He was waiting for an answer.
She nodded, and none too soon either, because just a moment later a shallow wave drifted in and the lantern went out.
It was suddenly black. She inhaled sharply; it sounded loud inside the dark hollowness of the cave.
“I have you, lass. I’m going to turn away. Put your arms around my neck. Let my back support you. All you have to do is hold on. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” She locked her hands around his neck. He touched her fingers for a second, gave them a reassuring pat, then he swam out of the cave.
A few strokes and she took a breath of cold foggy air, then lay her head on his shoulder in exhausted relief while he continued to swim, and that was how Calum MacLachlan saved her life.
Chapter Twenty-One
Advice would always be more acceptable if it didn’t conflict with our plans.
—New England proverb
Georgina was still locked in the bathing room. She prowled the room the way a caged animal did. Animals had a natural instinct to keep moving, so when the opportunity came they could act in an instant. She would be ready if the moment came when she could escape.
So she was thinking and walking, because there was nothing else left to do. She thought about John Cabot, about her home, and all her plans. Her stomach wound into a tight knot.
One rash and stupid act by the MacOaf and she was on the verge of losing everything. He’d taken everything she had been fighting to save and put it just out of her reach. She punched a fist into her other hand as she walked. She had to get back. She had to.
If she could return before too much time had passed, she could make an excuse about her disappearance.
What kind of excuse? She paced again, thinking of lies. She stopped and struck a pose she thought she liked. She cast a quick glance in the mirror on a wall.
Too stiff.
She rolled her shoulders back and raised her chin to an elegant and confident level.
Much better. “Why, John, dear!” she said with a swipe of a raised and elegantly graceful hand—the same gesture used to greet guests you wanted to impress. “You won’t believe what happened!”
She froze in that stance for a moment before her posture crumpled. Then what could she say? She wandered around the room in a circle, thinking.
What to say? What tosay? God knows she could not tell the truth. She could just see his face. “Well, John, dear, you see this enormous Scot came and snatched me away, then locked me in his home.”
She’d have no reputation left. Her reputation was all she had. John Cabot would never marry her if he knew she’d been kidnapped. That would be just too scandalous.
She had to escape, come up with some excuse. Perhaps she could tell him she had gone after Amy Emerson. Yes, that would work.
Two women alone. That took care of a chaperon. She nodded. Then she could come up with something heroic to work on John’s sympathy. She would have to repair the damage to his ego. After all, she hadn’t shown up to meet him. Heroism was good for sympathy. Sacrifice and all that sappy rot would certainly work. He was, after all, a man. Men respected heroism.
Within a few minutes she had her plan, complete with the sympathy element. She rubbed her hands together, then crossed over to the woodstove in the corner of the room and warmed her hands and feet.
The room had slick slate floors that were icy when you didn’t walk on the rug. She looked around her. The room was surprisingly large and convenient.
There was plumbed water and taps. A surprise. She’d thought of these coastal islands as backward, places that only had one-room fishermen’s shacks filled with dead fish and dust. Outhouses and earth toilets. Rickety moorings and wrecked pieces of ships.
A large copper water vat stood in the corner near the stove, and pipes snaked out it and ran to the sink set in a knotted pine cabinet and onto the huge porcelain-lined tub.
There was a linen closet she had first thought was a door to an adjoining room. Inside the closet were thick bathing towels stacked in a neat orderly fashion, every one aligned with the next.
Considering what she had seen of the house, which wasn’t much, she’d thought the place was a huge sty. But this room was spotless. The house seemed to be a strange mix of mess and order.
But right now, to her, it was just a prison. She felt too blasted helpless, unable to do anything but pace the room and think. She wanted to act, not think. She wanted to get away. She wanted to get home.
She stared at the locked door for a long time, then searched the room for something to jimmy the lock. As she looked around she caught a reflection of herself. The image was enough to make her cry—if she were one to cry. She wasn’t.
