Page 53 of The Wordsworth Key (Regency Secrets #3)

She shrugged as if it were obvious. ‘The viscount. He hates me and is trying to separate us. I can hardly go back if it looks like I ran off with you, can I now? You’re a gentleman and can no doubt discredit any story I tell to cast blame on you– I wouldn’t bother to try.

Easier for me just to get out of everyone’s way than face their sermonising. ’

‘Ah.’ Langhorne grimaced.

‘What?’

‘It was a good plan– and I almost believed you would see it through– but unfortunately I shot the viscount this morning and he might not be around to see that you are sent away.’

‘You did what?’ He’d shot Jacob’s brother? Horror made her vision narrow and her breaths gasp.

‘I was aiming for Lord Furness, the patronising bastard, telling me I wasn’t good enough to lick the boots of his daughter, but I had to make do with a viscount.’

She couldn’t afford to break down now. She took air in through her nostrils, treating it like stage fright. Nerves must not be allowed to stop her giving her best performance: her life depended on it. She gathered herself and sat up.

‘Ha-ha-ha.’ Her laugh was far from normal but got stronger as she went on. ‘Ha-ha! Good for you, Mr Langhorne. Andrew, isn’t it? May I call you Andrew?’

He shrugged as if it was all the same to him.

‘You did me a favour then, Andy. I didn’t like him, always sticking his nose into our bedroom.

’ She let her voice coarsen, sliding down to the tones of a Covent Garden prostitute.

‘I reckon he wanted to join in, filthy bugger. But it doesn’t make Jacob the next viscount.

He has a nephew and an older brother still.

I might as well look elsewhere for my next patron, someone with deeper pockets who can afford more than a cottage in the middle of nowhere, not even a bloody servant to cook the meals. ’

‘Dora, you surprise me: I thought you were investigating crimes together?’

‘Pl-please!’ she spluttered. ‘Don’t tell me you believed that bunch of cobblers?

We just said that so we didn’t shock the locals.

Dr Sandys don’t need me for that. Nah, we came to do the beast with two backs and swim stark naked in the tarn.

’ She sent him what she hoped was a saucy look from half-lowered lids, channelling her Cleopatra seducing the next Roman who came to conquer, doing what she had to to survive.

‘I love swimming without a stitch of clothes on– the cool water like silk caressing my skin, my breasts, my…’ She spread her legs further and gave a fake orgasmic sigh.

‘Aaah. I bet you do too, don’t cha, Long Horn.

You– me– a warm, sandy cove– I wager I could ride you to paradise and back again. ’

He rubbed his crotch. ‘Dammit, woman, you’ve made me go hard.’

Good: he was distracted. ‘I can do much more than that, believe me.’ Like kick him in the balls, but first she had to get the man so stirred up he wasn’t thinking straight.

‘I’ll show you what I can do with your little problem right now.

Or is it a big problem?’ She gave a moue that she’d learned from Ruby.

‘I hope it’s a big problem. Want to show me, lover? ’

Langhorne gave a furtive look around. There was no boat close by, though she could see one coming from the north. Too far away still to be of any help to her.

‘On your knees right now, whore.’ He was breathing heavily, lust driving away all common sense. He gestured to the spot in front of him and undid the flap of his breeches. ‘Show me how talented your mouth is and maybe we can renegotiate our deal.’

Dora could tell the bastard had no intention of sparing her. Even if they got as far as the shore, he’d likely have sex with her, then do her in to shut her up. He merely wanted her to give him his release for nothing.

She reached into her hair and removed the pins to let her hair cascade free. His eyes followed the hair, not her hands.

‘Cheeky bugger, ain’t cha. Give me half a sec.

’ She shuffled back, making a palaver of crossing the few feet to reach him, rocking the boat with her intentionally clumsy movements.

He was already half lost in his anticipation of her servicing him.

‘You’re gonna feel so good after I’ve finished with ya, Andy. ’

Under the cover of her fallen hair, she slid out the steel knitting needle she’d tucked in her stays. Damn, this was awkward. She had to get him closer.

She leaned back against his thigh, pressing against his aroused groin. ‘If you undo my shirt, you’ll be able to see what else I’ve got to offer. My gentlemen have always been very appreciative of my endowments.’

‘Oh, fuck, yes,’ said Langhorne, reaching around her to fumble with her buttons. Blinded by anticipation, he didn’t see her real game until too late.

