"More water, Sedge," Fairfax said, "and more sky." "We shall go and look anyway, my lord," Honor announced, her parasol firmly in place again.
Jane sat on the bank on one of the towels, hugging her knees. Fairfax and his children were already swimming in the lake, the little girls calling and shrieking happily. She did not care that she should have found some excuse not to come. She did not care about the embarrassment of the boat ride over, sitting facing Michael as he rowed, both of them brightly talking to the girls but not to each other until he had relaxed a little in the presence of Honor and Joseph. She did not care that later today she must tell several people that she would be leaving tomorrow.
She did not care. Now at this very moment she was living through an afternoon that she would remember for the rest of her life. Long after these girls were grown up and married, and probably long after Michael had remarried and produced sons to succeed him, she would live her life in Yorkshire, never seeing any of them again, perhaps never hearing of any of them again.But remembering.Remembering particularly this afternoon when they had come here, just the four of them, like a family.
She would dream now that they were a family. There could be no harm in it.No one but her would ever know and be hurt by it.And she was not likely to be carried from reality for long. She looked at Fairfax, laughing as he held Claire, showing her the correct arm movements for a certain swimming stroke. His white shirt clung to his arms and shoulders like a second skin, showing even at this distance the firm muscles beneath. His dark hair was wet against his head and forehead. She loved him. She looked at him and quite consciously loved him. And it was not just his extraordinary good looks that attracted her now. She loved the affectionate family man that he quite obviously was. For the first time she did not feel a painful jealousy of Susan, whom he had loved. She loved him, and she grieved with him in his loss. It should be Susan sitting here now watching her family, not she. She felt privileged.
She looked at the children and allowed herself to feel the full force of a mother's love for them. Michael's comparison of Claire in the water to a cork was an apt simile. The child was far out of her depth. Indeed, Jane had worried at first because they were all out of their depth as soon as they dived off the bank. There was no shallow water here. But Claire bobbed, floated, bounced, and even swam as if she had been born a water baby. And Amy swam quite gracefully back and forth in front of her father, constantly calling his attention to some new feat. And always he looked and made some comment or called encouragement.
His attention was wholly given to his children, Jane noticed. He must long to swim free, out into the calm sparkling water of the lake. But he did not do so. And she had dared think of him once as a selfish and an arrogant man! Jane swallowed a lump in her throat. For this afternoon he was her husband and the girls her children. She loved them.
"Aunt Jane!" Unnoticed, Amy had swum to the bank and was peering eagerly over its edge now. Herhair, lank and devoid of its ringlets, hung closeto her head and down below her shoulders. She looked more than ever like her father. "I can dive right under. Watch me."
"Be careful, sweetheart!" Jane called, leaning forward with a smile.
Amy bobbed up, hands in the air, and disappeared below the surface, legs kicking up behind. Jane waited anxiously for what seemed an eternity until shereappeareda short distance away, shaking her head and shoulders like a wet dog. Claire was shrieking with laughter somewhere off to the left.
"I saw the stones on the bottom," Amy said, swimming back to cling to the bank again. "Do you think I am clever, Aunt Jane?"
"I am full of admiration," Jane assured her. "I would not dare do such a thing."
"Papa would teach you," the child said, but fortunately she did not pursue the idea. "Would you like to see me dive again?"
"Be careful," Jane said automatically.
Amy drew in a deep breath and plunged again, a little bottom and two feet appearing for a moment. Jane watched in some anxiety the spot where she had disappeared. The child came up some distance farther out.
"Ouch!" she called. "I hit my head on the bottom."And disappeared again.
Jane scrambled to her feet, her eyes riveted to the empty lake, her heart beginning to pound heavily against her ribs, robbing her of breath. It seemed that she stood there for minutes before screaming out, "Michael!" and plunging headfirst into the water.
Instinct had led her to suck in a lungful of air. It did not occur to her in her terror to shrink from having her head under the water or from opening her eyes. She swam with the strength of near-panic out to the spot where she had seen Amy disappear, and tried desperately to find the inert form of the child on the stones at the bottom. When she was finally forced to the surface, she had drawn in a gasp of air to enable her to go under again before seeing Amy treading water, arms outstretched, just a short distance away.
Why she should have panicked just at the moment when she realized that no one else was in danger, Jane did not afterward know. But panic she did. The desperate breath she had drawn escaped her at the same moment as her head went under, and her hands clutched at air. She came up sputtering and clawing at the water in blind panic. She breathed in water as she went down again.
And then there really was something solid to clutch at, something that hauled her above the surface and held her there. She clung on with a death grip, struggling desperately to draw air into her lungs again, finding it impossible to do so. She could draw it in only as far as her throat, no farther. She fought.
"Steady, Jane. Steady," a voice was saying. "Don't fight me, love. I have you. You are quite safe. Let yourself relax. The breath will come. Steady, now."
She had fistfuls of wet shirt and flesh in her grasp. And still the breath would not come beyond her throat. It was Michael. Someone was crying out, "Aunt Jane!" Her mind was clearly placing her surroundings, and she tried to use it to impose calm on her body.
"Steady, love." His hands were firm at her waist. He would not let her drown. "We are at the bank. I will have you out of here in a moment."
And the breath came shuddering into her lungs, setting her to coughing as if all her insides were about to come up. And so she gasped and coughed and clung with about as much dignity as a babe at birth, the clear mind behind all the physical torment told her in disgust.
"There! You will live now," the warm, almost teasing voice of Viscount Fairfax said against her ear. And then the hands at her waist tightened and she was lifted from the water to sit dripping on the bank.
While she coughed on, Jane was aware that he lifted his two daughters out of the water too before coming out himself.
"Fetch Papa the biggest towel," he said, and four bare legs raced past her toward the dry clothes a short distance down the bank. He knelt beside her, put an arm beneath her knees, and lifted her legs onto the bank. It had not occurred to her to do it for herself. "What were you trying to do, Jane? Join the fun? You have ruined your dress, I'm afraid. I like this one too. Pink suits you." His voice was gently teasing. He was taking the towel from Amy with one hand and gathering Jane's draggled curls together at the neck and squeezing out the water with the other.
And then the final disgrace, that annoyingly clear mind told her as she put her hands over her face and failed to stifle a loud and quite unladylike sob.
"Jane!" he said, throwing the towel around her shoulders and pulling her against him. He was quite as wet as she, but there was warmth somewhere seeping through the fabric of his shirt to her cheek. "What is it, love? You have had a thorough soaking, but you are safe now. It must have been a terrifying experience for you. But I would not have let you drown, you know."
"I thought… I thought…" Painful sobs prevented her from getting the words out. "Amy… She hit her head."
"Did you, poppet?" she heard him ask. "Did you hurt yourself?"
