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She shrugged. Swimming alone was the only thing she did without restraint or the judgment of others. He was a man. He would not understand the freedom it gave her. “I’m never far out. I don’t swim in storm surf.”

“Wise,” he said. “What about jellies? Have you ever been stung?”

She smiled. One advantage of her brother’s old skeleton suit was that it largely protected her from their stinging tentacles. “On my hands once or twice. I imagine you run the greater risk of a sting than I do.”

“Right,” he said with that grin of his that made him seem almost a boy. “I keep the vinegar handy.”

“Really? That explains it, then,” she said. There was more vinegar than sweetness in his nature. Something had hardened the grinning boy into the man.

He laughed. “Your point.”

She crossed the flinty pebbles of the upper beach to the fine sand at the water’s edge. The slap and hiss of the waves, the cry of gulls, and the salty thickness of the air greeted her like old friends. She stopped just beyond the waves’ reach and curled her toes into the wet sand. A stronger wave rushed over her feet, ran clear and foamy around her ankles, and receded, the sea’s invitation. He paused beside her for a moment, windmilling his arms, then plunged in up to his waist, turning back to look at her. Low swells rolled past him, rising and falling at the waistband of his breeches.

She refused to stand gaping at him a moment longer. She tucked her hair into the dark knit cap. This was her time to swim, to test her strength against the sea. She wasn’t going to let him interfere with her pleasure. She waded out until the water reached the buttons at the level of her chest, feeling the sea’s tug, its power to lift her off her feet. Then she pushed up from her toes, let herself slip into the water on her side facing the shore, and began to stroke.

At once she heard him move, his pace matched to hers in a rhythm of kicks and breaths. It changed everything to have him there between her and the open ocean. Awareness of him spurred her on.

Swimming into the current meant she got little glide out of her strokes, but more pull as the direction of her hands and the direction of the water were the same. She needed two quick strokes in succession to make progress. She dug into the water with her arms, bringing her legs together, her toes pointed to get the strongest push, and rotated her hips, turning her face into the water between breaths to get more lift. The sea did not disappoint. She found her rhythm. Swells rolled through her path, lifting and dropping her gently.

He swam easily and steadily. Buttons and all, she knew she was having a fast day, but she was not going to outpace him. As she neared the headland, her arms began to ache. She reminded herself that their swim was not a competition. She stopped. He caught on at once, and they bobbed, facing each other, breath gusting. He grinned and shook his head. He was unshaven, his hair curling, drops sparkling on his lashes, his shoulders white against the sea. She knew just how he felt. Exhilarated. Alive.

“You are enjoying this,” she said.

“You can’t say that you aren’t.”

She couldn’t. Again, they seemed joined rather than separated. This time by the watery element around them. “I must go back.”

“Go,” he said. He flipped onto his back and set off for their starting point.

She began to swim with the tide, stroking less, letting the current carry her for long glides, aware of his presence, the ease of his movement. No thoughts came except that awareness. Time seemed to have slowed or stopped altogether, made up of the repeated moments that her strokes carved in the sea, leaving no imprint on it.

They reached the shore in minutes or hours. He strode onto the beach, breaking the water’s hold on him, shaking his head, shining rivulets streaming off his shoulders.

She followed him. Once they stopped moving, the cold would set in. She took off her knit cap and shook her head. In silence they crossed the sand and climbed the path to their discarded garments. He pulled the jumper over his head. She dried her feet, put on her boots, wrapped the coverlet around her, and immediately felt more herself. She wondered if she could ask him to reconsider allowing the ball to happen at the castle.

“You survived,” he said.

“I fulfilled my part of the bargain. I’ll bid you good day.”

“Until tomorrow,” he said. “You thought it would be unendurable, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t know what to expect,” she said.

“A measured answer,” he said. “You enjoy your private impropriety. The world knows the proper Miss Staveley, but all the while there is this other you, every bit as unconventional as your sister. By the way, who taught you to swim?”

She swallowed. She could not answer at once. He could not know the pain that question brought.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Your secrets are safe with me.”

“If you must know, my father taught me,” she said.

His teasing expression turned sober. “Until tomorrow, then.” He turned away and up the path.

She waited for the path to hide him from her sight, even as his words lingered in her mind.

Chapter Fourteen

Gray crossed the deserted courtyard, his head full of Cordelia Staveley. The sun’s rays fanned out above him from the crenelated top of the castle. In the shadows along the east wall, the first levels of new scaffolding rose in stark, black lines. A stomach-stirring mix of scents, of bread and bacon, hung in the still air and made him smile. Whatever sinister forces Finch suspected behind the collapsed scaffolding, Mrs. Peachy was at her work.