At least Leath didn’t laugh, although his smile was derisive. “You’ve turned her head. You have a charming manner, Mr. Thorne. Not charming enough to gain this heiress.”
“You harp upon her fortune, my lord, as if that is all Lady Sophie has to offer. You do her a grave injustice.”
Was Harry optimistic to notice a softening in Leath’s contempt? “You’ve got more backbone than I expected, Thorne. Perhaps you do fancy yourself in love.”
Harry didn’t bother gracing that comment with a reply. “So I have permission to court your sister?”
Leath’s eyebrows arched. “Be damned to you, you do not. She’ll marry a man who can give her the life she deserves. That, sir, is not you.”
“You are mistaken, my lord.”
“I doubt it.” He stalked around his desk to sit in the imposing leather chair. “I’m no longer at leisure.” Briefly Leath’s tone had thawed to slightly above glacial. It was back to icy now.
Knowing he’d made a fool of himself, knowing he might have made an irredeemable mistake in declaring his hand too early, Harry stared helplessly at the marquess. “Is there nothing I can say to change your mind?”
“Nothing.” Piercing dark eyes blasted him with antipathy. “Now I suggest—again—that you leave.”
He’d failed. Dear God, he’d failed.
Now Leath would be more watchful than ever. Why the hell hadn’t he listened to Sophie and ignored his masculine impulses to stake a claim? He’d said he cared about honor, but he now realized that self-importance had driven him to this ill-considered meeting.
“Thank you for your time.” He prayed that he concealed his turmoil. He dearly wanted to retain a scrap of dignity.
“I can’t say it was a pleasure.”
“Good day, my lord.” Harry bowed, defeat settling sour and heavy in his belly. He’d made a complete mull of everything. He hoped like hell that Sophie forgave him. He hoped like hell that he had a chance to see her so that she could forgive him. Leath might exile her to Timbuctoo to keep her from unwelcome suitors.
Leath didn’t do him the courtesy of standing for his departure. Instead, he drew a folder of papers closer and began to read.
He dismissed Harry like a tradesman. Keeping a rein on his temper, Harry turned on his heel and marched out, back straight as a ruler even as despair battered him.
Kent Coast, late March 1828
The small boat tossed like a cork in a whirlpool. Pen hunched in the stern, soaked and clinging to the gunwales with frozen hands. Cam and Captain MacGregor rowed like demons to steer the dory toward the dimly visible coast, a mere line on the horizon.
The wind whistled past, ripped at her hair and the cloak she’d grabbed to save her modesty before Cam had rushed her on deck. It provided little defense against the thrashing waves and the horizontal rain. Her teeth chattered and after half an hour of this hell, she could no longer feel hands or feet.
She couldn’t bear to look behind at the empty space where Cam’s magnificent Windhover had once commanded the sea. The ship had gone down with astonishing rapidity moments after Cam had flung Pen into the tiny craft they now shared. The fall had left her bruised, but grateful to be above the waves, not below. The sick chill that she’d felt watching the graceful yacht sink like a stone still thickened her blood.
Two crewmen hadn’t made it. Pen had hardly known one, but the other had been a cheerful presence. If she survived this ordeal, she’d mourn his death. Of the two remaining sailors, one had been hit by the falling mast. Moaning and barely conscious, he huddled beside Pen. The other crewman Williams bailed madly in the bow. The strange dim light of the stormy afternoon revealed his losing battle. With every second, they wallowed deeper.
Bile flooded her mouth. Not sea sickness. Sheer terror.
Except that the Thornes were famous for courage, if not good sense. Stiffly Pen uncurled her cramped limbs and crouched at Cam’s feet. She began to bail with her hands.
“Pen!” Cam’s voice was thin in the wind, although he sat so close. She’d thought the noise in the cabin was deafening. Here, she could hardly summon thought, it was so loud.
She met his eyes. Not long ago, they’d fired cruel words at one another. Through the driving rain, his expression defied their destruction. He reached down and produced a tin dish. For the first time since they’d met again, no shadows darkened his smile. Ridiculous as it was in the middle of a tempest and with drowning likely, she smiled back.
