Page 2 of The Wordsworth Key (Regency Secrets #3)

Chapter Two

Loughrigg Tarn, Lake District

‘S top, stop, you’re going to kill me!’ Panic rising, Dora pulled against the firm grip dragging her towards the tarn.

It was a wild, dark night. Only the stars were witness to this atrocity, but they were fighting with the clouds.

Trees roared a protest to the wind. Sheep bleated from the fells.

Lamplight came from twenty feet above, spilling out of the open door of the cottage from which she’d been forced by the wretched man who thought he knew what was best for her.

‘Kill you? I’m trying to teach you to swim!’ Jacob’s resolution wasn’t dented by her squawk as bare feet exchanged grass for stones. ‘It could save your life one day.’

He must’ve taken leave of his senses. Even though it was August, there was nothing balmy about Cumberland in a storm. ‘If God had meant us to swim, he would’ve given us fins.’ Jacob snorted. She had to come up with a better excuse. ‘I swear I heard thunder! You shouldn’t swim in a thunderstorm.’

‘Door-raa.’ He lengthened the vowels in her name, chiding her cowardice.

‘There’s no thunder. You’ll love it– I promise.

’ He let go of her hand and drew off his shirt.

The damp linen flopped to the turf to sprawl like a flattened sheep.

‘Night swimming. Best time– no one can see us– no one to cluck their disapproval.’

‘I only said I wished I could swim– not that I wanted to learn!’ How she regretted those careless words when he read her a poem about children playing on the shore.

He scooped up some water and splashed it over his chest, testing the temperature.

He flicked a little at her. ‘But why pass up the chance when this is the best place for swimming in the whole of the Lakes? It’s not even that cold.

’ His broad shoulders gleamed silver as he flexed and rolled them, warming up for his dip.

With all that delectable skin on show, she could think of far more enjoyable things they could be doing. ‘Because I was enjoying a quiet evening in your library and thinking about the chance of going to bed– with you.’

Jacob paused, considering her bed comment, then he carried on undressing. ‘Good try. But I can’t in all good conscience deprive you of a delight you haven’t yet experienced.’

She folded her arms and scrunched up her toes. ‘I’ve tried swimming many times before. I don’t want to try again.’ The wind beat her petticoat around her legs, her dark curls escaped the clip and whipped free.

‘You won’t mind the rain once you’re in.’

‘Jacob, I said no.’

Something in her tone must’ve alerted him to this being more than stubbornness.

Jacob closed the distance between them and brushed errant strands off her face.

His eyes sparkled with tender humour. In contrast to her tangled mop, his brown hair was slicked back like an otter, almost black now it was wet. ‘What’s the matter, sweetheart?’

This was embarrassing to admit. ‘I’m… a little scared of water.

’ There: she’d said it. She’d loved bathing as a child and would’ve been the first to jump into any river or pond, but no one had ever taken the trouble to teach her how to swim properly.

Certainly not her father, and her brother had been more intent on playing tricks or ducking her when he got the chance.

Anthony hadn’t been the sort to teach people anything useful, or only if it amused him.

She’d been content with splashing about and doggy paddling until the memorable day a couple of years ago when she’d got caught in a current, seen the beach travel away from her no matter what she did.

She had almost drowned. Three fishermen had saved her on the urging of Ruby Plum, her fellow actress, who had begged them to abandon their net mending and rescue Dora.

No one could resist an appeal from Ruby.

‘I’ve never been a strong swimmer, and I had a bad experience at Scarborough. I got caught in a riptide.’

He winced sympathetically. ‘This is nothing like sea bathing– no riptides here. I promise you you’ll be pleased you tried.’

‘Really?’

‘Isn’t it time to get back on the horse after your tumble?’

He did have a point.

Jacob took a step backwards into the water and drew her with him. The icy water numbed her feet.

‘I thought you said it wasn’t cold!’

‘I said it wasn’t that cold. Don’t tell me my indomitable Dora has an Achilles heel?’

‘How would I know? I can no longer feel my ankles.’

He chuckled. ‘Trust me. You do trust me, don’t you?’

The water was up to her knees, raindrops hammering rings in the surface. ‘You won’t pull me under?’

‘No, I won’t pull you under. Only cads do that. Let’s get you out of your clothes.’

‘Other times you’ve said that have been so much more pleasurable.

’ She let him take off her dressing gown, and then her petticoat.

He threw them to the shore to join his shirt.

