Oxford and avid sailor and
adventurer. "Kat! Do sit down! You'll rock this old scow
and we'll be in the drink, too," Eliza chastised."Don't
worry. One of those Oxford chaps will dish him out!" she
said with a sniff.
But none of them did. The river was wicked that day — fine
for Kat's father, who used the turbulence in his work —
but a poor time for entertainment. The young swains who
had accompanied David on the sail were clinging to the
rigging, looking into the water, shouting...but not
jumping in and attempting a rescue! She recognized one —
Robert Stewart, handsome, landed and charming, as well,
David's best friend.Why wasn't he in the water? And there
was another of his chums...she couldn't remember his
name...Allan... something...
Oh, the fools! They hadn't even thrown in a life
preserver, and David was so far from her own vessel that
any attempt on her part to do so would be useless.
They shouldn't have been out on a day like today. They
imagined themselves to be such sailors, and they were
still so young, so raw.The river was far too rough, only
for fishermen and fools.And, she thought ruefully, her
father.
But now they'd lost David! And still, there was no one
aboard heroic enough to dive in for the dear man's
salvation.
Indeed, the waves were high, and she could understand
their trepidation. But her heart cried otherwise. He was
beautiful, magnificent. No fellow in all of England or
surely even beyond had such a smile. Nor had she ever
heard a fellow of his social position speak so kindly to
those who were hard put to earn their meager living from
the sea. She had watched him so often.
"They're not going for him!" she cried.
"They will."
"But he will drown!" Kat looked around quickly. Her father
had brought in their own sails; the scow was merely riding
the waves now.
In fact, her dear father was not working or paying the
least attention to her. Lady Daws had come with them
today; and she was laughing — the sound something like
that of a sea-witch cackling, Kat thought sadly, something
her father simply didn't hear — and that completely
enraptured the hardworking man upon whom she had set her
sights.
Kat looked back anxiously at the river. Maybe what had
seemed like an eternity to her had been nothing more than
a few seconds.Maybe the fellows had needed a moment to
draw on their reserves of courage. But no...time ticked
away, and none of those young swains aboard the richer
vessel had made the slightest attempt to effect a rescue.
"Kat! Don't look so perplexed. Come, come...he can
probably swim.The beaches are still all the rage with his
crowd,even though the poor can now reach our beaches by
train.Of course, the elite, they say, prefer to frolic in
the Mediterranean."
Though Eliza spoke of the rich with disdain, in these
moments with the sailing almost done for the day and the
afternoon near its end,she always had her nose thrust into
the pages of Godey's Lady's Book. She did love her
fashion.And she could sew delightfully, creating fantastic
designs from such bizarre materials as cast-off sails and
canvas.
Kat paid her sister little attention.Her heart seemed to
have lodged in her throat. She couldn't even see the young
man's head bobbing in the waves.
Ah, there! And far from his own sleek vessel. "The sea is
too rough!"she exclaimed in a whisper."He will die!"
"There is nothing you can do.You'll but kill yourself,"
Eliza warned fiercely.
"Ah, but I would die for him. I would sell my very soul
for him!" Kat returned.
"Kat, what...?" Eliza began in horror.
Too late.
Being poor sometimes had its advantages. Kat shed her
heavy, solid and sensible shoes and slid her cotton skirt
down her hips to the floorboards. In seconds, she had also
shed her secondhand jacket. She had no corset, no
bustle,no darling little hat to discard, and so, despite
her sister's protests, she leapt into the filthy water in
her shift.
The chill hit her viciously.
And the waves were mercilessly rough.
But she had spent her life nearly as one with the sea. So
she took a big lungful of air, plunged beneath the surface
and swam hard.
She bobbed up first near the sleek yacht. She could hear
the fellows on deck shouting, their voices sounding
desperate.
"Can you see him?"
"His head... He's down again. Oh, God! He's going to
drown... Bring her around,bring her around,we've got to
find David!"
"I can't see him anymore!"
Kat took another deep breath and plunged beneath the
surface again.She kept her eyes open,straining to see
through the murky depths.And there...
There she saw him.To the right and a few feet below her.
Dead?
Oh, Lord, no! She prayed as fervently as she sought to
reach the man. David. David the beautiful, the
magnificent. Eyes closed...body sinking...
She grasped him,as her father had taught her to grasp a
fisherman fallen overboard, catching him beneath the chin
with the palm of her hand,allowing her to draw his head to
the surface, while leaving her torso, legs and the solid
strength of one arm to draw him toward shore.
Ah! The distance.
She could not make it!
But it seemed that both the luxury yacht and her father's
fishing vessel were ever farther out to sea.What other
vessels were at sail or anchored seemed at even greater
distances. She had to make the shore.