“Good for you,” he said.
Such simple praise. He’d said it so often when they’d been children and she’d bowled a straight ball or taught one of her mongrel dogs a trick. The accolade warmed her heart, on a day cold enough to freeze lava. She stared into his eyes and realized that if fate decreed her death, she couldn’t ask for a better companion.
Then she started to bail furiously. The boat climbed each wave, then descended with a nauseating thud. Thunder cracked again and again. She was soaked to the skin. Her hair clung to her face like sticky icicles. The air she inhaled was jagged ice. Her hands didn’t seem to belong to her. Still they went on. Dip and throw, dip and throw, dip and throw.
She reached a point where anything more than rote movement was beyond her. Somewhere in her soul, she knew that Cam was here. With death breathing wet and cold down her neck, his nearness meant the world.
She didn’t look up. There was little point. Visibility had worsened until it was like heading into a cloud. Still she kept going. Dip and throw. Dip and throw. Dip and—
The boat crashed into something and the world turned topsy-turvy again. For an instant, Pen stared up at the lightning-riddled sky. Then choking darkness engulfed her as she sank beneath the waves.
Chapter Twelve
Cam surfaced to a wave smashing into his face. The capsizing boat had tossed Pen free. That had been the most terrifying experience in a day of terrifying experiences. Spluttering, he searched the wild seascape.
Nothing.
He dived, opening his eyes against stinging salt and cold, but saw only gray and black. Sand churning in the water abraded his skin. He stayed down until his lungs screamed with pain. Then he kicked toward the surface, gulped for air, and went under again.
He bobbed up, gasping, to watch the upturned boat shatter into jagged spears of wood against the rocks. The impact was loud enough to rise above the wail of the wind and the roar of the waves.
Cam couldn’t see his crew. He had a sick feeling that Oates, the injured man, wouldn’t make it.
“Pen!” he shouted, but the wind whipped the cry away.
The sea wouldn’t take Pen. His thoughts extended no further than that. Nothing, not even nature’s fury, would gainsay his claim.
The current shoved him closer to the jagged rocks. He’d gone beyond the point where he cared about his safety.
Down he went into freezing darkness. Up through the swirl. A glimpse of sky. Coughing to clear the water splashing into his face. Snatching air. Down again. Hands closing on an empty universe of ocean.
No lithe female body. No obstinate woman who drove him to madness. And made him feel more alive than anyone else ever had.
His legs turned to rubber. His arms lost the strength to pull through the water. Still he dived. Still he searched.
So spent that even breathing tested him, he surfaced once more. A sensible man would save himself now that it was clear that she was lost.
Bugger sense.
He inhaled and ignoring the agonized protests from every sinew, he pushed down. Down. Down. Not sure if he could fight the suck of the water.
His lungs burned. The cold made him sluggish. He couldn’t see. The idea of floating into oblivion beckoned.
He reached into the void. Praying like a madman. Stupid, mindless, incoherent pleas to the Almighty.
Please. Please. Don’t let her die. Let me find her. Take me instead.
The only answer was the roar in his ears as he started to drown.
Still he rea
ched. Still he struggled.
When long strands brushed his icy skin, he thought they must be seaweed. Debris filled the water. Wreckage from the Windhover. Nets threatening to entangle him.
In air-deprived stupidity, he delayed dangerously before he realized that no seaweed was this silky. With lunatic hope, his hands closed on Pen’s hair.
Triumph delivered one last spurt of power. With an ungainly kick, he shot forward, using her hair to guide him.
All the while, his heart hammered one word. Over and over. Penelope. Penelope. Penelope.
Something bumped his hands. Something that felt like a body. Numb fingers fumbled to catch her. She still wore the cloak. Its weight must have dragged her down.
He ripped at the strings around her neck. They resisted, but so close to saving her, he wasn’t giving up for the sake of a few knots. Finally the strings parted and the cloak flowed away.
