“Where to?” Elizabeth asked.
“For a walk along the shoreline. The tide has revealed a strip of sand. We mean to make the most of it.”
Darcy came to his feet and held out his hand to pull Elizabeth to hers, silently triumphing when she accepted his help. They walked to where the others were waiting and set off after them as they began to pick their way along the water’s edge. They did not speak much, for there was already a conversation in progress between those directly in front of them, which they contented themselves with listening to, but neither were they silent. The odd observation of the seascape by which Elizabeth was so fascinated was exchanged, and when Darcy spotted a stone with a hole in it, he retrieved it from between the other pebbles and passed it to her to marvel over. She had time to do no more than take it from his grasp before their attention was snatched by a huge splash from behind them and Saye uttering several words unfit for company. Darcy turned to see him in the process of removing his coat, a look of grim determination on his countenance.
“Saye? What is it?” he demanded.
“Florizel. He jumped in and has not come up.”
Georgiana let out a cry of dismay and clutched at Mrs Annesley’s hands in panic.
Saye tugged at a boot, cursed again when it failed to come off, and then began to wade in regardless, the water lapping around his ankles. “Hold on, dear boy, I am coming!”
Until that moment, Darcy had assumed it to be another scheme, but Saye was fanatical about his attire and treated Florizel like his own child; he would never sacrifice either for a joke. “Saye, stop.”
“But I?—”
“You cannot swim.” Loath though Darcy was to let Saye have his way after all, Fitzwilliam and the other men had walked too far ahead to be of assistance, and in any case, Elizabeth was staring at him with such sweet urgency there really was nothing for it. “I shall go in.”
He hastily divested himself of his coat, waistcoat, and boots and strode into the water. He was not expecting it to be so cold, and the iciness shocked the air from his lungs, but he gritted his teeth and pressed on, calling for Florizel as he waded deeper. When the water was above his knees, he thought he heard a faint bark, but it was Elizabeth’s hesitant enquiry that curtailed his headlong dash into the sea.
“Is that not him, up there?”
Darcy turned and looked to where she was pointing. Just visible above the peak of the beach’s slope, a fluffy white head could be seen trotting along the Promenade. A footman with a cushion was scurrying after him. Darcy looked at Saye with a silent and not very friendly question in his gaze as he stalked out of the frigid water, stones jabbing into the soles of his feet with every step.
“Fancy that!” Saye put his hands on his hips and beamed broadly. “I thought I saw a flash of white. Must have been one of these ridiculous squawking gulls.”
“Have you decided to go for a dip after all, Darcy?”Fitzwilliam said, arriving out of breath from his dash along the beach.
“Saye thought Florizel had fallen in,” Georgiana explained when Darcy did not answer.
“Had he?” asked Mr Hartham, arriving with Mr Gardiner.
“No,” Darcy said curtly as he pulled his boots back on.
“Well, that is a relief! Shall we continue our walk, then?” Mr Hartham held out his arm to Elizabeth. She took it, and Darcy watched with resentment as he led her away. Saye, already fully attired again, bent to retrieve Darcy’s shed clothing from the ground, handing him his waistcoat as they fell in behind the others.
Darcy snatched it from him, whispering angrily, “Are you happy now?”
“Hardly!” Saye replied in an equally heated whisper. “I have ruined a fine pair of boots to quite literally lead you to water. Surely you could have managed the rest!”
“Your idiom is anexceedinglypoor one, since seawatercannotbe drunk.”
“Are you sure?” Turning away, Saye pointed along the beach and shouted, loudly, “Good grief, look at that!”
Everyone turned to look, except Darcy, who sensed the inevitable and tried to brace himself against it, but his foot slipped on the wet pebbles and thus when Saye’s shove came, he could do nothing to prevent himself from toppling headlong into the water, his violent imprecation swallowed by the waves.
14
Elizabeth came to an abrupt halt when she reached her house and saw Colonel Fitzwilliam in the drawing room window, pointing up at the clouds. Mr Tucker had assured her the family would be out if she came at three o’clock, and she had assiduously timed her walk across town to make very sure she would not be early. As misfortune would have it, however, it had begun to rain about ten minutes ago; evidently, they had changed their plans.
She drew back lest she was seen while she decided what to do. She had no way of knowing whether they had postponed their outing entirely or merely delayed it, but she had come on foot and would rather not walk all the way back to the Millhouses’ without having seen what Mr Tucker wished to show her. Then again, neither was she keen to thrust herself into Mr Darcy’s notice again so soon.
It was not that she still disliked his company. Indeed, he had been uncommonly attentive at thepicnic, asking after her aunt Bennet and reassuring her about the house. Even the unacknowledged spectre of his spurned proposal had begun to feel less awkward. Nevertheless, his dip in the sea had left her flustered and embarrassed as, yet again, he had stood before her in a dripping wet shirt, every contour of his person accentuated, and rivulets of water streaming from his hair. Providence was playing a very cruel joke on her, showing her again and again precisely what she had refused—and making her like it more each time. She had felt dreadfully sorry for him, of course, for he had evidently been mortified, but of the two of them, she was certain her embarrassment had been greatest.
She started when the front door of Lady Preston’s house was abruptly wrenched open.
A servant stepped into the aperture. “Miss Bennet?”
