Page 13 of The Duke
Kit whipped around his eyes studying the inlay, searching desperately for a safe vantage point. “How good are you at climbing?” he was already moving them forward, but he saw that her skirt was weighing her down. Without thinking of the consequences, he reached beneath the churning waves, and ripped the fabric away from her body. The movement jolted them both and the waters lifted a fraction. Their feet no longer touched the sand.
“Where are we going?”
“That way.” He gestured over the water. “Can you swim?” He was still holding on to her, supporting her amid the waves.
Her small face bobbed in front of him, but he saw her nod. “There’s a cave, can you see it?” Kit treaded water beside her and was pleased when she looked over and said, “Yes. We’ll need to climb.”
“Come on.” He started swimming, relieved she kept pace with him, towards the jagged cliffs. There was a partial, broken pathway, half buried in the side of the cliff, which led to a small cave within the rock face. In his youth he played there. Surely that should be a safe place to escape the rising tide. He hoped to God it would be high enough.
Through the water, their hands met, the waves were coming in at a pace now, rushing through the narrowed cliffs at the base of the cove, swirling and dragging them closer and closer towards the cliffs. The trick was going to be getting to the right place high enough on the ledge, hoping the water wouldn’t rise so far up that their supposed safety would actually trap them.
He heard her take a shuddering breath, the dog and her both peeking over the rolling waves.
“Try not to panic,” he called out, still holding on to her hand.
Not too far from them the waves lashed into the cliff with a power that Kit hadn’t imagined. That was another risk he hadn’t thought of—the water lifting them up and crashing them into the hard rock.
“Hold on to me.” He grabbed farther up her wrist, trying to move her despite the rolling water, so she would come to be shielded by him. “Leave the dog, we’ll pull him up when we’re on the ledge.”
She struggled, wriggling and pressing against him as she manoeuvred her way along his arm, clinging to him until he felt her arms around his neck.
Kit focused on the ledge. He was going to have to judge the distance, take the impact of the wave, and lever them both farther up the cliff front. Hopefully when he was carried forward, it wouldn’t be too much of a smashing motion, and he’d have time to grab and scramble upwards. The strength of the wave gathered around him, and Kit braced himself. It was now or never.
The momentum carried all three of them forward, and the pull of the sea’s waves, so powerful no human could resist them, slammed them into the rock with one almighty crash. Kit, who’d been prepared for the impact, swallowed a mouthful of dank salt water, coughing and spluttering but motioning, nonetheless, to hook a hand onto the jutted-out rock.
With all his efforts, he clung on, reaching out his free hand and started to climb. It wasn’t an easy ascend, not with the tightness of Miss Keating’s hold on him, and the knowledge that at any moment the sea might come crashing back into the pair of them. he felt the bite of the water on his legs, against his boots but he didn’t let that stop him.
“Go,” he told her once they were within touching distance of the ledge, and with a lift and shove, he pushed Miss Keatingupwards and towards the relative safety of the cave. Five feet below him, the dog was circling—his round, brown desperate eyes fixated on Miss Keating. Kit let go of the cliff front with one hand and reached down towards the dog.
From above him, he heard Miss Keating say, “That’s it, Lancelot. That’s it.” For one brief moment, he wondered if she had named him that, and it made his heart swell to think of himself as her knight in shining armour.
The dog let out a bark and tried to jump at him, but it was too much of a gap. Not fancying the pet’s chances if he was left in the water, Kit looked up at Miss Keating, who was thankfully secure on the ledge. “Can you spare us some underskirt?”
For a moment he wondered if the girl would refuse, were he to reach the ledge she would not be wearing a great deal, but the danger of him trying to remove his coat on the cliff front seemed too great. A moment passed and a large square of ripped white fabric appeared over the side which Kit snatched up. Slowly he lowered it down to the hound, hoping to catch the rogue dog up in the material. Minutes stretched by whilst Kit wondered at the fruitlessness of his endeavour when suddenly the small hook caught around the dog, and he managed to yank him upwards out of the water. The wet dog lay in his arms, before emitting a muted little cry.
“Yes, you and me both,” Kit said.
“Pass him up.” Miss Keating was leaning over the edge, both of her hands dangling down for the dog.
With the water nipping at his heels, Kit lifted and then practically threw the hound upwards, grateful when he saw Miss Keating’s arms close around the soggy fur and disappear. Heaving out a sigh, Kit started to scramble up the remaining distance. His body ached as he moved, his bad arm screaming at the movements, the nature of climbing was not an action he took regularly—he supposed it was a little like some of the manual labour he didaround the manor—but the chill of the water added an element he did not enjoy.
Still, he was pleased when the route was not as hard as he’d pictured, and when he pulled himself up and over the ledge, it was to find Miss Keating catching hold of his hand and pulling him into the shelter of the cave. To his own great surprise, he was seized with an urge to embrace her—presumably, an emotion based out of a relief. It came as a greater shock when Miss Keating threw her arms around his neck, pressing herself against him. As much as he tried to think of this as nothing more than soothing Flora when she was distressed, it did not feel remotely similar—his hands moved to glide down her back in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. But he realised as he did so, the gesture was not remotely brotherly.
With her head still nestled against his chest, he heard Miss Keating ask, “What if the water reaches us?”
Exacting himself from her grasp, Kit edged near to the ledge once more whilst the waves were beating ferociously against the rocks they had not as yet appeared to climb any higher. “We must pray it doesn’t.”
His eyes moved around the dank cave, taking in the small narrow space that was to be their sanctuary until the waves drew back. There was not very much room, and when he looked at her, at Miss Keating, shivering and hugging her arms to her chest, he saw how delicate and half-dressed she was—her yellow day dress’s skirt ripped away, and the bottom of her chemise torn to rescue the dog. She had removed her shoes in order to empty them of water, and for one long moment Kit stared at her feet, her toes the smallest and most feminine thing he could ever remember seeing. Why had no poet ever written a ballad to a woman’s foot? Presumably because they had never seen Miss Keating’s perfect toes.
Pulling off his own wet jacket, he hung it over a rock. “I think we are going to have to stay a little closer together, Miss Keating.”
Her rounded brown eyes narrowed a little, and he expected her to argue, but she gave a decisive nod. “If we are going to do that, I think you had better call me Elsie. Everyone does.”
“Kit.” The noise was not entirely natural, and for a moment, Elsie looked a little perplexed.
“Is it a shortening?”
“Aye for Christian.”
