Page 52 of An Unexpected Earl

“No, they won’t.” He tucked her into the hollow between his arm and his side, then turned to the waterman. “Shoot the bridge.”

“At night, comin’ on t’ high tide?” The waterman paused in his rowing. “Yer fuckin’ mad!”

“I’ll pay you a sovereign when we come out the other side.”

“Ifwe come out, ye mean. But it’s yer death.” The man shot a troubled glance at Amelia and muttered, “Hope the lass can swim.”

But the waterman rowed harder now, putting his back into each deep stroke of the oars as he steered them around the hulks and ships anchored in the middle of the swift river, speeding them downstream toward London Bridge.

Fourteen

“Can you still swim?” Pearce asked her.

Amelia stared at the dark bridge as it rapidly grew closer, her hands clutching the side of the narrow skiff so tightly that Pearce could almost see her white knuckles in the darkness.

“Amelia.” He took her chin and made her tear her eyes away from the river to look at him. Terror gleamed in their depths. “I taught you to swim when we were children. Can you still do it?”

She nodded jerkily. “I–I think so.”

That answer didn’t instill confidence in him. So he grabbed up her skirt and ripped it with his hands, tearing off a strip of fabric about six inches wide, all the way around her hem.

She gasped in surprise but thankfully didn’t try to stop him. “What are youdoing?”

He tied one end of the black cloth around his wrist as tightly as he could. Then he dipped it into the inch of water lining the bottom of the boat and yanked on it again to fuse the knot.

“Tying us together,” he answered. He grabbed her hand, and in seconds, he’d tied the other end of the cloth strip around her wrist. “This way we won’t be separated if the boat overturns.”

Or smashed to bits against the stone starlings. Pearce couldn’t bring himself to utter that aloud. He was putting their lives at risk, he knew that. But he wouldn’t let those men catch her. If they did, she’d be dead for certain. He was gambling that they would make it through the churning water beneath the bridge and that the men chasing after them wouldn’t dare follow.

Wide-eyed and stunned into silence, Amelia glanced between him and her tied wrist as she held it up in front of her. She flexed and unflexed her fist, as if she couldn’t believe the tie was real.

The bridge loomed closer. Pearce cupped her face between his hands to make certain she was paying attention. “If we turn over, we’ll swim to the north bank, understand? Don’t fight the current. Let it sweep us downriver, and we’ll use it to make our way to the quayside. There are all kinds of ladders and steps there that we can use to climb out. All right?”

But when she nodded, the hard swallow he felt undulate down her throat told him that she wasn’t all right. Not at all.

“I’ll be with you at every stroke you swim.” He rested his forehead against hers. “Just like we did in the River Tame, remember? That summer when I showed you how to swim? I knew someday that you’d need to know how. This is why I taught you.”

“No, you taught me because when the water soaked through my clothes, it plastered them to my skin. Everywhere.” She bravely forced a weak smile. “I saw how you looked at me. It wasn’t because you wanted to teach me to swim.”

True enough. He flashed her a rakish grin. “Why do you think I tied us together tonight? So I get first glimpse of you all wet.”

But his teasing did little to alleviate her growing fear or stop her shaking.

The bridge was coming on quickly, now less than a hundred yards away.

“Sit in the bottom of the boat.” He helped her off the wooden seat and down against the hull. She flinched at the cold water soaking into her stockings and skirt. Before this was all over, though, at the very least she’d be drenched. “And hang on tight.”

He sat on the seat behind her and wrapped his legs around her waist to hold her down in the boat.

The man nodded knowingly at Pearce’s preparations. “Ye’ve shot the bridge before, then?”

“No,” he answered, keeping his gaze straight ahead at the oncoming starlings and the swirling water funneling through them. His hands tightened their grip on the sides of the narrow boat. “Just charged French cannon at Waterloo.”

The waterman put one oar into the skiff and lifted the other from its pin to drag it behind the rear of the speeding boat like a rudder. He turned the oar and pointed the boat toward the center arch, lining it up right between the stone piers.

“There will be rapids when we reach the arches, and a drop of several feet when we come out the other side,” Pearce warned her as the bridge sped toward them. “But hang on tight to the boat, and everything will be fine.”Ten, nine, eight…They barreled at top speed toward the stone starlings. “I’ll protect you.”Five, four, three…“I’llalwaysprotect you.”

She glanced back at him. Only for a moment, but in that pause, he felt the unbreakable connection between them. It was still there, even after twelve years apart, as tangible as the strip of cloth now binding them together.