Page 80 of A Single Thread of Moonlight

“Sensitive as a boot,” Nick grumbled.

“The two of you are as bad as each other with all this petty one-upmanship,” I snapped. I’d had enough of this. Enough of the lies. It seemed my whole life was built on them. If Nick wanted to ruin Stefan’s life then I wanted to know why. “Well, you wanted me in the middle of it, so here I am.” With that I got to my feet, sending the boat rocking wildly.

“Sit down!” Nick hissed.

“Why?’ I asked. “So that you can scold me some more? Tell me that I don’t understand, when you could simply explain it to me?”

I hadn’t noticed the others rowing back towards us, but Nick obviously had because he opened his mouth to call a warning. It was too late.

Stefan, with his back to us, and still rowing as vigorously as before, sent a wave of water cascading towards us. I just had time to see Agatha’s tiny smirk of triumph before the boat tipped and I was tumbling towards the water. Nick reached out to me, a strong hand wrapped around my wrist, but it was no use.

I fell dramatically into the water and, worse still, I pulled Nick in with me.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The water hit me like a cold slap. I felt Nick’s arm come about my waist. Even in the water I could feel it warm through my thin dress like a brand against my skin, and I smacked it away.

“I can swim, I can swim,” I spluttered. “As long as you stop hauling me about.”

Nick let go of me with what I thought might have been a watery laugh, and the two of us were left treading water for a moment.

“Of course you can,” he said. “You make a terrible swooning heroine.”

“I thought we agreed that the villains were much more interesting,” I managed, and then Stefan had manoeuvred his boat in next to us and his arm was there, reaching for me.

“No, no,” I said, waving him away. “I’ll swim to the bank. No use hauling me in the bottom of the boat like a poor gasping fish. I’ll only get Agatha’s beautiful dress dirty.”

Stefan’s eyes glimmered with humour, and something that looked like admiration. It was nice that something good had come out of this disaster, I supposed.

I followed Nick as he swam towards the bank. Swimming in an afternoon gown was not easy, but I managed, and when I reached the side of the river, Nick was there to offer me a hand. We pushed our way up on to the bank, adding a good smearing of dirt to our soaked clothes.

The others in the boats laughed and cheered, seeing us safe on dry land, and Nick stood to take a bow, the water running off him in rivulets, while I waved jauntily and tried to catch my breath.

“We’ll come across the bridge,” I called, pointing upstream, “if one of you can tow the boat.”

Stefan blew me a laughing kiss, and set about rescuing our boat, while Agatha glowered at me from beneath her parasol.

“Your lovely gown, Miss Fox,” she called sweetly. “What a shame it’s ruined.”

I looked down at myself. She was quite right. The pretty pale pink was now a dirty grey, and I doubted any of Matilda’s magic would be able to rescue it. It also weighed a ton.

“These are not meant for swimming in,” I grumbled, hauling at my skirts while the others rowed away.

“I’m only glad I wasn’t wearing my jacket,” Nick said, pushing his wet hair back away from his face. “I wouldn’t have been able to face my valet.”

We trudged along the bank towards the stone bridge. My shoes were squelching, and I could feel my hair coming down from its pins, snaking around my head. I was certain that I looked a picture, but only if that picture was Caravaggio’s Medusa.

I snuck a glance at Nick and caught him doing the same at me. My cheeks burned and I turned to face forward.

We walked the rest of the way back in silence.

When we arrived back at the house, wrapped in the blankets that Nick had picked up on our way past the stables, we were met at the door by Lady Bell, and Nick’s grandmother, who had been told all about our boating disaster.

“Oh dear,” Lady Bell wittered. “I knew the river was a bad idea. I do hope you haven’t caught a chill. Those things can be simply deadly, the way they sneak up on you.”

“I think Miss Fox has a stronger constitution than that,” the dowager countess said, casting me a disapproving look. No doubt future countesses did not fall in rivers and if they did they certainly didn’t contract life-threatening chills. “But you had better go straight up and have a hot bath and change out of those clothes.”

I longed to say that I had already determined upon that surprising course of action myself, thank you very much, but I bit my tongue.