Page 81 of Her Rake Fiancé

“Thorne! Richard!” she tried to call out, but it was a struggle, her lungs working hard to keep her afloat and moving.

Ahead of her, Hercules barked again as if echoing her sentiments.

A tug on her skirt stopped her midriver. She kicked forward, but something had snagged her dress. She glanced down, but the muddy water revealed nothing. She took a deep breath and plunged underwater, cold seeping into her skull. Reaching down, she found the culprit—a broken tree branch.

She yanked at it desperately, her lungs protesting for air. Panic clawed at her heart, fear freezing her blood. She broke the surface of the water, gasping for breath. What if, while she was trapped, one of the men she loved was killed?

She looked back at the bank. They were still alive. Thorne and Richard held their positions. Thorne’s pistol was aimed at Richard, while Richard’s arm pointed towards the sky.

Hercules, having reached the opposite bank, barked loudly, drawing all attention.

The heads of all seven men turned to him. Thorne’s and Richard’s pistol-bearing arms both fell. Thorne ran to Hercules, and she could hear him saying, “What are you doing here, pal?”

Hercules turned his head to Jane and kept barking.

Then her brother’s and Richard’s eyes found her.

The color drained from their faces as they sprinted towards the river, desperately jostling for position with each other like two kids trying to climb a staircase at the same time. “Jane!” they both cried. “Jane!”

“Jane, swim, darling!” cried Thorne. “You know how!”

“Jane, hold on, I’m coming!” cried Richard.

Then there was loud splashing, and Richard and Thorne were both in the river, working their way through the water, hurrying to her. She’d managed it; she had stopped their silly duel!

“I’m fine. It’s this damn tree!” she cried.

She desperately needed to free her skirt of its thorny entanglement so she could swim away. Taking a deep breath, she dived beneath the icy surface again and reached for the hem. The river’s murky water muffled the sounds around her as she tugged at the fabric, but it wouldn’t give. Fear welled up in her chest as she realized that escape may not be so easy, after all.

Then she thought perhaps she could break the branch. It was quite thick, but maybe she’d be able to.

She sank even farther, clasped on to the branch with both hands, and pulled, gritting her teeth. It felt like her lungs were caving in under the pressure of holding her breath. She thought about Richard—the future they could have together if only she managed to snap this piece of wood. With one final push and a silent prayer, she used all her strength to bend the branch until it finally broke.

She was free. She’d just started to push herself up to swim to the surface when strong arms grasped her around her waist and pulled.

She emerged into the coldness and the delicious freshness of the air, opened her mouth, and sucked in as much as she could, splashing with her arms to keep herself afloat. She looked around. Both Thorne and Richard were there, Richard’s arms still firmly around her waist, holding her up as he spat out some murky water. Thorne’s face was stern and furious, and both men’s wet hair clung to their foreheads, water dripping from their chins and eyelashes.

She kept breathing, gasping in and out when she turned to the shore. Hercules was barking on the bank, his tail rhythmically wagging from side to side. Preston and Sebastian, as well as Thorne’s three lieutenants, stood ankle-deep in the water, staring at her and at the two men who swam around her.

“Are you all right, Jane?” asked Thorne.

“I’m fine,” she said when she could catch her breath. “Now that I know you two aren’t going to kill each other!”

Thorne and Richard exchanged glares.

“Come on, love,” said Richard. “Let’s get you out of the water.”

He was so strangely handsome, wet, and vulnerable and yet incredibly alluring. Maybe it was the way his white shirt clung to his strong neck…

“Can you swim?” he asked.

“Of course I can,” she said. “And there was no need for either of you to jump into the water. I’m perfectly capable of saving myself.”

The look of helplessness on her brother’s and Richard’s faces told her she was exactly right about that. She kept swimming forward, the muscles of her chest and arms pleasantly burning with the exercise. She should get into the habit of swimming more often.

As Richard and Thorne followed her, one on each side, she saw that Preston was on his way from the carriage with heaps of blankets in his arms.

Jane stepped onto the muddy shore and shook with cold. She clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering, but her body continued to tremble as Preston, Sebastian, and Brace wrapped blankets around her shoulders and those of Richard and Thorne. Water dripped off her clothes and hair, which had tumbled out of its bun. Hercules barked with joy and pawed the ground before leaping up to greet each person with muddy paws. Richard’s white shirt was soon marked with dark smudges.