Chapter 18
Something was wrong, terribly wrong.
And it wasn’t just the storm that had torn across the bucolic landscape.
Ernestine sat as if paralyzed. Her eyes were wide. Her lips were a red slash of blood across that pale face, and she looked filled with sheer horror.
“We’re going to be fine,” he yelled above the rain and wind whipping at them.
Even as the wind raked over him, rain drenched his hair.
She looked like a drowned cat. Her gown was plastered to her body, her skirts a drenched mass.
He hadn’t seen a summer storm come in this quickly or this harshly in some time.
Perhaps he should have known better. The day had been hot, perfect, beautiful, just the right time to bring her out on the lake and show her what a fine rower he was.
He’d loved the idea of showing off his power and capability to her.
But now that strength would be used for something very different indeed, to keep them steady as the storm surged in and the current of the lake picked up.
It was usually a still surface, this lake, just like smooth glass. But now waves were lashing up, capped and cruel. Water surged over the side of the boat, filling it up, splashing over their ankles.
There was nothing to bail it out.
And yet she was not crying out or moving. No, she was stone faced, silent.
How he wanted to take her in his arms, to assure her all would be well, but he couldn’t. He had to keep his mind fixed on rowing the oars, of keeping them steady and not flipping over.
The waves began to push them higher, tilting the boat this way and that. She closed her eyes and began to shake.
At any moment, they might be dashed into the water and taken down below, but he would never allow anything to happen to her.
He couldn’t.
The rain roared down from the heavens. The wind was a voracious beast determined to batter them into the lake.
The rain was so thick he could not see the shore, and the duke’s house was but an imaginary vision now.
They could try to wait it out, but he feared if they did that, he would become overborne.
So he began to row, striking for the shore as best he could.
But before he could make it, the wind picked up anew. A gale hurled in off the coast. The current of the lake swelled, and the boat tipped to the side.
She tried to tilt to the side and pitch her weight to keep the boat from capsizing, but the water was too wild, the wind too fierce.
And the boat began to crank to his left, no longer in his control.
He threw the oars away, darted across the narrow distance between them, and grabbed her in his arms. The boat bashed into the water and they were rushed overboard, spilling into the lake. Rain came down so hard that it felt as if there was no difference between the air above and the water below.
She clung to him, but not so fiercely that they would go down, which filled him with relief. He knew many people were terrified of drowning.
“Can you swim?” he demanded. It seemed such a foolish question to ask now.
She nodded, but she said nothing, as if the storm had stolen her voice. He hated that. He hated that above all things, for he adored her voice and her determination, her fierceness.
He tried to spot the shadowy shore. When at last he did, as they bobbed, he began to stroke and kick, holding her tightly to him.
But the folds of her skirt were weighing her down, pulling them both hard and fast and low.
He turned to face her. “I’m going to have to tear them off,” he said.
She nodded, pulling at her own spencer with its long tails, but even as she did, she went under the water. Her bonnet acted like a sail, pulling her head down.
He grasped the ribbon at her chin and tugged it, but the knot was tight. Given that he could not undo it, he hauled her back towards the surface.
She seized her bonnet and yanked it off, letting out a cry of pain. He realized her hat pin was still in her hair. But she did not stop.
She acted with feral possession as she tore at her own clothes. She was panicked, terrified.
He’d never seen her like this before. She was so staid and steady. She had been so calm, even in the face of Allworthy’s rudeness and intimidation, but this storm seemed to be her undoing. And he hated himself for getting them in this situation.
It was no small thing, of course, and he wished that he could go back and never suggest this, but how could he have known this would happen?
The waves crashed over them, and the lake tried to pull them down. He yanked at her skirts, ripping them, then her bodice, until she was in naught but her chemise. Then they were able to kick free, swimming to the shore even as the lake tried to claim them as its own.
They swam through murky water, as the mud from below churned up and filled their lungs, but he did not give in and nor did she.
When at last, he pulled them to the dank shore, he let out a groan of relief. He crawled, holding her carefully, and she moved with all her might too, until they were both safe and steady on the ground.
And yet they were not safe at all.