With one final push, he kicked toward the surface. Noting with dread the lack of movement in the body lashed in his aching arms.
He burst through the rough sea and wrenched Pen upward until she bobbed, facing the sky. Lightning revealed how pale and still she was. That seemed wrong for someone so vivid. Her eyes were closed and blue tinged her parted lips. Her features were so wan, she could be carved from marble.
Using a clumsy sidestroke, he battled the current to swim for the shore.
Then the miracle happened. On top of a wave about fifty yards off, he saw a light. The light turned into a boat with searchers sweeping lanterns across the turbulent water.
“Over here!” he shouted, but his voice emerged as a mere thread.
Beside him, Pen floated lifeless as a spar from the Windhover.
He summoned his last strength and raised one arm, waving wildly, praying that he’d be visible over the choppy sea. “Over here!”
Even then, he wasn’t sure it was enough. A towering wave hid the boat. Despair, fatal as the icy water, gripped him. He’d failed to save her.
Then the boat crested another wave and he saw that it headed toward him. Only when the boat was almost upon them did he hear the team of oilskin-clad men shouting encouragement.
“Take her,” he gasped, lifting Pen and getting a mouthful of dirty salt water.
“We’ve got her, laddie.” A man’s hands closed around Pen and hauled her up.
“Here.” Another man extended a hand to Cam, who grabbed it with a gasp. He was too weak to be more than dead weight, but eventually, he flopped into the rowboat. Beside him, one of his rescuers had turned Pen over and pressed rhythmically on her back.
For a terrifying interval, she didn’t respond. Cam had prayed in the water. He’d never prayed as hard in his life as he did now.
Still no reaction.
Dear Lord in heaven, he’d been too late.
One pale, slender hand, weighted with his signet ring—how had that stayed on her finger?—twitched. Within seconds, she jerked and coughed and vomited up what seemed like an entire ocean.
Thank you, God.
Simple words, but he’d never felt them so sincerely. Groaning at the effort it took—all energy faded now that they’d been rescued—he reached across to touch her heaving shoulder. He needed to feel the life flooding back into her. His desolation when he’d thought her lost still fermented in his belly.
He sat up, although every aching muscle begged him never to move again. A sailor handed him some water and only after a few sips could he speak. “Five men were on the ship.”
Since the boat capsized, he hadn’t seen MacGregor or the other crewmen. But he’d focused solely on Pen. If John MacGregor had floated a yard away, Cam doubted he’d have noticed.
The fellow who had tugged him from the water like a floundering haddock spoke through a beard of such thickness, Cam couldn’t see his mouth. “There’s another rescue boat out, but I don’t ’old much ’ope for survivors. It’s a terrible day, terrible.”
Cam recognized the cruel truth of that. “Can we search for them?”
The man’s snort might have contained amusement or express derision for someone stupid enough to expect anyone to brave this storm. “We’ve seen nobody else. And we need to get you and your lady to shore. We’ve plucked two live uns from the waves. Reckon that’s our bounty.” He paused. “The lads are done in. As dangerous for rescuers as for drowners.”
While he recognized the sense in what the sailor said, Cam’s heart cramped with regret. John MacGregor was a good man, and the crew had been under Cam’s charge.
He moved closer to Pen. Gently, he turned her over and was shocked to see that she was barely covered. Drawing her into his arms, he spoke to the man who had saved him. “Do you have a blanket?”
“We’ve got some in the basket in the stern. No promises ’ow dry they be,” the man said gruffly. “They’ll warm your wife.”
Cam didn’t bother to explain that they weren’t married. The rower behind him passed word down. Soon Cam had wrapped Pen in a damp, prickly, but serviceable wool blanket.
Cam braced himself against the side of the boat. Pen only gradually returned to consciousness. She moaned and Cam pressed her icy face into the curve of his neck. He told himself he shared body heat—she was alarmingly cold and didn’t feel much more alive than she had as a drifting wraith. But the truth was that he needed to touch her to fill the void inside him that had opened when he’d thought her dead.
