Chapter 15 #2
“I will have a lung fever soon,” Annette went on. “See if I don’t. Jordy should have looked to see that the plug thing was where it was supposed to be.”
Having flung that accusation for the third time, Annette gathered her damp blanket around her shoulders more closely.
“Lower your voice,” Coraline snapped before Sorcha could put the matter more bluntly. Across the parlor, Bernard perched on a window seat, Jordy in his lap. Sorcha’s son was swaddled in Bernard’s jacket. Richard stood at the door, perhaps blocking any attempt by Annette to flee in hysterics.
“Annette, why did you insist on putting Jordy into that boat?” Sorcha asked.
“Because I’d look pathetic rowing about all on my own. If I was seen to give my younger cousin an outing, I would appear gracious and like a good sport. Mama, I’m cold. I want Papa.”
And to think Sorcha had been married when she’d been nearly as young as Annette. “Jordy did not want to sail with you, Annette. You disregarded his wishes, put him in harm’s way, and terrified me and Bridget.”
The duchess had collected Bridget and involved her in a game of pall-mall. Bridget had been last seen smacking the devil out of her ball and to blazes with wickets and courses.
“You frightened me as well,” Bernard said, managing to make the admission sound dignified, though he was barefoot, disheveled, and wearing somebody’s pink shawl.
“Make it unanimous,” Richard added. He’d found a dry jacket somewhere, but that only made his appearance more bedraggled. “Nettie, word of your foolishness will spread all over Town, and you will have a reputation as a hoyden before you’ve attended your first ball.”
Coraline rounded on him. “Hardly fair, Richard. Nettie merely got a soaking because the boats were not adequately maintained. You, by contrast, set out to drag the family name through the mud and nearly succeeded.”
“Old business, Coraline.” Bernard sounded quite stern. “Annette ignored Jordy’s protests, and he deserves an apology for that disrespect.”
“I did not want to look foolish,” Annette said again, though she was finally modulating her volume. “I wanted to appear good-hearted. When did that become a crime? I am good-hearted, most of the time. A normal boy would have appreciated a little outing on the lake.”
“I am normal.” Jordy, too, managed a certain dignity despite his hair sticking up and his bare toes peeking from the bottom of Bernard’s coat. “You want to look gracious, Nettie, but you aren’t gracious, and that makes you a liar. You are scared nobody will marry you and you will be an old maid.”
Coraline drew herself up as if preparing for a peroration on rude little boys and respect and all manner of righteous irrelevancies.
“Annette owes Jordy an apology,” Sorcha said.
“If the boats were not properly maintained, that is a matter for His Grace to address, and we won’t resolve it in this room.
For my part, Annette, you are never, ever to impose your will or judgment on my children again.
A choice of sweet, which card to play, or whether to participate in a game is their decision, not yours. Are we clear?”
Coraline might not care for that scold, but she held her peace.
“Yes, Auntie. I never want to see Jordy again.”
Bernard shook his head when Jordy doubtless would have concurred.
“Apologize to Jordy,” Sorcha said, “and we can be about finding everybody dry clothes.”
“And do it properly,” Bernard added. “None of this ‘I’m sorry you ended up in the boat which I happened to dragoon you into bodily against your wishes in front of half the shire, and I’m sorry you got a soaking when my own soaking was so much more mortifying.’”
Annette addressed the parquet floor. “I am sorry I took you along, Jordy. You did not want to come with me, and I should not have insisted. Mama, I am exhausted by my ordeal. Might I retire for a nap?”
Coraline ushered her unrepentant chick from the room, doubtless to harangue Annette at length, all the while blaming Jordy, Richard, or even the duke for Annette’s dunking.
“Tiresome girl,” Richard said. “I’m off to change. Bernard, I have sufficient extra wardrobe that I can kit you out. We appear to be of a size, oddly enough. Come by my room when you have located your boots. I can escort Jordy to the nursery too.”
Sorcha did not want to let her son out of her sight, but Jordy would resent her for hovering, and Richard was a favorite with Jordy.
“Off you go, Jordy. Gilchrist will order a hot bath, and you will not grumble about it. She’ll also order you a posset, which you must at least attempt to sip.”
Gilchrist would ensure the posset did not go to waste.
“Yes, Mama. I never want to go boating again, and especially not with her.”
Bernard set the boy on his feet, then knelt to face him.
“Annette was just as frightened as you were, Jordy. She’s wearing yards of skirts and petticoats that got sopping wet and dangerously heavy.
