Page 37 of The Runaway Duchess

Down was always faster. Could he spring far enough out into the water to avoid getting sucked down and smashed on the rocks? Some questions weren’t worth asking. He let the bonnet drop from his arm. Down he went.

—

Lavinia was experiencing a sublime pleasure, the idea of which would once have made her peal with incredulous laughter. She was biting into a warm golden-yellow bun that she’d baked with her own two hands. What unparalleled satisfaction.

Granted, Kelyn had started the process in the wee hours of the morning, steeping the saffron in milk, mixing the dough, setting it to rise, but she’d explained the stages so thoroughly as they kneaded that Lavinia could imagine she’d participated from the onset. Anyway, who cared to make such fine distinctions?

She had worked the springy dough and watched the buns burnish, and now the crust was squeaking between her teeth and the butter was dripping over her lips, and it was simply divine.

She’d never have guessed. In a kitchen, you combined dry things and wet things and added labor and heat and the things metamorphosed before your eyes. Magic. More likely science, but again, who cared?

Loveday was telling an amusing story about Neal as a boy. They’d been off to a cove with marvelous sands stippled with shells and deep pools for bathing, and as they rode in the wagon on the long journey home, Neal had taken a caraway seed off her biscuit and told her that if she planted it she’d have a whole crop of biscuits come September.

“Did you plant it?” Lavinia’s laughter came out of her nose. Snorting wasn’t ladylike. And snorting in a kitchen with flour in your hair, eating standing up, straight off a tray?

Who cares, who cares, who cares.

“Of course I believed him.” Loveday had halved her bun and was spreading it thickly with clotted cream. “He’s very convincing. Perhaps you don’t know that yet.”

“Perhaps she does,” said Kelyn. Lavinia thought the dimple in her round cheek looked delicious, like a currant in a cake. Everything was delicious. “She’s here, after all.”

“I’m glad that I’m here,” said Lavinia, adding a spoonful of cream to her bun. Loveday paced to the window.

“I don’t know why Emmeline isn’t here,” she said. “It doesn’t take an hour to walk a loaf of bread down the lane.”

“She’s attentive to the vicar.” Kelyn stacked dirty bowls on the table. “I only hope she brought the umbrella. It sounds like Bedlam broke loose.”

Indeed, the wind had started howling and the house gave a great shudder. They all jumped as the front door banged.

“That’ll be the storm,” said Kelyn, but a moment later, Emmeline burst into the kitchen, hair plastered to her cheeks, eyes wild.

“Yestin and Tristan,” she gasped. “In the harbor.”

“And Davy?” Loveday started forward.

“He’s there, he’s taking the boat out after them.” Emmeline gulped air. “And Neal, he saw them first. He jumped—he jumped from the cliff.”

“God protect us!” Kelyn’s hands pressed her heart.

“The vicar watched him go in, but the waves were so high.” Emmeline’s voice rose in pitch. “He doesn’t know . . . He didn’t see . . .”

Loveday was already brushing by her, hurtling down the hall, and Lavinia realized she was running too. The wind knocked her breath away as she stepped out into the gale. The little stretch of midafternoon calm had allowed the storm to regroup, to double its force. She was half-blinded by rain, tripping behind Loveday, who seemed to fly over the cobbles. Other villagers had come to their doors, and some were already out, ahead of them, feet pounding the winding streets. A shout had gone up, become general.

“The Strout boys!”

“The harbor!”

The shore was thronged with men, and Loveday shoved her way between them, Lavinia insinuating herself into the gaps, stumbling as her feet sank in the sand. Fishing boats were tossing in the water, tilting so far to left and right that their masts splashed the waves. Beyond the headlands, the sea was roaring, breakers dashing themselves to vapor, so the spray rising and the rain falling became a single frothy veil. Again and again, the veil was rent by a surge of dark water. The day itself was drowning. Here and there in the bay, black rocks broke the surface of the water, collared by foam. Was that Davy’s boat tumbling over the billows? And Neal—where was Neal?

“Tide’s running in.” A woman moaned near Lavinia’s ear. Lavinia spun and bumped Emmeline, who gripped her arm like a vise. Her face was stark. Around them, the crowd expanded, became a damp mass of elbows, shoulders, and hips. Lavinia was knocked this way and that. She could no longer see the water. Voices merged with the explosive thunder of the sea. Emmeline pulled her forward, and they struggled closer to the pier. There was Loveday, clasped in the arms of an enormous black-clad man. Her sobs were harsh as the wind.

“More boats are going out.” The man’s deep, carrying baritone reached them. “Fear not, child. God is with them.”

“What’s happened?” Emmeline cried, and a woman at her side answered.

“He’s been run into the reef, poor Davy Strout.”

“Smashed? The boat?” Emmeline’s fingernails cut into Lavinia’s skin. The woman drew up her shawl, shaking her head.