Chapter 23 #2
Dorothea nodded against her shoulder, her tiny body shaking.
Catriona braced herself for the onslaught of the current once more.
It would be harder trying to cross back to where Nina stood on the bank, barking as if her life depended on it, but she focused on her cocker spaniel, using every bit of her strength to keep her legs from being swept away.
Soon enough, the bank was within reach, but the moment she touched it, fingernails digging into the wet soil, her legs gave way.
“Climb off me!” Catriona barked, and Dorothea scrambled into action. She swung her leg over, quickly getting to the safety of land. Catriona let out a breath of relief, both because Dorothea was safely out of the water and because she no longer had that added weight hindering her progress.
But that shoddy grip on the soil broke away. Her legs, spent from their fight against the raging current, could no longer hold her upright no matter how hard she tried. One moment, she was guiding Dorothea onto land, and the next she was being taken away.
Dorothea’s scream and Nina’s barking were the last thing she heard before she went under. The river was unforgiving, not giving her the chance to catch her footing. She just barely managed to raise her head above water to catch her breath before she was swept under again.
She fought with all her might, but a traitorous thought crossed her mind anyway.
She might die here.
It was quite unfair, she thought as she grappled to regain control. She grabbed onto a rock, but her arms were so spent that she couldn’t keep her hold on it, and she was gone again.
Joseph had nearly watched his first wife drown. Perhaps it was a good thing that he would not be there to see the second.
As if she had conjured him from her memory, she saw him.
It was only a flash, surely a figment of her imagination before water clogged her throat, and she went under again.
She never got the chance to see if he had truly been there because she smashed her head against a rock underwater, and then there was nothing but blackness.
But she was glad that, even for a moment, she saw his face one last time.
Her throat burned.
Catriona’s hand twitched first, and then she reached up to touch her sore throat, groaning. Was she getting ill? Now wasn’t the time for that. She had enough happening emotionally, and the last thing she wanted was to deal with fighting a cold as well.
“Catriona.”
She turned away from the voice, so exhausted that she didn’t bother opening her eyes. She simply wanted to sleep. It felt as if she’d been trampled by horses, her body aching all over.
A hand touched her shoulder. “Catriona, open your eyes.”
The voice sounded familiar, eliciting a quickening of her heartbeat. Catriona nearly turned to face it, wanting to know who had the gall to try and wake her when she was clearly under the weather, but she simply grumbled, “Leave me to sleep.”
A chuckle sounded behind her. “While I would love for you to get more rest, it is time for you to wake up.”
Slowly, she opened her eyes. Memories flooded her at once, realization gripping her insides. She was in a bedchamber, her bedchamber. The one she had been returning to at Irvin Manor before—
She sat upright with a gasp. “Dorothea!”
“She’s fine.”
Catriona looked to the left of her. Joseph sat by her bedside looking haggard, his hair an unruly mop atop his head. He looked equal parts relieved and exhausted. “You don’t know how happy I am to see that you’re all right. I thought…” He swallowed. “I thought I had lost you.”
Those words, spoken with such fear, unraveled everything in her. Catriona relaxed against the bed frame, tempted to reach out to him, tempted to touch his cheek and tell him that she was going nowhere. She kept her hand by her side.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I pulled you out of the water.”
“What?” She straightened at that. “How?”
“The only way I knew how to. By jumping in myself.”
“You could have gotten caught in the current!”
“So could you, but that didn’t stop you from getting in to get Dorothea to safety.”
She couldn’t argue with that. “How did you know I was in danger anyway?”
“I heard Dorothea’s screams and Nina’s barking. I think all of Mayfair heard. I arrived to find her standing helplessly at the side of the river, and she told me that you had gone in to save her, only to need saving yourself.”
“The current was rather strong,” she murmured in her defense.
Joseph smiled. The sight made her heart skip a beat, even though it was tinged with tiredness. “It was. You could have… if I had been a second too late, you would have…”
This time, she didn’t stop herself. She reached out to take his hand. “But I didn’t. And that’s the only thing we need to focus on.”
He curled his fingers over hers, nodding. Then he nodded again as if to convince himself. To her surprise, and inner delight, he brought her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it.
“Almost losing you tonight has put a lot of things in perspective,” he murmured.
Her heart thundered in her throat. She wanted to probe but she couldn’t quite the words out. Thankfully, it seemed Joseph wasn’t quite finished talking.
