Good question. Most of Eloise’s own memories of swimming involved the same sort of war games. “Maybe we’ll dry off and rest for a spell,” she said.
They both looked horrified by the suggestion.
“We certainly ought to work on lessons,” Eloise added. “Perhaps a bit more arithmetic. I did promise Nurse Edwards that we would do something constructive with our time.”
That suggestion went over about as well as the first.
“Very well,” Eloise said. “What do you suggest we do?”
“I don’t know,” came Oliver’s muttered reply, punctuated by Amanda’s shoulder shrug.
“Well, there is certainly no point in standing here doing nothing,” Eloise said, planting her hands on her hips. “Aside from the fact that it’s exceedingly boring, we’re likely to fr—”
“Get out of the lake!”
Eloise whirled around, so surprised by the furious roar that she slipped and fell in the water. Drat and blast, there went her dry intentions and her dress. “Sir Phillip,” she gasped, thankful that she’d broken her fall with her hands and had not landed on her bottom. Still, the front of her dress was completely soaked.
“Get out of the water,” Phillip growled, striding into the lake with astonishing force and speed.
“Sir Phillip,” Eloise said, her voice cracking with surprise as she staggered to her feet, “what—”
But he had already grabbed both of his children, his arms wrapped around each of their rib cages, and was hauling them to shore. Eloise watched with fascinated horror as he set them none-too-gently down on the grass.
“I told you never, ever to go near the lake,” he yelled, shaking each by a shoulder. “You know you’re supposed to stay away. You—”
He stopped, clearly shaken by something, and by the need to catch his breath.
“But that was last year,” Oliver whimpered.
“Did you hear me rescind the order?”
“No, but I thought—”
“You thought wrong,” Phillip snapped. “Now get back to the house. Both of you.”
The two children recognized the deadly serious intent in their father’s eyes and quickly fled up the hill. Phillip did nothing as they left, just watched them run, and then, as soon as they were out of earshot, he turned to Eloise with an expression that caused her to take a step back and said, “What the hell did you think you were doing?”
For a moment she could say nothing; his question seemed too ludicrous for a reply. “Having a spot of fun,” she finally said, probably with a bit more insolence than she ought.
“I do not want my children near the lake,” he bit off. “I have made those wishes clear—”
“Not to me.”
“Well, you should have—”
“How was I meant to know that you wanted them to stay away from the water?” she asked, interrupting him before he could accuse her of irresponsibility or whatever it was he was going to say. “I told their nurse where we intended to go,andwhat we intended to do, and she gave no indication that it was forbidden.”
She could see from his face that he knew he had no valid argument, and it was making him all the more furious. Men. The day they learned to admit to a mistake was the day they became women.
“It’s a hot day,” she continued, her voice clipping along in the way it always did when she was determined not to lose an argument.
Which, for Eloise, generally meant any argument.
“I was trying to mend the breach,” she added, “since I don’t particularly relish the thought of another blackened eye.”
She said it to make it him feel guilty, and it must have worked, since his cheeks turned ruddy and he muttered something that might have been an assurance under his breath.
Eloise paused for a few seconds to see if he would say more, or, even better, say something with a tone that approached intelligible speech, but when he did nothing but glare at her, she continued with, “I thought that doing somethingfunmight go a long way. Heaven knows,” she muttered, “the children could use a spot of fun.”
