Nicola Cornick Collection: The Last Rake In London / Notorious / Desired. Nicola Cornick
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we are simply enjoying one another’s company, Aunt.’
Lady Ottoline sniffed. ‘If you enjoy each other’s company that much, Charlotte, you would definitely have more children by now!’
Charley caught Sally’s eye and rolled her eyes. Sally hid her smile in her teacup. It was pleasant sitting here by the lake in the afternoon sunshine—so soothing that she could almost forget that her engagement to Jack was a sham that would shortly be at an end and there would certainly be no children for them, not now, not ever. It was even more pleasant to be wearing one of Charley’s tea gowns, blessedly free of the constraints of the corset beneath. Its loose and flowing lines were cool on such a hot day and made her feel relaxed and sleepy.
‘I expect that Jack will be purchasing a country estate for the pair of you shortly,’ Lady Ottoline said, turning her observant dark gaze on Sally. ‘Of course, he will have both Saltires and Kestrel Court in Suffolk one day, but a man cannot have too much land, I always say, and at least he has the income to support it.’
‘We have not discussed it, your ladyship,’ Sally said truthfully, wishing that Lady Ottoline would leave all questions relating to their imaginary future.
Lady Ottoline snorted. ‘You seem to have discussed nothing! Young people today are remarkably lax in their planning!’
Charley opened her mouth to spring to Sally’s defence again, but there was a sudden scream from the lake where the nursemaid was supervising Lucy’s games. They all turned to see what was going on. The maid was shrieking ineffectually and running along the edge of the water. Of Lucy there was no sign other than her bonnet floating out on the lake.
‘Lucy!’ Charlotte said in a horrified whisper. She was half-out of her seat, the china cup falling from her hand to smash on the terrace. ‘She’s fallen off the jetty into the deep water! What can we do? I can’t swim.’
Sally did not hesitate. She ran down from the terrace towards the lake. All she could see was a hot day in June on the River Isis so many years ago, and her father losing his footing in the punt and toppling backwards, oh so slowly, into the water. She had waited then, waited for him to surface and swim to the bank, but as several frantic moments had passed there had been no sign of him. She had never seen him alive again.
That had been her mistake, to take no action, to wait. She had blamed herself for failing him and she had been terrified of water ever since. But she could not afford to let that fear rule her now.
Sally could feel the planks of the wooden jetty hot underneath the soles of her thin slippers. The maid had stopped screaming now and was running back up the slope of the grass towards the house. Charlotte had already disappeared around the corner of the stables to get help.
Sally ran to the end of the jetty and jumped. The water was deeper than she had imagined, closing over her head for one brief, terrifying moment before she broke the surface, gasping for air. It was shockingly cold and thick with weed and sludge. The beautiful lacy tea gown was immediately soaked and wrapped around her legs, weighing her down.
Gulping a breath of air, she dived under the water and felt a mixture of inexpressible relief and abject fear as she saw Lucy’s frighteningly inert body floating beside the jetty uprights. She swam over and grabbed the child, hoping and praying that Lucy had not swallowed too much water or hit her head on the wooden frame of the jetty when she fell. The little girl’s body felt heavy, weighed down by water, threatening to slip from her grasp. Sally’s arms ached as she tried to hold her up.
People were running down the lawn now; one of the grooms with a ladder, another with a rope, and Jack in front of them all, ripping off his jacket as he ran and dropping it on the grass so that he could dive straight in and catch hold of Lucy from Sally’s arms, passing the little girl up into the eager grasp of the grooms.
Sally felt her skirts hitch on something under the water and struggled ineffectually to free herself, gulping a mouthful of clammy weed-filled water in the process. Her limbs suddenly felt weighted with lead, her shoulders aching, and the drag of her skirts pulling her down. She thrashed about, reaching for the rope that snaked into the water beside her, missing it and going under again. For a second she had a terrifying vision of what it must have been like for her father as the water closed over his head, and then Jack was beside her, his arm hard about her waist, dragging her up into the daylight again and she could feel his strength and knew that she was safe. He scooped her up in his arms and her sodden skirts ripped and then she was rolling over and over on the warm wood of the jetty and someone was wrapping a blanket about her and the heat of the sun started to penetrate her chill and she began to shiver and shiver with reaction.
Charlotte was holding Lucy in her arms and rubbing her chilled body with the blanket. Lucy had recovered her consciousness and been violently sick, which Sally could only think was a good thing. Lady Ottoline was marshalling the servants, sending a groom to Dauntsey village for a doctor, despatching housemaids to warm some water for baths and to fetch fresh towels and blankets. Stephen had just arrived, pale and distraught, to support his wife and daughter back up to the house.
‘Come on.’ Jack swept Sally up into his arms. ‘We need to get you out of those wet clothes and into a warm bath.’
‘Thank goodness,’ Sally said, through chattering teeth. ‘Thank goodness you came, Jack. I was so afraid I was going to let her go. I thought she was dead!’ Her voice broke on the word and she turned her face into the warmth of Jack’s neck and breathed in the reassuring scent of his skin. For a second she thought she felt his lips brush her cheek in utter tenderness although his arms were as strong as steel about her.
‘You did very well,’ he whispered. ‘You saved Lucy’s life.’
Sally closed her eyes as he carried her up to the terrace, into the house and directly up the stairs to her bedroom, ignoring the ineffectual fluttering of the servants and shutting the bedroom door in their faces.
‘Take those wet clothes off,’ he ordered, as he put Sally gently on her feet in the black-and-white tiled bathroom and turned on the taps so that the water gushed into the bath.
Sally blushed. ‘I will do no such thing with you in the room! You can send one of the maids to attend to me.’
Jack shook his head. ‘They are all at sixes and sevens and would be no use at all. You will have to make do with me. I’m going to fetch some hot water to top up the bath; by the time I get back, I expect you to be naked and in the water.’
The hot colour deepened in Sally’s face even as she shivered in the wet folds of the tea gown. She heard the door slam behind Jack and started to struggle with the buttons and laces of the dress, but her fingers felt cold and were shaking so much that the fastenings slipped from her grip. When Jack returned, what seemed like a mere few minutes later, he found her half-out of the gown and struggling helplessly while the material dripped a puddle onto the floor.
‘One of these days,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘I will get you out of your clothes without destroying them in the process.’
He ripped the sodden shreds of the tea gown from Sally’s body and dropped them on the floor.
Sally gave a gasp. ‘Charley’s dress!’
‘You surely don’t think that it would be fit to wear ever again, do you?’ Jack countered. He looked at her. ‘Do you want me to take off your chemise as well?’
‘No!’ Sally said. ‘Go away!’
Jack grinned. ‘I’ll wait for you in the bedroom.’
After he had gone out, Sally managed to struggle out of the clinging remnants of her underwear and slid into the scented waters of the bath with a little sigh of relief. She lay back, eyes closed, whilst the hot water lapped about her shoulders and soothed her cold body. But the little shivers that racked her would not go away. Unbidden, the image of her father’s lifeless body came into her mind. His face had been grey when they had finally dragged him from the river, the weed clinging to his body, sodden and unmoving. She shuddered, remembering the weight of Lucy in her arms and the terrible