She looked around for a means to get to the animal, but the walls of the dike appeared to be almost straight up and down. However, there was a point at which a slope could be taken, though not without some effort.
“Oh,
my …” Myriah sighed. “
Very well, little one, it looks as if I am going to ruin a perfectly good gown, and I don’t have but one other with me.” Myriah then picked up her skirts and tucked the lace hem into her brown velvet waistband. Off came her walking boots and stockings.
She braced herself with her hands against the grassy walls, holding onto exposed roots and digging the sides of her feet into the dirt for support, complaining bitterly all the while. “You realize, of course, I shall return looking horribly dirty, so I do hope you appreciate what I am doing for you.”
“Baaa!” the lamb replied.
“Very well … there, there,” Myriah said, reaching the animal and patting its head. However, the poor thing’s neck was being strangled by the vines, so she set to freeing the creature. This took a series of tugs that set her off balance, and she slid down the remainder of the slope and landed up to her knees in the water.
“Good lord!” Myriah exclaimed. “’Tis but low tide, and just look how deep it is. I shall probably catch
my
death of cold, you horrid animal. I do wish you hadn’t tried to strangle yourself this morning,” she said, wading out of the water and climbing back up to the lamb.
’Twas no easy task freeing him. The vines were made of sturdy stuff, and pull as she might, many of them still held fast; however, a long grunt and a solid pull did at last free the lamb. The fact that it also sent Myriah simultaneously flying backwards (not without the sound of her scream reverberating through the marshes) seemed to spur the lamb up and over the walls of the dike. Myriah’s scream ended with a splash, and it was a moment before her head resurfaced.
She gasped for breath, noted the lamb had escaped to freedom without a backward glance, and told him he was an ungrateful creature as she climbed out of the dike.
Most individuals when fully clothed and in a similar situation would not stop along the way to sightsee. However, Myriah was a breed of a different beat. A formation caught her eye, and as she was already quite wet, she could see no harm and so sidetracked to satisfy her curiosity.
Perhaps it was the charm of finding lush, thick grapevines hanging like a screen over a mesh of driftwood that for some inexplicable reason seemed to have gathered in this spot, and only this one spot.
Perhaps it seemed intriguing that this
formation
appeared to be some seven or eight feet in width and could not be reached except by water, since a kind of stone platform created a ceiling over the hiding place.
At any rate, Myriah knew a strange palpitation of the heart as she approached and peered through. Spreading the vines, she was not surprised to find a
galley boat, some forty feet in length and about seven feet in width.
* * *
“Myriah!” Kit shouted. “Myriah!” He had heard her scream and the scream followed by a splash, but when
he reached the dike
he did not see her. A sick, painful ache immediately formed in the center of his belly.
She swam to the water’s edge and called out thankfully, “Kit! Over here, Kit!”
He ran the distance and came to stand looming above her. “Oh my God, Myriah!” The
sight of her completely drenched and struggling to emerge, hindered by her sopping gown, was such a relief that it sent him
into
a convulsion of wicked mirth. He doubled over with laughter, pointed at her, attempted to say something, but went off again unable to contain his glee.
As one could imagine, the lady found nothing in her present predicament worth such uproarious and unholy mirth, and she proceeded to advise him of this. “Fie on you, my lord! You wretch—how can you, when I stand here wet and cold and … confound it! I cannot climb out of this wet hole!” she declared.
Still chuckling, he made his way down the slope
to
her, gripped her arm, and pulled hard in order to overcome the weight of wet clothing. At length they reached the grassy top and collapsed on the ground. However, they made the mistake of finding each other’s eyes, and this sent them both off into a fit of mirth that lasted long enough to wind them for some time.
At last Lord Wimborne collected himself, rose, and pulled Myriah to her feet. He shrugged
off
his riding jacket and put it round her wet shoulders, saying lightly, “Come, love … we’d better get you to the house and into some dry clothes before you catch your death.”
She pulled on her boots, and they set off hastily for the warmth of a hearth fire.
She stopped him suddenly and looked intently up into his gray eyes, almost afraid of what he might say when h
e
heard her out. “I wasn’t spying, Kit—honestly, I was not. I was trying to save one of hose horrid little lambs, who did not even have the decency to thank me for my effort. But then, I fell
in, you see …”
“I
see very well.” His lordship chuckled.
“Dreadful man!” She smiled, but then her face turned grim. “But … then, I saw.”
Kit frowned. “You saw what,
Myriah?”
“I did not mean to … but the driftwood—the vines clustered just so. It caught my curiosity, and I thought as long as I was already wet I’d have a look. There is a galley hidden there. But you know that already, don’t you?”
“A
galley?”
“Yes, ’tis hidden in what appears to be
a
man-made tunnel … no telling how far the tunnel goes.”
