Page 58 of Impetuous

Cassandra hurried down the hill after Philip. Beneath the tree, Aunt Ardis was shrieking in concert with her daughter. By the time Philip reached the broad, the two footmen had already waded out into the pond, extending a long branch to Joanna. She flailed uselessly around, managing to both knock the branch out of everyone’s hands into the water and also to propel herself farther from shore.

“Stand up!” Crispin yelled, cupping his hands around his mouth. “It isn’t deep!”

But Joanna went under, splashing. Philip, who had been pulling off his boots, now shrugged out of his coat and walked into the broad. He moved to where Joanna struggled and reached down to pick her up in his arms. The water, Cassandra noted, did not even reach his waist.

Joanna was limp in Philip’s arms, her head resting against his shoulder, her eyes closed. Her velvet riding skirt was soaked with water, and the white cotton shirtwaist, Cassandra noticed, was almost transparent in its wet condition, clinging to her curves like a second skin. Her hair was down and wet, flowing about her shoulders like a mermaid’s.

“I told you it wasn’t deep,” Crispin commented disgustedly.

Philip set Joanna down on the grass and would have stood up, but Joanna clung to him convulsively. “Oh, thank you, Philip!” she cried. “You saved my life!” She looked up at him with melting blue eyes. “I am so lucky you were here.”

He shook his head. “No need to thank me.”

“I owe my life to you.”

This was too much for Crispin, who exclaimed, “Joanna, you goose! It wasn’t deep enough to drown in. I kept yelling at you to stand up. Didn’t you hear me?”

“Mort the groom says the whole broad is shallow enough to walk across,” Hart chimed in. “It’s just a pit where they used to cut peat, not a real lake.”

Joanna glared at the boys. “I almost drowned!” Her eyes narrowed. “It was probably you two who pushed me in!”

“What!”

“Joanna, don’t be such a goose,” Olivia said flatly. “You slipped and fell.”

“No. I distinctly felt a push on my back. I couldn’t see them, but it is just like one of their loathsome pranks.”

“We didn’t!” Crispin and Hart cried in unison.

“That’s not fair,” Crispin went on reasonably. “If you didn’t see, how can you say it was us?”

“Who else would do it?” Joanna countered.

“You don’t want to admit that you did something as stupid as fall into a pond,” Hart said scornfully.

“I am sure it was no one’s fault,” Cassandra said firmly. “It was just one of those things that happen.”

“Yes, yes, I am sure that is it,” Miss Yorke agreed, obviously distressed by the conflict. “No one’s fault.”

One of the servants brought a blanket to drape around Joanna’s scantily clad body. Cassandra was sure she saw a flash of irritation in her cousin’s face as the maid wrapped it around her tightly.

Cassandra had her own ideas about exactly how Joanna had wound up in the water. She felt quite sure that her cousin had staged the whole thing in order to get Sir Philip to rush to her rescue. She had doubtless seen him go off in the direction Cassandra had taken, and she had decided to bring him back. With the water as shallow as it was, she would have had ample time to scream and thrash about without any fear of hurting herself until Philip came running back. When the servants had tried to pull her out, she had managed to thwart them and wait for Philip’s rescue. It was exactly the sort of thing that Joanna would do, but, of course, she could not prove it.

“Oh, Joanna! My darling! My baby!” Everyone had been vaguely aware of a low keening sound behind them, growing in intensity, and now Aunt Ardis burst into words as she rushed the last few yards to her daughter and threw herself down on the ground beside her. “Are you all right?” She clasped the girl to her bosom dramatically. “Oh, my baby!”

“I’m fine, Mama, really.” Joanna pulled away from her, turning back toward Philip, whom she had been clutching earlier. But Sir Philip had taken advantage of her mother’s embrace to rise to his feet and step back.

“Why don’t we move back and give her some air?” Sir Philip suggested.

“You are right, Sir Philip,” Miss Yorke was quick to agree.

Everyone stepped back a few paces, looking down at Joanna as if she were an exhibit in a museum. It occurred to Cassandra that with her heavy riding skirt soaked and her boots filled with water, the blanket wrapped around her, and her hair streaming down every which way, Joanna looked more sodden and unkempt than fragile and alluring.

Joanna obviously realized, too, that her moment was slipping away, for she turned her face up piteously to Sir Philip, saying, “Please, Philip, could you carry me to the carriage? I do not think that I can walk so far, and I must go back. I can stay here no longer.”

He did not look overly eager, but there was little he could say. Kneeling beside her, he lifted her up into his arms again and started toward the carriage. Joanna once again leaned against his shoulder trustingly, and her arms curled around his neck.

Cassandra watched them go. It had, she thought, been a thoroughly miserable day. Now it would be capped off by being squeezed into the carriage with Joanna, soaking wet.