Shannon Drake - Reckless

“The girl?” David echoed, blinking again.

“The one who saved your life,” Sir Hunter said curtly, and David could hear the unspoken “You fool.”

“Good God, Sir Hunter, you cannot mean to plunge back in—” Lord Avery began.

“Oh, but I do,” Hunter said. “Lest she drown.”

“You’ll drown yourself!” Lord Avery argued. “If there is a girl out there, the boatsmen or fishermen will find her surely.”

Lord Avery’s protests were apparently insufficient for Hunter turned and strode back into the water.

“Father, he’ll be all right!” Margaret called, adding with a touch of admiration that sent a pang through David’s heart, “Sir Hunter MacDonald can withstand any hardship.”

Sir Hunter, David thought, ever the hero, strong and brave and invincible. And I myself here on the muddy shore, gasping, barely alive…

But in her arms!

“I hope you’re right, my dear,” Lord Avery said, kneeling down beside David as well and, slipping his fine jacket from his shoulders, placed it around David. “Thank God you survived, my boy! Can you rise? We’ll get you to the road and then to the town house before you catch your death of cold.”

David, trying to fathom what was real and what lay in the soul of his imagination asked, “There really was a girl?” He looked at Margaret.

“Yes…that or, truly, a sea creature!” Margaret said.

“We’ll see that she’s rewarded for the act, assuming that Sir Hunter can indeed find her. How very odd that she ran back into the river. She must be quite mad. Or perhaps she’s a lady of some fine family, afraid to be seen!” Lord Avery said gruffly. “One can only speculate, however, David. Right now, we must get you warm. That blasted river! Rarely is it anything less than wretched!”

“Yes, of course,” David murmured, “Thank you. But if there was a girl…a strong girl, rich or poor, we must indeed see that she is rewarded.”

Again he remembered—imagined?—being pushed into the river. It had been an act of pure malice and evil intent.

Whoever had done it had meant for him to die.

But why?

Margaret? To eliminate the competition for her hand?

Or was it something else entirely?

Suddenly he was afraid, deeply afraid, though he dared not show it. The thoughts tore through his mind. He and his friends had simply gone out for a day of sport and fun. Alfred Daws, Robert Stewart, Allan Beckensdale, Sydney Myers, all fellows he knew well. He’d studied with them, played cricket with them, trusted them….

He had to be mistaken!

And yet, if it hadn’t been for the girl who’d—

“David?”

His name was said with such anxiety! And Margaret smelled of roses, so delicious, and her arms were around him as she helped him to his feet.

“The girl saved your life,” Margaret agreed. “Your precious life.”

He forgot Lord Avery, forgot his fear regarding his friends, everything, as he stared into the sky-blue of her eyes. He needed his future secured. As the son-in-law of Lord Avery, it would be.

“Ah, but we know the real truth! You saved my life,” he declared. “You, with your gentle caring. You have brought me back. Even here, upon this shore, I might have died. Indeed, I would have died had I not opened my eyes to see your beautiful face!”

Her cheeks turned a delightful shade of pink, and he dared to mouth “I love you so!”

She did not reply, but the pink suffused to a darker shade as she reminded him softly, “My father, David!”

Yes, he thought, Margaret was indeed beautiful. And sweet. And very rich. For him, she would be the perfect wife.

He vowed then and there that he would be her husband.

SAVING THE OBJECT OF HER deepest desire had been difficult, but never in the long, cold struggle to bring him to shore had Kat feared for her own life.

Now, suddenly, she did so.

What a fool she had been to plunge back into the water! True, her sad state of undress might have brought about a few snickers and she’d certainly be considered rather scandalous. But what was scandalous compared to being dead!

Tired, cold and disoriented, she fought to retain her strength, to rise enough within the growing fury of the river to find either the shore or one of the vessels—fine or misbegotten—that braved the Thames no matter the weather. But though the rain had not come in heavy sheets as the sky had seemed to warn, it had formed a thick, blinding mist atop the churning waves. She was adrift in a cold sea of gray in which she seemed entirely alone.

She treaded water, turning this way and that, trying to see something through the haze. She knew she had to keep moving, lest the chill enshroud her. The euphoria she had felt after her rescue had faded completely, along with her strength. She was not sorry she had saved him—was his life not worth far more than her own?—but only sorry that she had been so foolish to run—or swim!—away. She struggled to give herself the impetus to go forward. She was her father’s daughter, after all. A creature of the sea, a part of this wet, murky world.

At last, she calmed herself and rolled onto her back, then frog-kicked sideways into the current. But as she relaxed, a new fear—that of the darkness, of knowing that the Thames was little more than a sewer pit, seized her as she saw something move. Ridiculous notions shot into her mind. Snakes! No, none in the waters here, surely. Serpents—just as silly. Sharks—in from the sea? Here? In the Thames? Heavens, no, but still… Oh, God, there was something in the water!

She let out a scream, then choked on water from the wave that splashed over her, gagged. Desperate, choking, barely able to breathe, she started her frog kick again.

Something touched her!

Something…against her bare leg, and then on her hip. She kicked harder, to propel herself away. Then she felt it again. Something smooth, strong, slippery…

“No!” she shrieked. She would not die so—definitely not on the day he had told her he loved her! She would not die in the water. Water was her home, it was what she knew, and she would not, could not, give in.

When the thing rose near her, she lashed out with a fist as hard as she could.

“Good God, girl! What on earth ails you? I am doing my best to save your life.”

It was a man. Just a man. She could make out little of him against the waves, but his voice was deep and rich and commanding. And then she remembered that a man had come out of the water when she’d been at David’s side, that his appearance, along with that of the elegant young woman, had been the impetus to send her back into the dreadful river.

“Save my life! You’re the reason that I’m threatened with the end of it!” she shouted back.

“Child, my craft is but a hundred yards south!”

A wave crested and washed over her. She had not been prepared, and she chocked in water, coughing, gasping.

And he was there, a wall of steel, an arm coming beneath her breasts, sliding most immodestly against her. She struggled.

“Damn you, be still! How on earth will I save you?”

“I don’t need to be saved!”

“Indeed, you do!”

“If you’d cease trying to drown me, I’d be doing quite well!”

But she was lying, she realized. She was truly spent. Staying on the surface and fighting the waves was becoming ever more difficult.

Naturally, however, as she cried out her accusation, he released her.

And just as naturally, another wave smacked over her just as she was still recovering from the last. And she went under.

A mighty kick brought her back to the surface and into his arms.

“Be still!” he snapped. “Else I shall slap you into unconsciousness so that I can save your wretched life!” The sting of his words was far worse than a slap.