“There is nothing in that. Many of the fishermen keep their galleys stored in underground caverns. This is the marsh and often done. And ’tis nothing for
you
to think—or
talk
—about!” Kit said, his gray eyes veiled. “Now do come, Myriah … before I end up with two patients on my hands.” He put his arm about her shoulders and gently urged her forward.
She decided to let it go. He didn’t want to tell her outright, and she understood, but she wished there didn’t have to be any secrets between them.
Once cleaned and dry, her ivory silk (which was damaged beyond repair) traded for her one remaining blue gown, she spent the next hour on the hearthrug in Master William’s bedchamber.
She, Kit, and Billy enjoyed a hearty breakfast—Billy’s second such meal of the day—though it was done with much bantering and laughter at Myriah’s expense. The tale of her morning adventure was the principal topic and one that gave both gentlemen an enormous amount of fun.
Myriah sat with her long red hair towards the fire, drying sections of it that were still wet. She pulled a comic face and sniffed amiably. “’Tis all very well for you two to go on and on, but I am now minus a gown. I think you and
your
sheep are quite horrid!”
“Listen to the girl … as though she didn’t enjoy her dipping,” Billy said mockingly. “And it wasn’t our sheep you were saving but Farmer Todd’s.”
“Same thing—your land … he is a tenant … so, your sheep.”
“She has a prodigious way of connecting the
two, but she has a bit of a point there, Billy.
Very well, we shall concede … we most certainly owe you one gown!”
“Ha,” Billy protested. “I wouldn’t give her one groat. Didn’t ask her to fall into the canal, did I? Of all the clumsy …” He grinned widely at her because she was on her feet and threatening to choke him.
“Billy Wimborne, you just wait till you are well enough to take a beating. It shall give me immense pleasure to be the one to administer it—for you dearly need one.”
Something caught Myriah’s eye then, and she turned towards the open doorway to see one of Cook’s sons standing there fidgeting uncomfortably.
Kit got up from Billy’s bed and smiled reassuringly. “Yes, lad?”
“There be someone ’ere from Rye. He has a note for Miss ’ere … and he be wishful of giving it to ’er direct.”
“Who is this someone?” inquired Myriah frowning, fear suddenly clutching at her heart.
“Aw, he be jest some village boy. I tried telling him I’d bring the letter up to ye … but he won’t have it.”
“I see … very well, then, I’m coming.” She turned and excused herself.
She left her gentlemen eyeing one another as she followed the boy downstairs.
Myriah crossed the hall to a ragged young lad no more than ten who stood biting his bottom lip. She dove for a coin from her inner dress pocket and put it in his hands. “There … thank you for coming all this way,” she said, reaching for the note.
He hesitated. “Be ye Lady Myriah?”
Myriah glanced about quickly and hastened to quiet the boy. “Ssh … yes, I am. Now may I have the note please, and tell me do … who put it in your hands
?”
He handed it over and sniffed. “A fine gentlemen, and he paid me to wait for yer answer. I won’t get my half-crown lest I do.”
“Very well,” Myriah said, breaking open the seal and moving away to read the epistle.
Myriah,
I don’t know what game you are playing with the Wimbornes, nor do I care. You have done me an injustice that we must discuss. Meet me at a place of your choosing, but do not deny me this one boon—’tis the very least you owe me!
Roland
Myriah sighed. S
o … he already knows where I am, and soon Papa will know as well—and then …?
She returned to the boy. “Tell me … when you asked for me, did you ask for Lady Myriah?”
“No. The flash cove, he said … jest ask for a red-haired woman staying with the Wimbornes. Then he told me to give that lady the note if she admitted to be Lady Myriah. That’s what I did … jest like he told me—now I needs an answer so I can get the blunt.”
“You will have to wait a moment,” Myriah said, crossing the hall to the library. She found paper and quill and jotted down a quick reply, sealed it, and returned to place the letter in the boy’s dirty hand.
Myriah watched him leave and stood alone in the hallway
a
moment before she turned and started taking the stairs slowly up to the second floor. When she reached the landing, she found she could not return to Billy’s room and went to her own instead.
She dropped onto a chair near her balcony and stared out the glass doors. Well … it was all over. She would now have to admit to her identity—and if Kit declared himself after he knew her name she would always have a doubt. Was it for her money? Oh faith … she wanted him to want her now—now when he thought her a nobody.
A knock sounded lightly at her door, and she got up just as Kit filled the open door
way. “May I come in for a moment, Myriah?” he asked gently.
She gave him a mischievous look. “So odd … I don’t think I heard you ask that last night …”
He grinned boyishly, walked right in, and pulled up a chair facing her. “Something is wrong … do you feel you can tell me? Perhaps I can help.”
Yes, you big fool
, she thought ruefully,
yes, there is something wrong. I want you to love me … no, I think you do. I want you to declare it, here and now.
Instead she answered him with a soft smile. “Wrong? Why, no.”
“Look, Myriah. I believe you are in some sort of trouble, and whatever you think I am involved in … doesn’t matter. I want to help you.”