“You’re hurting me,” Pen muttered into his bare chest, her breath like a kiss.
“I’m sorry.” Reluctantly he loosened his grip. “How are you feeling?”
He took a moment to recognize the choked sound she made against his skin as a laugh. God above, she was magnificent.
“Awful.” Her voice was scratchy, as if she’d screamed for him again and again and he hadn’t come. Despite her earlier protest, his hold tightened.
“I’m not surprised.” He raised the flask of water to her lips. After she drank, choking a little, he spoke. “What do you remember?”
She showed no urge to move away. “I remember hitting the water. I remember trying to swim, but the cloak was so heavy. I should have taken it off, but the strings were tangled.” She leaned back to stare into his face. A jagged flash through the sky revealed a vulnerable expression. “Thank you for saving me.”
He gave her more water, pleased to see she managed better. “How do you know I did?”
Despite everything they’d been through, she found a smile. “You always saved me. Even if it meant fighting an army of village boys for the sake of a flea-bitten cat. Don’t you remember?”
“I remember.” Around them, the men rowed like demons. Inches away, the sea clawed at their boat. But he and Pen were cocooned in intimacy. “Don’t speak, Pen. Rest.”
For a woman who had nearly drowned, her gaze was remarkably steady. “No, there’s something I must say.”
“It can wait until we’re on land.”
“Please, Cam.” She rested her hand over his heart, the heart that had cracked at the thought of losing her. “Let me speak.”
He already knew he wouldn’t like what she said, but he wasn’t proof against her pleading. “Very well.”
“You will always be the dear friend of my childhood.” Despite her hoarseness and her pauses for breath, her voice was as steady as her gaze. “And now you’ve saved my life. Again.”
He took no comfort from what she said. Her manner hinted that she spoke of endings, not beginnings. “Rescuing you is my mission.”
“No longer.” Regret stabbed him when she lifted her hand from him. Her lovely face was drawn and tired—and heartbreakingly sad. “This journey hasn’t been easy on either of us. But it’s over. Let’s forget the anger, and remember one another with generosity. Let’s say our farewells without rancor.”
Penelope was right. And wise. Wiser than he.
He tucked her head under his chin and stared unseeingly toward the approaching coast. As Pen said, once they reached England, their dealings we
re done. His life would return to its assigned path. Playing the omnipotent Duke of Sedgemoor. Restoring some respect to the family name. Running his estates and investments. Marriage to Marianne Seaton.
He should be delighted. Instead, he felt like red-hot pincers ripped out his guts.
Chapter Thirteen
As the boat slid into the stone harbor, the cessation of pitching seemed a miracle to Pen.
Her body felt made of wet string. Battered wet string. Even breathing hurt. She was shaking and her teeth chattered, despite Cam’s best efforts to keep her warm. He must curse her for the loss of not only his yacht, but his crew.
He should have let her drown.
But of course he wouldn’t. He was too honorable. The offer he’d made before the ship foundered was the exception that proved the rule. She’d been so furious with him. Right now, having come so close to dying, it was hard to reawaken her outrage. Especially when he’d nearly died himself trying to save her.
The boat bumped against the pier and rocked as the sailor at the bow tied it to a metal hook. Daylight gradually returned as the storm abated.
When Pen struggled to stand, her legs folded beneath her. Predictably Cam caught her.
“Let me help you,” he said softly.
Once they were safely on the dock, Cam swept her into his arms. She curled into his powerful body against the onlookers’ curiosity. Taking those first painful gasps of air after nearly drowning, modesty had been the last thing on her mind. Now despite the weather, a crowd surrounded them and she was grateful for the concealing blanket.
“Come away to the Leaping Mackerel, sir,” a man said at Cam’s shoulder. “There’s food and a fire and we’ll fetch the doctor.”
“Thank you.” Cam sounded remarkably like his usual self, instead of the shaken man who had rescued her. He spoke over her head to the crew who had saved them. “And thanks to you. We owe you our lives.”