She can’t maneuver all that freely in her fashionable attire even when it’s dry.
She’s also not very tall, and despite being close to the dock, the water was nearly over her head.
Had Richard not come to her rescue, she could have suffered a very unfortunate fate indeed. ”
“She still shouldn’t have put me in the boat. She grabbed me around the waist, and I wanted to punch her, but I’m not allowed to punch girls, and I can punch boys only if they hit me first.”
Bernard smoothed a hand over Jordy’s cowlick. “Instead of all this punching—about which you are quite correct—why not focus on learning to swim? I will happily teach you when the weather is warmer, and we can start in shallow water. Shallow enough that you can stand up in it.”
“Will you teach Bridget too?”
“That is for your mother and Bridget to decide, but let us agree that your swimming lessons will begin as private instruction. I can also teach you to float and to tread water.”
“Will we have to swim in the Thames?”
What had prompted that question?
“We will not. The water is foul, to put it delicately. For now, consider the offer, enjoy your bath, and gather your thoughts. Gilchrist will want to hear your firsthand account of this adventure on the high seas.”
Richard held out a hand. “Let’s have a word with Cook before we head upstairs, shall we? A biscuit or two might restore this able seaman’s humors.”
They tramped off together, both barefoot and damp, prepared to forage in the fashion of intrepid explorers the world over.
Bernard closed the parlor door. “I want to hug you, but I am sodden. Consider yourself well hugged.”
“The same to you.” Sorcha took a second, dry window seat, and Bernard joined her. They weren’t quite touching, and he smelled of wet linen and lake. Still, his presence comforted.
“I could spank Annette,” Sorcha went on, “but I also understand how awkward this year is for her. She should be at a finishing school, where she’d at least make friends with her peers. Being in the schoolroom one day and attending at homes the next is confusing.”
“But,” Bernard said, “if Annette is sent off to Switzerland or Shropshire, or wherever fashionable girls go, then the other three would expect the same sort of launch, and I doubt Tallister can afford that.”
Sorcha dearly, dearly wished she could lay her head on Bernard’s shoulder. “You will teach Bridget to swim, please. I know how, thanks to a hot spring on my uncle’s estate, and some older cousins. When Jordy went under…”
Only the duchess physically holding Sorcha back had stopped her from leaping into the water, skirts and all.
“Jordy wasn’t in much danger, Sorcha. He was within a dozen yards of the dock. If I hadn’t reached him, somebody else would have. The water was shallow enough that swimming didn’t have to come into it.”
“You are admitting that this is a plain-and-simple accident?” Sorcha’s relief was inordinate. Given how Bernard had reacted to routine bellyaches and a game of hide-and-seek gone awry, he was being blessedly reasonable.
“I don’t know if Jordy suffered an accident, a mishap, or mischief, but Coraline and Tallister would be loath to jeopardize Annette’s reputation by presenting her with an opportunity for public histrionics.
Jordy was in that boat solely because Eglantine refused to join her sister at the last moment, and nobody could have foreseen Annette’s behavior thereafter. ”
“I missed that part. You are applying logic and reason. Good of you. I just want to hug my little boy and wrap him up in cotton wool.” Or to take him on an extended outing to Scotland, but Sorcha could hardly say that. Not to Bernard. “I’d best rescue the duchess from Bridget’s dubious company.”
“Bridget needs to see Jordy back on his mettle,” Bernard said. “I should change into dry attire, or I will be a present-day scandal.”
“Thank you. Your vigilance did not lapse, while I grew distracted. I am endlessly grateful that you were there and thinking quickly.”
“As am I. I like Richard, by the way, and he likes you.”
“Good. He’s matured into a thoroughly estimable gentleman. Siblings should be friends, if at all possible.”
Bernard rose and held out a hand. Sorcha took it and was glad for the assistance. She hugged Bernard briefly, despite sodden clothing and lake stink.
“Come to me tonight?” she asked.
He stepped back, his smile sweet and naughty. “If I must climb drainpipes or creep down a chimney to do it, flying dragons will not keep me away.”
They parted at the panel that opened on the footmen’s stairs, Bernard being in serious deshabille.
Sorcha went to relieve the duchess, troubled by the day’s events, but also comforted by Bernard’s assessment of them.
He was protective of the children—not a bad thing—and when rested and fed, he was also reasonable.
For her part, Sorcha was positively delighted with the thought of Bernard’s company in the still watches of the night.