Sharon Sobel (19 page)

“Have you ever had your fortune told?” she asked.

“At dinner parties when the company proved dull. And occasionally at a fair, at the insistence of one of my sisters. Gypsies seem remarkably single-minded, however. They all seem to think there is nothing in my future but marriage to one lady or another.” With startling clarity, he recalled a turbaned crone of ten years ago telling him he would marry a lady with fiery hair. He looked across at Lady Lark, at her hair and eyes, and thought he himself would burst into flames.

“How unimaginative they are. Anyone could see you have more things on your mind than marriage.”

Indeed he did, but he did not think they could be accomplished with one such as Lady Larkspur unless he already held a signed license.

“Do you propose to tell me what they might be?” he asked, a little roughly.

She looked up, a bit dazed, but she smiled. “I shall have to remove your bandage, sir, as it quite interferes with my reading. Will I hurt you?”

He shook his head, and she started to unpin what Matthew had worked so hard to achieve. Slowly, delicately, she unwound the fine linen cloth, hesitating only when an underlayer revealed the stain of his blood. He thought she would back down then, but she displayed the nerve of a physician.

Finally, his injury, still raw and deep, lay exposed to the sun and wind. He thought he heard her gasp.

“It was only an accident, my lady.”

“It was not an accident, sir. One does not get this sort of cut unless one beds down with a knife. The edges are smooth and the cut quite deliberate.”

“You are mistaken, Lark. It was indeed an accident, for my attacker hoped to slash my throat and necessarily settled for my hand instead. He did not aim for it.”

“Your attacker?” she asked sharply.

When he only nodded, she returned her attention to his hand, though he knew she considered his admission very carefully. She ran a gentle finger over the cut, examining it with precision and tenderness and showing no signs of disgust or revulsion. He was right to think her compassionate enough to be an asset at such a place as his hospital. He wondered
if she would also offer a prescription for care, or other professional advice.

“And this you received while swimming at our beach this morning?” she asked.

“I did.”

“I shall heed your warning, sir,” she said slowly. “Indeed, it seems a very, very dangerous place.”

And then, quite unprofessionally, she lifted his hand to her lips and kissed it.

L
ark felt deliriously wanton as the heat of the day warmed her exposed shoulders and bare arms. She did not remember the last time she had ventured outdoors without wearing a corset and knew her bright gypsy gown revealed more than could be considered modest in ordinary circumstances.

But today’s circumstances were anything but ordinary, for Martha Gunn pronounced the weather fortuitous for the inauguration of the bathing machines, and all the ladies were advised to wear dresses that they could easily remove in the cramped quarters of the water-bound huts. They all required bathing costumes, of course, but as the thin cotton fabric made the garments hardly decent in mixed company, they would not be donned until the swimmers were well out of sight of anyone on the beach.

Lark knew it for the pretense it surely was, for she understood perfectly what a line view of the water could be had from the oceanfront windows at Knighton’s. She guessed that Mr. Queensman’s hospital, perched comfortably on the nearly cliffs, afforded a pretty congenial view as well. But the machines themselves did something to obscure the direct line of sight and, in any case, one’s head and shoulders were likely to be the only things visible.

“We were warned about sunburn—will you take no heed, Lark?” Janet asked scoldingly. From her vantage point at the back of the wheeled chair, she thrust a parasol between Lark’s face and the offending sun. “If you will be careless, you will be as brown as a gypsy and will surely scare Lord Raeborn off.”

Lark twisted in her seat but could not turn quite enough to confront Janet. No matter, she knew precisely the expression she would find on her friend’s face.

“Is that not the point of this entire wearisome exercise, my dear?” she asked. “In fact, I am of a mind to take far too much sun and greet my suitor wearing a spray of freckles across
my nose and in this very costume. He will be so appalled, he will never darken the Leicester doorway again. And then I shall be able to return home with some degree of immunity.”

“And never again attract the attention of a respectable gentleman?”

Lark thought of Mr. Queensman’s impassioned kisses and bold caresses and shivered even in the heat of the sun.

