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He looked puzzled but willing. “Will you marry me, Cordelia?”

“Yes. Yes, I will.” She watched as comprehension dawned in him.

Graymont lifted her hand and pressed his lips to it. “I must go to London, you know. Lionel must be held accountable, and Bernie too. Now,” he said. “You must want water.”

“I do, but can you help me sit up?” She understood his leaving. His honor required him to deal with his brother, but he was forgetting the most important part of a proposal of marriage. Even she, who had stopped thinking of marriage, knew enough of the business to know what he was leaving out, and how necessary it was that he should know how wholly she was his.

She let go of his hand and rolled to her left side, but she was helpless with her right arm weak.

“Stop,” he said. “Lie back.” She obeyed, and he pulled the coverlet loose from around her. He leaned down and brought her good arm up over his shoulder. “Hold me,” he ordered. She gripped his collar. Then, with an arm around her back, he lifted her upright.

The motion dizzied her, and she sat, clinging to his coat until her head cleared. Her useless right arm hung at her side, and the thought that she might never swim again hit her. Her eyes burned, and tears welled up and spilled over. He caught them with his finger and offered her a lawn handkerchief that smelled of him and sandalwood and citrus.

“You will swim again,” he said. His arms came around her, and he tilted her face up to his, his gaze a solemn promise.

She dashed the tears away.

“I want to kiss you,” he said. “I have wanted to kiss you since … since I took the buttons off your skeleton suit. Each time I took a button,” he laughed. “I wanted it to be a kiss.”

A tide of awareness flooded her, an odd sort of awareness that narrowed all her senses to him, to the warmth of his body where his arm came around her, the scent of his skin that was neither sandalwood nor citrus, the quick rhythm of his pulse. Her body came alive inside the maroon silk with a new understanding of that moment above the beach. From the beginning some sort of wanting had connected them. But it was a strange sort of wanting that felt like giving, not taking, that left her feeling that she must surrender her body to him.

He seemed to know better than she what she wanted. His palms cupped her jaw, and his mouth met hers, the first brush of his lips a tentative invitation, like a small wave, a tiny taste of something powerfully alive, so that one chased its receding energy down the beach to meet the whole of it.

She felt him smile against her lips, and he kissed her more fully. This time she met the pressure of his mouth with a willingness of her own, like striking out into the sea. This, she knew. This, she understood, this giving of herself to the element in which she moved. And now that element, like joy itself, bore her onward, deeper into the kiss until he broke it and leaned his forehead against hers. Their rough breaths mingled as if they had fought some powerful tide, been lifted up, and tossed onto a bright new shore with dawn breaking over them.

“I go to London in the morning. Wait for me, love.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

When Cordelia next awakened, it was to the news that Graymont and Finch had left for London. There was a note from Graymont, the first she had received from him in his own hand.

I will write from London with news.

Impatiently yours, G.

It was not the most loverlike of messages, but from Graymont, it spoke of partnership and trust. Her sisters filled the morning with helping her to dress. With some reluctance she parted from Graymont’s maroon silk wrapper for one of her own gowns. Mir washed and brushed her hair free of sand and salt. And Roz fashioned a sling for her injured arm. According to Viola, Mr. Winter had taken on the task of hiring haulers and returning their possessions to the castle, and soon they would all be home again.

“Even Mama’s piano,” Viola reported. “We are to have our old rooms back. Except you … you must stay here, Cordelia, until you are more recovered.”

Doctor Bradstock came in the late morning, praised her eager nurses, and pronounced himself pleased with the look of the wound. As often as she could, Cordelia tried to make a fist, willing her fingers to work. Hector settled at her feet. In the afternoon she slept again. In the night the discomforts of her shoulder and arm, though mild, were enough to keep her awake and leave her prey to worries. She wanted to hear from Graymont that Lionel was no longer a threat to any of them. She wanted to know what to do about Viola. She feared she would never swim again. Apparently, her bloodied swim costume was nowhere to be found.

Another day of her recovery passed in a similar manner, though Cordelia felt restless. In the afternoon, she insisted on going out to the Italian garden. Mir, busy directing Mr. Winter in the placement of their possessions in the castle, gave Cordelia a little bell to ring should she need help, and Cordelia smiled at how she had become a lady of leisure. She was enjoying the sun when Lady Frome came sailing along the central path in wide, moss-green silk skirts.

“My dear,” she said. “You must tell me the meaning of this.” She handed Cordelia a copy of the Morning Chronicle, folded to reveal a column of society news. There, as Graymont had promised, was an announcement of their betrothal.

“How are you to marry that man after … after what he has done?”

“Dear friend,” said Cordelia. “Do sit. Shall I ring for my sisters to bring some refreshment?” She gave Mir’s little bell a jingle. Instead of Mir, Viola appeared, glared at Lady Frome, and left again.

“What,” said Lady Frome, taking note of Cordelia’s sling, “has become of your arm?”

“I will tell you, but first, you must know that Graymont was quite wrongly accused of compromising Viola.”

“My dear, with what we saw … I have been so worried for all of you. I have written to every friend I have in London on your behalf.”

Cordelia encouraged her visitor to sit on a cushioned bench in the shade of a cypress tree. “You saw a bit of theatre, devised by Viola to … to bring Graymont and me to our senses, if you like. Without Viola’s prompting us, we would never have discovered our attachment.”

“Your attachment?” Lady Frome looked skeptical. “How reckless! How mad of Viola to play with her own reputation and his! What a want of sense and judgment! What are you going to do with her? She can’t be permitted to enact any more of her dramas.”