Chapter 18 #2
In a flash of anger and resentment, she reached over and grabbed for him, any part of him she could grasp. Her grip finally latched onto his ankle, and she pulled with all her might.
Too late, her mindless fury cleared as an arm as strong as steel wrapped around her waist and tumbled her over in the water.
Grappling back up, she wrapped her hands around his head, fingers clumsily over his eye, and leaned sideways, taking him down with her.
This time he had her foot and held it aloft as she slipped under, and her only recourse was to attach herself to his back like a barnacle and clamber up, forcing him down.
He attempted to roll from under her weight, but she held on, and they both came up laughing, as she was practically on his shoulders.
He stood, staggering, as they were now in the shallower end, and she shrieked as he heaved her off and into the water.
As she came up blinking, she saw him fill his lungs, eyes wide, and slip swiftly under the water.
Before she could retaliate, the door to the pool house banged open and a maid entered with a short stack of towels.
Violet’s heart stuttered, eyes going to where Cyril remained submerged. The maid paused, seeing the stack of towels already on the bench.
Violet strode against the force of the water, and before the maid could turn, she reached Cyril and stood on his stomach, keeping him down. She’d never before stood on a man’s stomach, shod or with bare feet. The sensation was … novel.
“Mrs. Cole sent me with towels, but I see you already have a set.” Fortunately, the maid spoke more to the towels than to her.
“Yes, I brought some, just in case.”
The maid lifted her gaze as Violet nearly lost her balance and Cyril’s hands wrapped around her ankles. She splashed lightly, as if she were delighted that water was water.
“May I get you anything else, ma’am?”
“Oh no, I’ll be getting out shortly.”
The maid nodded with a bob and turned just as Cyril’s fingers wrapped around her foot and squeezed. A hyphenated squeal escaped her, and the maid turned back at the sound.
“The floor of the pool,” Violet said, regaining her balance. “Slippery.”
The maid nodded hesitantly, then nipped out the door.
Violet stepped off Cyril’s stomach and nudged him with her foot.
He burst upward, filling his lungs.
“What did you mean, tickling me like that?” she whisper-yelled at him. “We could’ve been seen together!”
He ran a hand over his face, shaking his head. “I needed you to hurry. A person needs air.”
“I thought you practiced holding your breath for self-control and endurance.”
“Yes, well somebody was standing on my self-control and endurance.”
She stepped to him and poked him in the chest, forgetting that he wore no shirt. Distracted for the slightest moment, she blinked and refocused. “Do you know what would’ve happened if she’d realized I was hiding you under the water?”
“She would’ve rung for the constable, and you would be charged with attempted murder.”
She scowled. “This is not funny.”
He stepped even closer, his gaze solemn. Then he lifted his hand and pushed her shoulder.
She gasped as she lost her balance. Then she squared herself and shoved both his shoulders. His bronzed, lean, muscular shoulders. He teetered back, a smile at the corner of his mouth.
He crouched and surged. Violet leaned back and kicked and splashed to evade him, laughing uselessly, but his arms came around her, pinning her limbs, then they were both pushing up through the air and coming down sideways onto the water with a great splash.
They resurfaced, chuckling, sputtering, and then stilling. Cyril still held Violet, but her hands were on his chest, and their noses nearly touched. They stayed like that for what seemed like ages, catching their breath, not meeting each other’s gaze but certainly focused.
For Violet, the room seemed to sway, tilting her toward him.
“You should leave first,” he said. Then he cleared his throat and let her go.
Violet felt as if she were a jellyfish just released into the water. Her limbs didn’t seem to want any direction after being held by Cyril Burke.
“Who knows you’re here?” he asked.
She blinked and gave her head a little shake. “Um.” She swallowed. “Mrs. Cole. And Mrs. Penhurst. And a maid, it would seem.”
He shook his head. “No one knows I’m here. You leave first. It makes more sense that I would come on my own for a late swim if I’m spied leaving later.”
She leaned into the water toward the pool’s steps. “Later? How long will you stay?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Long enough to avoid any speculation.”
She nodded and turned, taking a step out of the water. Then she paused, glancing behind her. He had turned so as not to watch her exit. “May I use one of your towels?” It seemed a personal thing to ask.
“Yes, of course. And, Violet?”
She turned back, her heart jumping at his use of her name. “Yes?”
“You’ve become an excellent swimmer.”
She smiled, though he couldn’t see it. “You noticed?”
He chuckled. She continued to her things and quickly toweled off with shaky hands. She donned her robe and slippers and tiptoed to the door.
“Violet.”
She paused.
He was watching her, arms folded on the edge of the pool, his dark lashes in gorgeous wet clumps.
She swallowed. “C-Cyril?” Dash it, her voice was too trembly. Likely because she hadn’t spoken his name aloud in a decade.
“That was fun,” he said, his voice deep.
“Yes,” she said softly. “Yes, it was.”
“Violet?”
“Yes?”
“You still cheat.” Then he pushed off into a languid sidestroke, a smile on his lips.
The urge to argue her case rose to her lips and died there as well. Those strong arms gliding through the pool water now had just been wrapped around her.
Her. Violet Grace Whittemore.
The odd one.
She hurried out into the lush afternoon, biting back her own smile.
Y
15 and 19
“I am entirely jealous, Cyril Burke. I am green from head to toe. Whatever Shakespearian reference you can make to describe jealousy, I will own that it fits my person. Call me Cain. Call me Heathcliff. Call me Hera. Call me—”
“I think I understand the depth of your feeling.” Cyril shifted his feet in the meadow grass.
Violet threw her hands up in the air. “How could you? You are a boy.”
Cyril cleared his throat. “Um, man. I’m a man.”
“Boy, man, what is the difference?”
“Er—”
“Either way, it means you get to go to university, and I get to stay here, stifled and … and … tethered! Like the espaliered trees against Kinthwaite’s walls.
Have you seen them?” She gestured toward the southern wall of the vast estate behind them, where young pear trees had been pruned and shaped and pinned flat against the stone in elegant symmetry.
Cyril had to admit, the comparison was fitting. He would not mention how the practice made the trees more productive and easier to care for. He did not want his head to come off.
He turned to her earnestly. “Believe me when I say, I wish you could go to university. I do.”
He watched her cross her arms and turn away from Kinthwaite, glaring across the meadow and beyond the trees, likely across the ocean.
“Your father could not countenance sending you to America.” It was more a guess than a statement.
She shook her head. “I shall go anyway. You’ll see. I’ll go and get a degree at Vassar or Wellesley or Radcliffe College. I don’t care in what.”
“I’m sure you’d excel in numerous courses of study.”
“May I confess something horrid to you?”
Cyril winced. “Must you?”
“Sometimes I wish I’d been born poor. Or middling poor.”
“That is horrid.”
“I know it. It makes me sound so ungrateful and shallow. As though I don’t have compassion or a single clue of the depth of suffering that is allowed in this world.
But had I not been born to this status, I would’ve been sent to school.
I could attend a girls’ college. I could study maths and science and engineering and—
“We’ve been able to study those things together.”