“I am not sure a thoroughly respectable gentleman is the man for me. Oh, certainly I should hope he is of good family and does nothing to disgrace himself. But the more I think of it, I believe most gentlemen of my acquaintance bore me. I cannot imagine what Hindley Moore and I might have found to talk about in five years’ time.”

Janet paused at the wide ramp leading from the veranda onto the wooden walkway of the beach itself. The incline proved rather steep, and Lark knew she did not trust herself to control the heavy chair. But within moments one of the valets appeared, and he seemed to have no difficulty in steering the chair down to the level surface of the pebbles. He offered to continue, but Janet graciously resumed command.

“It is lucky he jilted you, then,” Janet said tartly. “Boring company is even worse than no company at all.”

Lark pushed back the brim of her bonnet, which had slipped forward during the descent, and reflected how Janet’s words, which would have struck a sensitive nerve only weeks before, no longer held the power to disturb her.

“Do you think I might find a profitable life as a spinster, then?” Lark asked lightly. “I should grow accustomed to being quite alone. Unless, of course, I might always rely on your excellent company.”

Janet said nothing, and Lark knew she, herself, now touched upon a sensitive nerve. Janet was several years older than Lark, and had received only one offer in her second season, and that from a most undesirable gentleman. But Lark sensed something recently changed in her friend as much as in herself, and she did not believe her casual comment would cause any undue distress.

“I do not think either of us will need to rely upon the other,” Janet said softly, and Lark knew her own supposition well founded.

A shadow fell across Lark’s legs before she could ask anything further.

“Indeed you must, girls,” came Miss Hathawae’s cheerful voice. “It is essential that we rely upon each other and not just upon Mrs. Gunn when we are in the water. If one sees another in distress, it is necessary to cry for help.”

“Thank you for your advice, Miss Hathawae. It is a relief to know we may benefit from your wisdom,” Lark said without irony. She smiled at the elderly lady, who seemed a good deal more spritely than one expected at her age and whose eyes still glinted like a girl’s. Briefly, Lark wondered what might be the lady’s medical complaint.

“I have been coming to Knighton’s for years and surely know my way about better than most.”

“From our experience thus far, I daresay you may know your way about better than Mr. Knighton himself,” Lark laughed.

Miss Hathawae seemed to ponder this before breaking into a smile.

“You may be right, my lady. He is a most indifferent landlord.”

“Then why do you continue to come?” Lark asked, genuinely interested. She felt if she herself were truly ill, she would not bargain her health against such negligent care.

“I do not come for Mr. Knighton, but for another who resides in the vicinity. Our meetings are necessarily quiet affairs, but Brighton is one place where we can be assured of privacy. And I am quite comfortable here while I await his notice.”

Lark considered Miss Hathawae’s words while noting there seemed not the slightest note of resentment. The lady appeared quietly consigned to her fate and cheerful about her prospects. One could only wonder about the gentleman who deserved such allegiance. He must be a man of singular compassion, unusual talent or unsurpassing position. Lark glanced up at Miss Hathawae, but the lady’s eyes seemed intent on the distant Pavilion.

“I think Mrs. Gunn is impatient for our company,” Janet said a little timidly.

Down at the water’s edge, Martha Gunn stood, arms akimbo, garbed in something resembling nothing so much as a tent. Its black fabric looked stiff, as years of use in salt
water might ensure, and it stood away from her body in a wide triangle. She wore a little black lace cap on her head, providing no protection from the sun, but giving just the hint of gentility. Aside from that, she might have been a laundrywoman.

Lark laughed at the image, thinking the woman’s role in dealing with the bathers not much different from that of a servant kneading her linens at the side of a brook. Indeed, the swimmers would be thrust up and down and eventually hung up in the bathing machine to dry. It was an absurd analogy, but not altogether inappropriate.

“You laugh now, my friend, but the woman looks as if she would like to drown us. I never met a more humorless person in my life,” Janet said.

“Quite right,” Miss Hathawae chimed in. “Old Martha takes her role very seriously, and she will find a way to punish any miscreants.”

“However does she continue to find employment?” Lark asked resentfully.