She kicked, trying to stay calm, to remember that she
mustn't lose her strength by using it to fight the rough
water — that she must go with it, let the tempest take her
until it drove her toward the shore.
She tried hard to keep David's head above the water, tried
harder to keep breathing and moving herself against the
waves, white-tipped, gray and brown, like living,
breathing, beings anxious to suck her into their depths.
How slender the river could seem at times, but...how great
its span!
And yet,chilled and desperate as she was,it occurred to
her... He was in her arms. Oh, God! He could die in her
arms. As she would gladly die in his.
"GOOD LORD! WILL YOU LOOK at those young fools!" Hunter
MacDonald stared at the young swains who raced around
their yacht like simpletons.They'd lost one of their
number,yet none was doing a damn thing about it.
He cursed them roundly, then called out to Ethan Grayson —
his mate at sea, manservant and his friend. "Bring her in!
I'm going for the boy."
"Sir Hunter!" Ethan, weathered and strong and far too
sensible a fellow not to have risen far, protested
strongly."You'll but go down yourself!"
"No, Ethan, I'll not." Hastily removing shoes, jacket and
trousers, he offered Ethan a grimace."My good man, I've
escaped crocodiles in the Nile. I shall be fine in this
bit of English weather."
And so, stripped down to his drawers and shirt, he dove
neatly overboard in the direction where he had last espied
the young fellow's bobbing head. As he did, he could hear
Ethan scolding him angrily:"Being a 'sir'does not give a
fellow common sense, no, it does not! He survives famine,
war and the evil in the hearts of men, but then drowns
himself like the young idiot he would save!"
Too late! thought Hunter.The Thames closed around him as
he cut through the waves, swimming with strong exertion to
bring the heat of movement to his person.
The water was bitterly cold.
It had been easier to swim in the Nile with crocodiles, he
ruefully admitted to himself.
AT LAST!KAT AND HER BURDEN had nearly reached the
embankment.
She was far from the docks, closer to Richmond now than
the City of London.A mist of rain was falling as she
struggled through the remaining few yards of water,
hitting mud beneath her feet at last,mud and God knew what
else,some broken crockery that cut into her sole. She
barely felt it, however, for she had him to land at last.
Exhausted, near crawling at the end, she dragged David's
dead weight up onto muddy sod and scraggly grasses,but not
far from the road;homes and businesses and even ships at
dock were visible nearby.She fell to his side at
first,breathing,ah,doing nothing at all but breathing!Then
as her lungs filled, she looked at his face and was roused
to fear.She jerked up,then leaned on his
chest,hard,pushing,determined to expel the water from his
lungs.He choked,and water dribbled from his blue lips.
Then he coughed and coughed...
And finally fell silent, other than the slow rasp of his
breath. She stared down at him, shaking. He lived. "Thank
you, God!"she whispered fervently.And then,seeing his long
lashes sweeping the contours of his noble face, she
added,"You are so beautiful!"
His amber eyes opened. He stared up at her.
And she was horrified,for she was far from looking her
best. Her hair was, as a rule, rich and long, if a bit
glaringly red, but now it hung in sodden ropes. Her eyes —
normally the oddest shade of green and hazel, sometimes
almost the color of grass and at others almost gold — must
be quite pinkened. And her lips were surely as blue as
his. Her linen shift clung wetly to her body, and she was
shaking uncontrollably.That he should see her so, when she
still lived in a world of dreams, when society did not
allow for the daughter of a humble, struggling artist, an
Irish one at that, to so much as dare imagine a life among
the elite, was the worst thing she could have imagined.
His hand moved. Fingers touched her face. For a moment,
his own was dark and troubled, as if he sought an answer
as to where he was, and why. "We were with the wind,
listen-ing...laughing...for there were songs on the air,
as if the Sirens called to us, and then...pushed!" he
murmured."By God, I swear I was pushed! Why..."
Then his eyes focused on her. And a smile flitted over his
lips."Yes, yes, I felt hands against my back,
pushing...but who the devil...and then...the cold...and
the darkness.Then...you! Am I seeing things? You're an
angel!" he whispered. "A sea angel...an angel, and I love
you!" Then he laughed. "No! A mermaid, and thus I am
alive!"
His fingers — on her face!
And the words he had said!
Ah, she could have died then and drifted to heaven in pure
bliss.
His eyes closed. Panic seized her. But she could see him
breathing, his chest rising and falling, and she could
feel his warmth.
Voices suddenly sounded.Looking up,she saw a group coming
from the gravel road that led down to the embankment.She
jumped to her feet, aware of her near-naked state, her
shift plastered to her body,providing not the least bit of
modesty.And she was very chilled,of course,making that
immodesty all the more apparent. She wrapped bare arms
around herself.
"Oh, they're searching for him...but I saw...something!"
The voice was feminine, sweet and touched with the sound
of a sob.