Page 45 of Echoes of the Sea (Storm Tide #2)

Amelia hadn’t let herself think about what had happened little more than an hour earlier.

The monumental task of limp-ing back to the house and changing out of her wet clothing, followed by Jane painstakingly cleaning every cut she had, under instructions from Kipling, and then dressing once more had distracted Amelia’s mind sufficiently. But there were no more distractions.

Alone in her room, wrapped in a warm blanket and dressed in dry clothes, hearing the storm rage outside, she could only listen to her heart thud against her ribs as her mind spun with terrifying recollections: Her cane slipping out from under her as the ground itself shifted.

Her twisted foot betraying her. Tumbling over the edge.

Excruciating pain as she scraped against rocks on her way down while frantically grabbing for anything she could cling to.

The bite of being submerged in cold water.

She shook all over again, trembling as the terror returned anew. She’d held on to an unforgivingly jagged rock there at the shore, searching with her feet for something solid beneath her.

The ocean had continued to pummel her, continued snatching at her, trying to pull her into its inky depths.

She took in a deep lungful of air, hoping to reassure her spinning mind that the ordeal was over and that she was on dry land, safely inside the house. It didn’t help.

Amelia was not one for crying and weeping. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d done it. And yet she couldn’t hold her tears back any longer.

She cried at the cruelty of a grandfather who was forcing her to live in the one location in all of England that would make her the most miserable, under terms that meant an accident as harrowing as she’d just endured could cost her the inheritance that he had dangled in front of her.

She’d left the island, no matter that she hadn’t done so on purpose, and that might very well be considered a violation of his requirements.

As if that weren’t enough, her tears also fell because she’d fallen so entirely in love with Kipling.

Again and again, she had declared herself grateful that the Tides of Time had brought him into her life.

And that made her feel every bit as cruel as her grandfather because Kipling had lost everything and everyone he knew, and he was lonely and heartbroken.

Though she hardly remembered her parents, thoughts of them flooded over her.

And she wept for them too. She wept for her own loneliness.

She wept for the neglect she’d known. She wept for the uncle who had changed so quickly at the promise of money.

And she wept at the thought of Mr. Winthrop and the life she would likely be expected to build with him.

It was too much. She was a woman of strength and determination. She was capable and determined. She was also overwhelmed.

The door to the mistress’s dressing room opened.

On the other side of the dressing room was a small bedchamber, where the lady of the estate’s abigail would likely live, which also had a door to the servants’ corridors and access to the servants’ stairs.

It would be very convenient for the servants, but in moments like this, when the lady of the house longed for privacy, Amelia thought it more of an inconvenience.

She could hear the slight clink of what sounded like dishes on a tray. Cook had sent up food.

How could Amelia be annoyed at the interruption when the good people who’d come to help her with Guilford were looking after her still?

She rose carefully, using her chair to steady herself.

Turning fully to the window allowed her to keep her face hidden.

“You can place those on the table.” She was impressed with how steady she kept her voice.

She hadn’t turned around, so whoever among the staff had brought the food likely wouldn’t realize she’d been crying.

That would give her time to pull herself together before she had to face anyone.

“It is quite a labyrinth getting in here through the servants’ stairs.” Kipling .

Amelia turned toward him; she couldn’t help herself. She was always drawn to him when he was nearby.

He was focused on setting items from the tray onto the table.

“I wanted to come check on you, but I didn’t want your uncle to think that he had an open invitation to do so. And definitely not Mr. Winthrop.”

She just nodded, feeling unequal to actually saying anything.

“I asked Mick to show me the trick of getting here unseen, he being an expert at slipping about the place. He was all too happy to—” Kipling’s story ended very abruptly as he looked up at her. His brow pulled in tight. “You’ve been crying.”

She didn’t intend to lie and insist she hadn’t been, so she made a valiant attempt to wave it off as though it were only a small thing, and he needn’t be concerned.

He crossed the rest of the way to her, never looking away. His expression was one of concern but not pity, and somehow that combination undid her. The tears came again, flowing unchecked once more. In an instant, his arms were around her, holding her so kindly and so tenderly.