“You cannot imagine there are many out there willing to satisfy a lady’s indulgence to swim in the waves. Even though physicians now advocate the advantages of saltwater bathing, there have not been enough dippers to fill the demand. I feel once Brighton is established as the king’s residence of choice, acquiring a dipper will be all but impossible,” Miss Hathawae explained. “Then what shall we do?”

“Swim by our own strength? Like the gentlemen?” Lark smiled at the thought.

“Whatever do you know of men’s bathing, child?”

An hour ago Lark would have thought the dear spinster too modest to entertain improper thoughts, but now she looked at Miss Hathawae with sudden respect. Propriety, it seemed, could be nothing more than a well-polished veneer, masking a host of passions and illicit deeds. Just as Lark was not at all what she seemed, neither, she guessed, was Miss Hathawae.

“Enough to know I should enjoy it very much,” Lark said softly.

Miss Hathawae looked down at her. “Then I should advise you to do what I do when faced with such a need to strike out on my own. I swim beyond the reach of Mrs. Gunn, keeping
at a safe distance. When she growls at you, pretend the sound of the lapping waves is too noisy for you to hear her. She will be most displeased, but will do no real harm.”

“I will take your advice,” Lark said and reached out to squeeze her friend’s hand.

“Who have we here, then?” boomed a deep voice ahead of them. The great dark tent loomed very close.

“Good morning, Martha, dear,” Miss Hathawae said sweetly. “Surely you have already met Lady Larkspur and her excellent friend Miss Tavish? I encourage them to share a bathing machine, as this is a new experience for both. And the lady will require some help, as she cannot stand.”

“No matter here, my lady. In the water, all cripples are like mermaids, free to move about and ride the waves,” said Mrs. Gunn as she approached the chair.

“How very poetic of you, Mrs. Gunn. I shall take heart by your recommendation.”

Suddenly Lark felt herself lifted into arms almost as powerful as those of Ben Queensman. She wondered if she should think less of the gentleman because of it or respect Mrs. Gunn the more. But there would be time to reflect on such things later, for the woman had already hauled her to the door of the bathing machine and unceremoniously kicked it open. Behind her, revealed by the tapping of her slippers on the pebbly beach, Janet struggled to keep up.

“Will you not join us, Miss Hathawae?” Lark asked over Martha Gunn’s burly shoulder.

Miss Hathawae laughed. “You will not invite me so readily once you see the size of the interior. As it is, I do not know how two young women can manage without hitting against one another’s elbows and knees. It will be very awkward.”

Miss Hathawae’s last words were nearly drowned out as Martha Gunn lifted Lark into the bathing machine. At once the air felt cool and a little fetid, for nothing of the fresh sea breezes penetrated the space. Lark quickly took in the sight of two wooden benches at either side of the enclosure and a line of pegs along the wall. A tiny mirror provided the only indulgence, and even that seemed hardly enough to do more than inspect one eye at a time. The glass suddenly went
askew when Janet hoisted herself up next to Lark.

“I have our bathing costumes in the bag here,” Janet explained. “Good heavens, we cannot change into them in such a place!”

“So Miss Hathawae warned us. But I fear we have no choice, for I believe the horse is already leading us into the sea.”

Even in the dim light, Janet’s complexion already looked quite green, and she clutched the edges of the narrow bench. “I hope you are appreciative of what I …”

“I am. I truly am,” Lark said and stood upright. If nothing else, at least the ceiling was reasonably high. “I suppose we must disrobe now, or risk being thrust into the waves with all our finery.”

She untied the ribbons of her bonnet and shook out her curls as the hat fell from her head. Though she and Janet knew each other well, she noticed her friend turned away as she slipped the gown off her shoulders and pulled the fabric down to her waist. Her breasts trembled as the machine started to rock slightly in the waves, and, she imagined, they looked fuller than usual. They fell forward as she leaned over to step out of the pile of fabric at her feet, and when she straightened up, she was fully naked. How unaccustomed and glorious a feeling to be in such a state of nature anywhere but in one’s own dressing room! And how tempting to dive into the waves without a stitch of encumbrance weighing her down.

Lark’s thoughts shocked even herself, but she would neither suppress them nor scold herself. For once in her life she dared to imagine things beyond the high walls of society’s rigid mores, and it gave her distinctly unladylike pleasure.