She stabbed, going for anything within striking range. One strike slid off a button, the second found his bare inner thigh so she shoved in the needle– hard.

Langhorne screamed and pushed her away from him. She tumbled forward and her forehead hit the bottom of the boat. She saw stars as the boat rocked.

‘My leg! You’ve fucking stuck my leg. Fuck, fuck, fuck, stop the bleeding.

Stop it!’ He ripped off his cravat and fastened it around his thigh, trying to fashion a tourniquet but blood continued to spurt.

As intended, she’d hit the big artery. He didn’t know it, but he was likely dead already if no surgeon reached him in minutes.

Desperate and aware of his danger, he suddenly stood up and yelled, ‘Help! Help!’ He waved his hat to attract attention. The skiff rocked violently. His leg crumpled beneath him, he lost his balance, and he tipped, taking the boat and Dora over with him.

The world went upside down. She tumbled into the water and hit her head again on the edge of the capsized boat, further dazing her.

Then she went down. She was drowning– she couldn’t swim– she was too far from the bloody shore.

Damn it all: she couldn’t die this way. It was so stupid!

Her chest burned as she thrashed. She gasped and water went up her nose and into her throat, terrifying her further. Which way was up?

Stop this, Dora Fitz-Pennington , she snapped at herself.

And then she thought of Jacob and that stormy night on Loughrigg Tarn. She had swum, if but briefly. If she could stop the hell panicking right now, she could do something about this.

She was damned if she was going to let this toad kill her too!

Instead of thrashing, she forced herself to reach out with smooth scooping gestures and her fingers grasped a piece of cloth.

The sail. It couldn’t support her, but it guided her to the surface and the mast, now lying flat on the surface.

When she put her weight on that, it began to sink so she groped along it to the boat itself and grabbed the gunwale.

Finding a temporary respite, she took desperate gasps of air, interrupted by coughs, and then she tried to slow her breathing.

Blinking water out of her eyes, she looked around her?—

And saw a deathly pale Langhorne glaring at her from a few feet away.

‘You bitch!’ he hissed. ‘I’m going to fucking kill you!’

Why was the bastard not dead yet? The tourniquet and cold water must have worked a little to slow the bleeding. The hole made by the needle was relatively small. He might even survive if help arrived quickly. Jacob could probably save him as he’d dealt with amputations.

Langhorne didn’t deserve it.

‘I’m the bitch? You’re the one who murdered a good man, a father and husband, just because you were jealous that he favoured another boy.’ She edged a little further away from him. He didn’t look like he had the strength to pursue her but who knew what he was really capable of?

‘Leyburn deserved it. He was a magistrate. One of those keeping us down.’ He clawed his way closer.

‘You’re deceiving yourself. You didn’t kill him because of that, you killed him because you were eaten up with envy. And what did Barton and Wright ever do to you? Why did they deserve death?’

‘They wouldn’t take action– none of them would do what they promised!

We should’ve risen up when Bellingham assassinated the Prime Minister and was martyred for the cause, but did they care?

No fucking way! They believed the government when they said he was a madman acting alone.

But he wasn’t: he was the clarion call telling us to take up arms!

They’re sheep, content to be slaughtered– I despise them. ’

He was getting too close. Dora edged to the other side, but it was harder here as it was the bottom of the boat, no gunwale to hold onto.

She had to keep distracting him, buy herself some time to think of an escape.

‘And Wordsworth’s poem? Why use that?’

‘To scare that weakling Knotte, of course, scare him into doing something. His “father’s” great work!

’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘I showed him– I took what mattered most to both men, the shepherd and the poet, and showed how they should be used. Even so, Knotte didn’t do anything but gripe and mope.

You would’ve thought it would’ve roused him to do something, wouldn’t you, even if was just denounce me? I’d have respected that.’

‘But you killed him too– you shot your last hope for a follower. Well done: you’re leading a revolution with precisely one soldier and, from where I am, that soldier doesn’t look like he’s in very good shape.’

‘I’m well enough to take you down with me!’ With a snarl of anger, Langhorne lunged towards her.

That left her no choice. She pushed off from the side of the boat and began swimming away with the frog legs that Jacob had taught her. Fingertips grazed her ankle but she kicked him off.

Slow and steady wins the race. Don’t panic. He won’t be able to swim with that injury , she told herself. Keep doing this and you’ll reach something. Shore hopefully.

She set off to swim across Windermere leaving behind Langhorne’s furious cries cursing her.