Even as the tears flowed, the words spilled from her.

“I was in the sea, my worst nightmare. I was living the horror, and I didn’t know how to get out.

And I’m in pain and sore. I’ve lost my cane.

I’m still cold. I have to stay here, surrounded by the ocean, for months yet.

My uncle doesn’t seem entirely convinced of anything.

And Mr. Winthrop has begun looking at me with a possessiveness that makes my skin crawl, but I’m not in any position to make him leave.

I was tired before today’s ordeal, and I feel so exhausted now that I don’t know how I will ever even function again. ”

Kipling didn’t offer any platitudes or dismissals. He simply held her, managing to embrace her in a way that didn’t add to that pain. It was gentle enough to take into account her injuries but strong enough to give her strength.

“If you hadn’t helped me, the sea would have taken me away.” She couldn’t summon more volume than a whisper. “I ought to feel relieved, but ...” She took a shaky breath.

“But what?” he asked softly.

“I was off the island, Kipling. My grandfather’s will is very specific.

Should I at any point not have at least one foot, one hand on the island, then I have violated the terms of his will.

” It felt like such a petty thing to be worried about when she had almost died, but she did have to worry about it.

“No exceptions were made for accidents.”

“Mr. Winthrop asked if your fall had placed you in the water when we came into the house. You were in such a state of shock that I didn’t think you heard. I wondered at the time why he asked, as he doesn’t seem the sort to be concerned with others’ welfare.”

Amelia leaned back enough to look up at him.

This very important conversation had not even brought her to her senses that night.

She had been too far gone with the horror of the moment.

But if Mr. Winthrop knew, then her uncle knew.

And if her uncle knew, then everything they had been working for was undone.

Kipling’s smile was reassuring and not the least patronizing.

“I told him that you stumbled onto some particularly unforgiving rocks off to the side of the path, which I’ll point out is true.

We were both soaked, I said, because it was raining incredibly hard, which was also true.

I will hold to that story to my dying breath, Amelia Archibald. You need simply tell the same one.”

Some of her distress began to ease. “I wish my uncle could be trusted to be fair about my accidentally ‘leaving’ the island. But I don’t know that he can see past the possibility of claiming half my inheritance.”

Kipling gently stroked her face, managing to avoid the cuts she had sustained there.

“I will tell you, because I suspect you were too pained and in far too much residual terror to have paid much heed to the people we encountered as we returned to the house, but your uncle did look genuinely worried for you and sincerely relieved that you had emerged from your ordeal relatively unharmed. I don’t think he’s as far gone as we have worried he might be. ”

“And Mr. Winthrop?” she asked, more calmly than she’d spoken even an instant earlier. Kipling was setting her mind at ease and soothing her battered heart.

“Oh, Mr. Winthrop is still a definitively horrible person. Indeed, the more I know of him, the more I suspect we don’t even realize what a dastardly villain he probably is.”

“And he is the man my uncle will insist I marry if I fail here at Guilford. That undermines your insistence that my uncle is redeemable.”

Kipling’s confidence didn’t seem to waver, which helped hers remain strong.

“After all you have been through, other than keeping your wounds clean and resting, one of the best things you can do is make sure you take nourishment.”

He kept an arm around her as he helped her sit once more at the little table where he’d set the tray.

He saw her seated, then studied her a minute, the sort of perusal that a person generally undertook when hoping to discover that someone they worried might be unwell was, in fact, well enough.

After a moment, he looked satisfied with what he saw.

“While you eat,” he said, “I need to make a confession.”

She glanced at him nervously.

He smiled, and her heart flipped about, as it always did with his smile.

“I’m not about to tell you I’ve done something horrific.

” Kipling stepped back and set his shoulders.

He didn’t mean to confess to past crimes, but apparently, whatever he did intend to talk about was not a small thing.

“Please do eat while I talk,” he said. “It will be good for you, but it will also give you something to do other than look at me like I’m a complete imbecile. ”