She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself.

The sting of the rain was a pleasurable pain.

Thank goodness the darkness hid them from prying eyes.

‘Adam and Eve,’ Jacob murmured, moving close again to let his warmth take away the chill.

‘They had a sunny garden, with figs and apples, not an icy tarn.’ A ewe bleated. ‘Even the sheep are mocking us.’

‘Follow me.’ He moved smoothly backwards. ‘It gets a little deeper suddenly.’

Which she discovered when she found nothing beneath her feet and water up to her waist. ‘Agh! Jacob!’

‘You’ll get used to it.’ He stood and pressed her gently to lie backwards. ‘Trust the water. I’ll support you– but it’ll be the water doing most of the work.’

She let herself dip back. ‘If I do this, will you let me go back in?’

‘I will.’

He always kept his word. Pushing her feet up, she lay back, Jacob’s hand firm under her waist. Her hips rose to the surface. Calm swept her when her ears went under the water. She could no longer hear the wind. Its caress felt sensuous rather than bitter, rain barely noticeable.

‘Beautiful,’ Jacob murmured huskily, gradually moving with her into deeper water.

It was like floating in silk. Jacob started treading water.

How deep were they? ‘Jacob?—’

‘What can you hear– what can you feel?’ His voice was a little muffled.

He was trying to distract her, but she knew what he meant.

They had been reading verse before this– Wordsworth’s poems and a few by Coleridge.

Could she capture that sense of something sublime in nature?

This was the kind of experience the writers sought, being out in the wild, open to the elements.

She closed her eyes and lifted her head a little to clear water from her ears. ‘I can hear the lapping of the water– the roaring wind– the sheep arguing?—’

‘Arguing? I always thought they were saying “here I am, where are you?”’

‘This is my poetic moment. My sheep argue.’

He gave a put-upon sigh. ‘Very well.’

‘The hiss of the rain. I can feel the water around me, holding me up.’ His fingers flexed. ‘And your hand.’

‘I’m barely doing anything– you’re floating.’ To prove it, he took his hand away briefly.

‘Jacob!’ Poetry forgotten, she floundered for her footing and went under. He scooped her up out of the water with a shout of laughter, caught her so her legs went around his waist. She coughed and swiped streaming hair off her face. ‘You wretch!’

‘Don’t blame me. That was you ducking yourself.’

‘You promised you wouldn’t let go.’

‘My hand was still there.’

‘But I couldn’t feel it!’

He wiped it down her back. ‘Feel it now?’

That was more like it. ‘Oh, yes.’

‘Now I’ve got you here…’

‘Yes?’ she asked hopefully.

‘Let’s try floating on your front.’

* * *

A quarter of an hour later, rain shower fading to spits and spots, Jacob allowed that enough time had passed for a first swimming lesson.

She’d managed to float unaided, and even made some breaststroke moves that hadn’t drowned her.

He declared that she would soon be proficient using her frog’s legs and arms.

‘Mind if I swim a little further?’ he asked.

‘Be my guest– or be your own guest seeing how this is your cottage and your tarn.’

‘Borrowed from the landowner. None of it’s mine.’

‘For all practical purposes it is yours as I can only see one other cottage and that looks empty.’ She’d checked for signs of life before stripping off.

Free-spirited she might be, but she wasn’t comfortable with being caught in her birthday suit by a disapproving shepherd.

Imagine the embarrassment of that! She began wading to the shore, her body feeling twice as heavy as when she got in.

Jacob pushed off and headed out into the middle of the little lake, his arms making neat crawl strokes.

His head was soon but a dark blob on the silvered surface.

Avoiding the little bay of water lilies with their pale flowers closed for the night, she got out by the tree that bent arthritically over the water.

Brushing aside the evidence of recent visits by sheep, she lay down on the grass and let the breeze dry her.

Jacob was right, damn him. Swimming was invigorating.

Her heart was thumping, skin alive to sensation, she felt more at one with the world than she ever did in London.

Those poetical fellows were on to something: there was a sublimity to be discovered if you let nature surround you.

Then she heard it– the quick clatter of hooves approaching. Someone was riding hard and in a reckless fashion considering the darkness and the state of the track.

‘Jacob!’ She scrambled to her feet.

‘Yes?’ His voice travelled over the water so that he sounded much closer than he was.

‘Visitor.’ She guessed that it wouldn’t be the first time a medical emergency had interrupted Jacob’s retirement.