Minerva fell to her knees beside her. “It’s all right. Your mother and father are coming-they’ll be here soon.” She glanced at Royce; his chest was rising and falling like a bellows, and water ran off him in streams, but he was unharmed, unhurt. Alive.
She looked up at the other ladies, gathering in an anxious, exclaiming knot on the bank above. Anne had come to stand beside her. Minerva pointed at the shawls some of the others carried. “Shawls-the woolen ones.”
“Yes, of course.” Anne climbed the bank partway and reached up, beckoning.
Two ladies surrendered their shawls readily, but Aurelia sniffed. “Not mine.”
Royce had bent over, hands braced on his knees. He didn’t bother looking up. “Aurelia.”
His voice cut like a whip; Aurelia all but flinched. She paled. Her face set in sour lines, but she shrugged off her shawl and tossed it at Anne-who caught it, turned, and hurried back to Minerva.
She’d stripped off the girl’s hat and sodden pinafore, and had been chafing her small icy hands. She stopped to take one of the shawls-Aurelia’s large warm one. Shaking it out, with Anne’s help she wrapped the girl tightly, then wound the other shawls about her hands and feet.
Then the girls’ parents and the rest of the farmer’s party arrived; they’d had to backtrack to cross the river by a wooden bridge higher up.
“She’s all right,” Minerva called as soon as she saw the parents’ distraught faces.
Both rushed down the riverbank, eyes only for their child.
“Mary!” The mother dropped to her knees opposite Minerva. She placed a gentle hand on the girl’s cheek. “Sweetheart?”
The girl’s lashes fluttered; she tried to move her hands. “Ma?”
“Oh, thank God.” The mother swept the girl up against her bosom. She looked at Minerva, then up at Royce. “Thank you-thank you, Your Grace. I don’t know how we can ever repay you.”
Her husband laid a shaking hand on his daughter’s dark head. “Nor I. I thought she were-” He cut himself off, blinked rapidly. Shook his head and looked at Royce. Gruffly said, “Can’t thank you enough, Your Grace.”
One of his cousins had fetched Royce’s coat; he’d been using it to mop his face. “If you want to thank me, take her home and get her warm-after hauling her out, I don’t want her to take a chill.”
“Yes-yes, we will.” The mother struggled to her feet, lifting the girl. Her husband quickly took the child.
“And you may be sure,” the mother said, tugging her damp clothes straight, “that none of that lot will ever play too close to the riverbanks again.” Her severe look directed their gazes to the gaggle of children, watching round-eyed from up along the bank, their parents and the other adults at their backs.
“You might like to remind them,” Royce said, “that if they do, there’s unlikely to be a group of us here, in the right spot at the right time, to pull them out.”
“Aye. We’ll tell them, you may be sure.” The father ducked his head as low as he could. “With your permission, Your Grace, we’ll get her home.”
Royce waved him up the slope.
The mother sighed and shook her head. She exchanged a glance with Minerva. “You tell them and tell them, but they never listen, do they?” With that, she followed her husband up the bank.
Royce watched them go, watched as the other farmers and their wives gathered around, offering comfort and support as they closed around the couple and their nearly lost daughter.
Beside him, Minerva slowly got to her feet. He waited while she thanked Anne for her help, then asked, “Who were they?”
“The Honeymans. They hold the farm up around Green Side.” She paused, then added, “They would have seen you at church, but I don’t think you’ve met them before.”
He hadn’t. He nodded. “Let’s get back.” He was chilled to the bone, and there was no earthly way to get his coat-expertly fitted by Shultz-on over his wet clothes.
Anne had joined the others, but now she came back. She touched Minerva’s arm. “Susannah and some of the other ladies have started back with Phillip-his teeth are chattering. I thought I’d run ahead and warn the household.” Although in her thirties, Anne was slim, fit, and swift on her feet.
“Thank you.” Minerva lightly grasped Anne’s fingers. “If you could tell Retford we need hot baths for His Grace, and for Phillip, and hot water for the others, too.”
“I’ll do that.” Anne glanced at Royce, inclined her head, then turned and climbed swiftly up the slope.
With Minerva beside him, Royce followed more slowly.
Minerva humphed. Looking ahead to where certain of the ladies were still milling inconsequentially, some, with hands clutched to their breasts, exclaiming as if the incident had overset their delicate nerves, she muttered, “At least some people keep their heads in a crisis.”
She meant Anne. Royce looked at her, felt his lips curve. “Indeed.”
Arthur and Henry, together with the other male guests not in some degree soaked, had gone back to fetch the discarded rods and tackle.
As Royce and Minerva crested the slope, the remaining ladies, apparently deciding that the excitement was now entirely over, regrouped and started back to the castle.
With Minerva walking alongside, Royce found himself nearing the rear of the group, and wished they’d walk faster. He needed to keep moving, or he’d start shivering as badly as Phillip. His skin was already icy, and the chill was sinking deeper into his bones.
Margaret looked back at him a few times; he presumed she was assuring herself he wasn’t about to collapse.
He wasn’t entirely surprised when she stepped sideways out of the group and waited until he and Minerva drew level.
But it was Minerva to whom Margaret spoke. “If I could have a word?”
“Yes. Of course.” Minerva halted.
Royce walked on, but slowed. He didn’t like the look in Margaret’s eyes, or her expression, and even less her tone. Minerva was no servant, not even to the family. She wasn’t a penniless relative, or anything of the sort.
She was his chatelaine, and rather more, even if Margaret didn’t yet know it.
“Yes?”
That was Minerva prompting Margaret, who had thus far remained silent.
Margaret waited until he’d taken two more steps before saying-hissing-“How dare you?” There was a wealth of furious, frightened venom in her voice; it shook as she went on, “How dare you put the entire dukedom at risk for a crofter’s brat!”
Royce halted.
“The Honeymans are your brother’s tenants, but regardless, saving that girl was the right thing to do.”
He turned.
Saw Margaret draw in a breath. Her color high, eyes locked on Minerva, she all but shrieked, “For some stupid, silly girl, you risked-”
“Margaret.” Royce walked back toward her.
She spun to face him. “And you! You’re no better! Did you spare so much as a thought for us-for me, Aurelia, and Susannah, your sisters!-before you-”
“Enough.”
His tone was all cold steel; it had her clenching her fists and swallowing the rest of her tirade. He halted before her, close enough so she had to look up into his face-close enough that she was just a touch intimidated, as well she should be.
“No, I didn’t think of you, Aurelia, or Susannah-you all have wealthy husbands to support you, regardless of my continuing health. I didn’t put you in danger by saving that girl. Her life was in the balance, and I would have been greatly disappointed had Minerva not warned me. I was in a position to save her-a girl who was born on my lands.”
He looked down into his sister’s mulish face. “What Minerva did was right. What I did was right. What you appear to have forgotten is that my people-even silly young girls-are my responsibility.”