“I have been living my life in such fear, keeping everyone at arm’s length, not allowing myself to truly care for someone else. I didn’t want to lose anyone else, and I thought keeping love out of it might protect everyone involved. I was a fool.”
“You’ll hear no arguments from me,” she murmured, hoping to make him smile again.
He did, but it was fleeting. “I had intended to go to Heaton Manor to ask you to come back, but I could have lost you tonight. I would not have gotten the chance to tell you all the things I wanted to say.”
“Before you do, Joseph, there is something I want to say—”
“No please, allow me. I hate myself for not realizing it sooner, and I would hate myself more if I wasted another second of time we could be spending together.” He kissed the back of her hand. “I love you, Catriona.”
She stilled. She'd intended to tell him that she was sorry for breaking the one rule they’d agreed on, for letting her heart win. She was willing to pretend so long as she got a bit of time and space to get over her feelings.
But he… loved her?
“I’ve loved you for some time now,” he went on. “But I was a fool and a coward. I was afraid of how much it would hurt to lose someone I love, when it had been unbearable losing someone I didn’t. I ran from it because of it. And I chased you away. It is my biggest regret.”
“Joseph…”
He kissed the back of her hand over and over again as if he was finally letting loose the urges that had been building up in him. “I love you, Catriona. I love you today, I’ll love you tomorrow and for every day to come.”
“Joseph, I…” Tears pricked her eyes again. “I love you too. I’ll love you with all my heart and all my soul for every day to come.”
He launched himself at her, capturing her lips with a desperation that she felt deep within her bones. Catriona kissed him back with as much urgency, as if it would be enough to make up for lost time. But they had a lifetime together now. A lifetime of happiness.
They were interrupted, however, by a tentative knock on the door. Catriona pulled away first, albeit reluctantly.
“That’s probably Dorothea,” she whispered.
Joseph nodded. When he returned to his seat, his eyes shone with the love he had declared, warming her. “Come in,” he called.
Dorothea entered with her head bowed and her hands clasped behind her, Nina on her heels. She barely peeked up at Catriona before she lowered her eyes to the floor again. “I’m sorry,” she murmured in a meek voice.
“I’m just happy you’re safe and all right,” Catriona assured her. “But what possessed you to do such an unsafe thing?”
“I was coming to get you. I wanted to you to come back home. I didn’t think Daddy was going to do it.”
Catriona looked at Joseph just in time to see alarm cross his face. “I promised you that I would bring her back, didn’t I?”
“I know…” Dorothea rubbed her toe into the floor. “But I wasn’t sure.”
Joseph threw his hands up in defeat. “She has no faith in me.”
Catriona laughed then gestured to Dorothea. “Come here, love.”
Dorothea, with her head still bowed, climbed onto the bed and into Catriona’s waiting arms. She gathered Dorothea close to her. “What you did was incredibly reckless and unsafe. You should never leave your bedchamber so late at night, nor should you be by the river unsupervised.”
“I know,” Dorothea murmured contritely. “I didn’t mean to fall in! I was just… walking along the side of it, and my foot slipped.”
“Now you know better,” Catriona said firmly. “But you don’t need to worry. You’re safe. I’m safe. And neither of us are any worse for wear, right?”
“That’s right.” Dorothea slowly lifted her head to look up at Catriona. “Will you go back to Heaton Manor tomorrow?”
Catriona put her hand against her cheek. “Why would I do that? This is my home, isn’t it?”
“But Daddy said—”
“Daddy was a fool,” Joseph chimed in. “But he has since learned the error of his ways.”
That made Catriona smile. “You don’t have to worry about me leaving, my dear. Not ever again.”
Dorothea stared at her for a moment longer, and then her bottom lip began to wobble. The next moment, she was burying her face into Catriona’s chest as she cried.
“Tears of joy, I presume,” Catriona said with a chuckle, stroking the back of her head.
“She isn’t the only one who is overcome with emotion,” Joseph said. He stood, and to her surprise, he made his way to the other side of the bed and got in. Her heart soared with happiness when he gathered Catriona into her arms, resting his chin on top of her head.
“At last,” he said, “my family is complete.”
“At last,” Catriona agreed. And she knew that that perfect moment would be ingrained in her mind for the years to come. The day she nearly drowned and got everything she never knew she wanted. Love and a family of her own. She was the most fortunate woman in the world.