The wind screamed in with such a terrible force that the trees groaned, and he could hear the crack of the oaks.
Limbs began to fall, the leaves flapping wildly about.
He held her tight.
“I don’t want to die,” she said.
“You’re not going to die,” he promised.
“You don’t know that,” she bit out, shaking as hard as the leaves in the storm. “You don’t know anything of the sort. This could be our end.”
“It won’t be,” he promised. “I won’t let it be.”
“You’re no god, no matter how it might seem that you are,” she shouted. “We are but mortals, and at any moment our life can be snuffed out just like a candle’s flame.”
He held her tightly, taking all of her fear, holding her.
“Forgive me,” he called. “I never should have brought us out,” he said into the howling wind.
She lifted her gaze to his, her hair tracing her cheeks. “You couldn’t know. You c-couldn’t know,” she managed, even as her voice broke. “I wanted to be brave.”
“You are brave,” he insisted, their bodies pressed together, his arms tight about her as if he could make them one.
“No,” she growled, her voice a fierce protest of pain. “I’m not. I’m a coward. I’m a terrible coward.”
“You aren’t. Don’t say it,” he said. “It’s normal to be afraid like this.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me now.” He held her, trying to act as a rock in a hurricane for her.
She stared at him for a long moment and her gaze turned dark, as if some distant memory that was never allowed to surface filled her. “This is how my parents died.”
He shook his head, certain he had misunderstood. “Wh-what?”
She nodded against him. “They died in a boating accident on the lake. They died, taken under the water and they never rose again.”
He closed his eyes, dread and pain filling him at his own naive arrogance.
“And I watched it,” she finished through gritted teeth.
She wouldn’t stop shaking against him as her words rattled past her lips.
“I watched from the shore. I watched my entire life be stolen away from me, and I have never been the same since, and I never will be. I need you to understand that and to give up, to give up on me, because I will never be who you want me to be.”
Instead, he held onto her tighter than before, because he would never let her go. He would never give her up, and slowly, slowly the wind began to dissipate.
He pulled himself to his feet and then gently picked her up, cradling her in his arms, and carried her.
He would always carry her. She would never be alone again. She might think it, but he would never allow that.
“Put me down,” she insisted as she clung to his neck.
“No,” he said.
“Put me down,” she insisted again, trying to wrench her legs out of his grasp.
Slowly, though he hated to do it, he let her feet slide back to the ground, her chemise stuck to her thighs.
“I have to do this,” she said. “I have to walk. Otherwise, I shall shatter into a million pieces, and I will never be able to put them back again. I was already…” Her voice dropped off.
“What?” he asked softly, his heart open. So open that he was terrified.
She shook her head. “I cannot explain it to you and I don’t want to try.”
She held his hand, clutching it tightly. “I will never forget this.”
He blinked. “What are you saying?” he rumbled. “Are you saying goodbye?”
“No,” she said. “I am not. I don’t know how I feel right now. I don’t know what I want, but I know this from the bottom of my heart, through and through. I want you. I want all of you,” she declared.
Victor’s heart swelled, for at last, despite the storm, he had clearly won.
She would be his. He swept her into his embrace, and since he knew no one could see them so far from the house, he stole her lips in a kiss.
Though perhaps he shouldn’t care at all if anyone could see, for she had just proclaimed that she would be his, his entirely.
And so he could kiss her as much and as often as he pleased.
Their lips tangled, the kiss passionate, hungry, the sort of kiss that comes when two people have faced death and survived.
It was the sort of kiss that proved how vital it was to be alive. And he never wanted it to end.
She leaned in, draping her body against his, clearly giving in to the feelings of safety that were now washing over them.
They had faced the storm and the two of them had survived it together.
As much as he hated to admit it, she was right.
They could have died. His body began to shake as he held her in his arms, and she was shaking too.
They shook together as the realization hit them both that they had come very close to an end, very close to never seeing this world again.
And, by God, since he had come that close, he was never ever going to act as if life wasn’t short again.
No, he was going to seize it and he was going to seize her. And he was so grateful now for the chance to live fully and truly, and to help her do so too.
And to show her that he was the one for her, that he could be her dream as much as she was his.