Page 47

He came down the path as he had the day before in breeches and the dark jumper, the breeze ruffling his hair. He stopped as soon as he saw her, his gaze going cold as he saw the book. Her grievances against him swelled. He was arrogant and high-handed. He had drawn her into an absurd wager, one he knew he would win. He intruded on her private ritual. His presence changed her solo swim. But it was the canceling of the ball that rankled the most.

“I must ask you again to reconsider canceling our ball,” she said.

“Good morning to you,” he said. “That’s a bold request, considering that you hold something of mine in your hands.”

“I’ve come to return it,” she said.

“Your sister took it, did she?”

There was no point in denying it. “She thought it contained a plan of destruction for the castle.”

His jaw was tight. “And did she find such a plan?”

“No. I take it she found sketches of your travels.”

He looked at the ground. “You didn’t look? You weren’t curious?”

“I was curious.” She studied his face for signs of that capacity for loss she had seen in the one extraordinary sketch. “Viola showed me a page, and I realized that to look further was to intrude on your private … record.”

His gaze met hers again. “As I have intruded on your wild swim?”

“Only for a few more days,” she said. “If we could have our ball, Viola would stop her campaign against you.”

“Do you want her to stop? I thought you wanted me gone.”

“Both,” she said. “I want to swim by myself.”

“I don’t like your swimming alone,” he said flatly.

She did not understand him. How could it possibly matter to him how she chose to swim? “But it is not for you to say what I do or don’t do.”

He came closer. “Women … ladies … do sea-bathing, with a bathing machine and a dipper and a few minutes in the water. They don’t swim, actually swim, and certainly not alone against tide and currents. Why did your father teach you?”

She ignored the question. “You swim alone.”

“I’m a man.”

“Do you think the ocean cares? The ocean is as indifferent to you as it is to me. In an angry sea, you might as well be a … log, rolled and tossed and washed ashore.”

“A log? That’s a flattering assessment.” He pulled the jumper off over his head.

“Well, you reason with as much sense as a log.” She handed him the sketchbook, shrugged the coverlet off her shoulders, slipped out of her boots, and turned toward the sea. She trudged down to the water’s edge, pulling the dark cap over her head as she went. The tide still rose, but slack water would come soon.

She waded in up to her knees, feeling the cold take hold. Graymont strode past her, straight into the water up to his chest, exhaling a puff of air as the cold hit him. He ducked under and came up shaking his head, flinging waterdrops, sucking in air, and grinning, challenging her. He was absurd.

She waded out and began to swim parallel to the shore. It was the sort of sea in which it was hard to feel that one moved forward at all. In minutes her ears began to ache. She could not hear Graymont in the water with the chop and the wind. She let go of other thoughts and concentrated on keeping her body long and balanced, and on getting the most pull out of her strokes. She couldn’t see the headland, and her sense of time was off. Had she been swimming for minutes or for much longer? She began to count her strokes and set herself to stop when she reached a hundred.

Then, as she pulled down, her head hit an object that yielded to the impact. She jerked her head up, and there he was in her path, his arm outstretched. She had collided with the palm of his hand.

She stared at him, her breath coming in gusts.

“You’re mad,” he said. “Barking mad!”

“Why did you stop me?”

“You’ve gone the distance,” he said.

She glanced around. She had. To her right was the headland. She could feel the water go slack as the tide turned. “Fine, I’m going back.”