Chapter Six
Sarah plunged beneath the icy waters of the lake. Despite the warm spring air, the lake was frigid, and it made her body feel even less malleable.
Everything had happened so fast. One moment she and Phoebe were rowing out together, the next the little girl was on her feet and everything was turning upside down.
She sputtered as she managed to get herself above water and reached out to catch Phoebe as the child thrashed wildly.
“No, no! No!” Phoebe cried out as she bobbed under and above the water.
“Calm…down…” Sarah gasped as she struggled to kick her legs and stay at the surface with her charge.
Phoebe was too wild and terrified to hear her. She kicked and twisted, trying to stay afloat. She felt desperately heavy in Sarah’s arms as she pushed at the little girl to keep her head above water. Sarah’s own skirts tangled around her legs, cumbersome and limiting her ability to kick and stay above water.
She dunked down beneath the surface once more, and panic gripped her. They would drown. Oh God, she didn’t want to drown. She gripped Phoebe’s hips and pushed her, holding her as high as she could to give her charge the best chance possible.
Sarah kicked and surfaced enough to gasp in a breath, but she immediately dropped down again. Phoebe’s legs flailed and her slippered foot caught Sarah in the temple. Pain exploded and was followed by dizzying stars exploding before her eyes. Everything was starting to feel slow, tired, everything hurt as she fought.
But she couldn’t succumb. She couldn’t. She had to keep the little girl up. She couldn’t let Phoebe drown. She had to stay afloat until rescue came. She’d seen the men running into the water when she last surfaced. They would get here soon and then it would be all right.
Suddenly Phoebe’s weight was lifted away from her. Someone had come. She couldn’t see who through the dark, dirty water. But she felt the waves hit her as a stronger swimmer drew the child away. Relief filled her, but also fear. She was sinking. Deeper and deeper. She struggled to swim back to the surface, but her lungs burned from lack of air and her skirts felt like weights drawing her to the floor of the lake.
Drawing her to the end of her life.
She sucked in without meaning to and felt water enter her lungs. It was like someone had plopped down on her chest.
There was nothing left to do—she was just too weak. Everything grew dark, the pain began to fade, and she slipped into the cold, wet nothingness at the bottom of the lake.
Kit swam as hard as he could, but he was three body lengths behind Matthew. He saw his friend, who had his own experience with such a terrible scene, moving in the thrashing swirl of Phoebe and Sarah’s bodies.
“I have her!” Matthew shouted as he began to swim back toward Kit. “I have Phoebe.”
Kit could see his pale, terrified sister clinging to his friend, shaking like a leaf. Relief jolted through him. She was alive. She was breathing.
“Sarah?” he gasped out.
“Still under the water!” Matthew shouted, and began to swim back toward the shore where the others were coming into the water to help. “I’ll come back.”
But Kit knew that would be too late. Sarah was under the water. She would die. He dove into the murky blackness, but there was nothing to see when the water had been so churned up by the struggle.
Panic gripped him and he reached out in the water for her, praying with all his might that he would touch her. Prayers left unanswered. She was nowhere, nowhere to be found. He surfaced, sucking in a deep breath, and then dove again, deeper this time. God, he had to find her. He had to find her—he couldn’t lose her like this.
He swung his arms wildly and was about to come up for air again when he felt his hand bump something. Something soft, fleshy. He jolted and grabbed on. It was Sarah’s arm.
He pulled, dragging her against him. He slid his arm beneath her armpits, hating that she was limp, not helping him at all. He pulled her to the surface and looked at her as she flopped against his chest like a lifeless doll. She was blue. Not breathing.
“Oh God,” he gasped as he began to swim.
He dragged her toward Simon and Graham, who were coming toward him in the waist-deep water closer to shore. When he reached them, Graham grabbed for Sarah, hauling her onto the shore as Simon tugged Kit to safety.
He flopped down next to her in the dirt. She did not stir. She didn’t move.
“Oh God,” he whispered again as he realized she was dead. A pain that cut down to his very soul filled every part of him at that horrible realization. Sarah was dead and he would never get to apologize for how he’d treated her over the years. He’d never get to touch her. Coax that smile from her. Keep her safe.
The duchesses were weeping. Matthew was on his knees, tears streaming down his cheeks as Isabel held him, her own sobs wracking her. They had lost someone they both loved to a drowning many years ago. Now that would be something he shared with his friends. A terrible new club born of this awful, unceasing heartbreak.
His bleary gaze shifted, seeking out his sister. He found her with Graham’s wife Adelaide. She had wrapped Phoebe in one of the picnic blankets, and she turned the sobbing, exhausted little girl away so she wouldn’t see her lifeless governess lying on the shore, lost to them all.
“No,” he moaned as he reached out to touch Sarah’s cheek.
