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Now she looked bewildered. “You didn’t really dread it. You never refused.”

“Thereby completing my humiliation?” He shook his head. “I was even more afraid of seeming weak. A laughable predicament.”

She wasn’t laughing. She’d pursed her rosy lips in thought.

“I meant to plague you,” she said. “But in fun. We couldn’t play as friends, with me being . . .” She gestured at herself impatiently. “Me. And you being . . .” Her gesture at him indicated such exaggerated disapproval he laughed.

“You.” She dropped her arm. “I didn’t realize our games affected you at all. You seemed indifferent, or else you teased and gloated and made light of them . . . of me.” She hesitated, brows pulling together. “Nothing I said or did could matter very much to a duke’s son.”

“It mattered more than you know.” He gazed past her, at Castle Lyon. “It still matters.” When he shifted his gaze, he saw that she was staring at him, intent.

“We have to jump,” she said. “There’s no other way. But this time we jump together.” She held out her hand. She’d given him ferocious looks in the past. This look, though, it didn’t threaten him. She was threatening the sky and the cliffs and the raging sea, on his behalf, their behalf. Daring the world to stand in their way.

She nodded at him, a slight nod.

He took her hand. “The thing is, I’m afraid of heights.”

She grinned in disbelief, her dimple winking in her cheek. “That can’t be it, Lord I’ve-attained-the-height-of-twenty-thousand-feet.”

“It’s not as frightening when you’re floating in open air. Your perspective changes. There’s no looming edge. You’re not connected to the ground.”

“In three seconds, nothing will connect us to the ground.” She grasped his hand so hard it hurt. “One, two . . .”

They leapt and were connected only to each other. Air whistled in his ears. His insides rose as the world dropped away. He caught a glimpse of her fanning hair, her sun-struck eyes . . . and then their hands tore apart.

The impact scattered his thoughts, his senses. He was tumbling, thrashing, unsure if he was pushing himself up or down. Any second he’d burst, suck in whatever surrounded him. He kicked wildly, and his head broke the surface just as his lungs bucked uncontrollably and filled, with air.

He kicked harder, forcing himself higher, scanning the waves. Something dark and weedy flickered in a gray trough. Tib, floating—God, no—face down.

He propelled himself through the water, grabbed her below the armpits, turning onto his back, turning her. She sputtered, and coughed, and began to flail.

“Easy—” he began, but her agitated motion dunked them both.

“Tib,” he gasped as they came up, her hair dripping brine in his mouth, his lips by her ear. “It’s me, James. I’ve got you.” And then he said the most nonsensical words he could imagine uttering, to her. “Don’t fight me.”

And strangely, she stilled. He carved the water with his free arm, laboring toward shore. They were clear of the whirlpool and the gnashing rocks, but the water was far from calm, and he was breathless and sore and so tired he could barely keep their faces above the slapping waves. He had to stop and float, but even floating took too much effort, and they sank and bobbed, sank and bobbed. That’s when she came alive and pulled away from him, without frenzy, with deliberate force. She began to swim, and he followed, eyes locked on her shining dark head.

Finally, his feet touched down. The two of them staggered through the surf and collapsed on the shingle, curled together, back to front, shivering.

He wanted to sleep for a hundred years. This beach was blessedly familiar, down to the last ridge and cobble. He’d bathed here with Arthur, walked here with his mother, come here alone to read, to brood, to observe the anemones in the rock pools.

Castle Lyon lay just up the cliff path.

To sleep here, now, chilled to the bone, the sun slanting down—they might never awaken.

One more push.

He rose, hauling Tib with him. They walked—they must have walked. But when they reached the great lawn, he could scarcely remember the ascent.

He wavered, staring up at the castle, a square keep embellished over the years by an illustrious succession of Pembertons. He’d planned to charge the front door, bang the knocker, but he couldn’t face his father now, dazed and half-drowned and dressed in tatters.

He squeezed Tib’s hand, led the way behind the hedges, around the castle, They cut across the garden to the south tower. His room was on the second floor.

He stopped and looked up at the dark window, then at Tib. She was swaying on her feet, her proud head drooping on her neck.

She didn’t have the strength to climb the coursed rubble wall.

But she had the will. He didn’t doubt that.