Page 9 of The Lost Lord
Why did she care?
She didn’t, Miriam decided. There was no denying her fascination, but she hardly knew anything about the man other than his name and that he was what Mrs. Kent would call as handsome as the devil. Mrs. Kent held a puritanical view of pleasure. Even innocent pleasures led inevitably to hell. Miriam felt that pleasure was there to make life interesting, and that she did not partake in enough of it.
Miriam felt as though she had spent her whole life waiting for something to happen. As a child she had yearned to play with other children. She had desperately wanted to climb trees, run through the grass, and tumble like a weed through long afternoons of no responsibility. Instead, her fickle lungs demanded she remain indoors much of the time. To amuse herself, Miriam had read the classics in Latin and French when she tired of reading them in English. When possible, she had followed at her father’s side when he went to visit the lumber mills that were the source of her family’s considerable fortune. She had learned the language of business at his knee, when other children were climbing trees, playing hide-and-seek, or jackstraws.
Then, she had been sent to school. Miriam had hated girls’ boarding school. Upon her return home that summer, she’d quarreled with her father, Livingston, for the first time. The episode had provoked an asthma attack so potent that Miriam had nearly died. An unorthodox physician had pumped her body full of caffeine and belladonna extract and saved her life.
Livingston Walsh, terrified of the prospect of losing his daughter, relented and allowed her to skip the next two years of schooling. Mrs. Kent had arrived, and Miriam had a degree of freedom to pursue whatever interested her intellectually. What she’d lost in privacy with an attendant, she had gained in physical mobility. With Mrs. Kent at her side, Miriam’s father had felt more comfortable allowing her to explore the world.
School proved to be unexpectedly fun the second time around. Mrs. Kent was stationed at the school, on call but not shadowing her. In the sterile, spacious girls’ dormitory, then-sixteen-year-old Lizzie had been a beacon of fun, irreverence, and trouble. She was well-liked. Miriam felt so grateful to Lizzie’s inclusion of her in her antics that it had given Miriam only a moment’s pause whenever matters veered out of control.
Shortly after their third year, Lizzie had come out. Within weeks, she married the besotted middle son of the wealthy Van Buren family, shocking everyone. Yet only months after their hasty, lavish wedding, Lizzie had privately split with her husband. Since then, Lizzie had danced at the edges of good society, neither good enough to be fully accepted nor badly behaved enough to warrant full condemnation—until she’d taken up with the handsome foreigner named Northcote.
Miriam scanned the beach again. There were no handsome men traversing the sand. His lordship wasn’t coming. Now that she’d met him, Miriam understood the risk Lizzie had taken. Arthur was nice. But Richard was compelling.
“Mrs. Kent, I fancy a turn sea bathing,” she said.
Her companion jerked her chin up from the book she was reading, a book of psalms, which while fine in their place seemed altogether too serious for the beach. “Are you certain that you are strong enough to resist the tide?”
“Yes, Mrs. Kent. I am certain.” Miriam rose and shook sand from her skirts. In their little cove, it ought to be perfectly safe. She removed her scarf and hat and set them aside.
“Do at least wear your bonnet,” her keeper admonished.
Miriam sighed. Dutifully, she returned the broad-brimmed straw hat to her head. A hot, ungracious thought seared through her. Why couldn’t she be more like Lizzie, thumbing her nose at the most basic conventions? Miriam sighed.
Why couldn’t Lizzie be more like her, obedient to even the most inconsequential rules? With their traits better split between them, they could have both been perfect women, instead of two utter failures of proper womanhood.
The tide sucked at her skirts. Miriam rejoiced in the ocean spray dampening her cheeks and lashes. Cool drops revitalized her spirit. Lizzie and other friends were splashing in the cool water, meeting each wave as it crested and broke at their knees. One of the lads was flirted with Lizzie. He picked her up and tossed her into deeper water. Lizzie came up sputtering.
“Miri! The water is almost bearable, don’t you think?” she giggled. Lizzie’s teeth were chattering.
“By Atlantic standards, perhaps,” Miri laughed. Her skirts were wet and heavy around her legs. As refreshing as the saltwater was, she knew she would not be sea bathing for more than a few minutes longer. “Where is your foreign friend?”
Lizzie’s expression shaded. “We have had a falling out. I don’t know that he’ll come today.”
She reached behind her and splashed the lad who had sent her into the wave. “Cheeky brat!” he yelled, slapping water back at her. Miriam stepped out of the way. A child, no more than eight, paddled by. Recognizing him, Miriam caught his ankle. He flipped onto his back and kicked free, knocking her into the water.
Miriam laughed when she surfaced, shaking water out of her face. The hat was gone, floating a few feet away. The boy retrieved it and tossed the soggy thing to a friend, who caught it and pretended to use it as a bucket.
“Look out!”
A large wave caught her off-guard. Miriam tripped over her skirts and fell with a splash. Lizzie bobbed in the waves a few feet away, her bare foot propped against her new lad’s chest. Though everyone looked younger while wet, Miriam guessed the man couldn’t be more than twenty—hardly older than Lizzie herself.
Bobbing in the water, Miriam felt the weight of her skirts lighten. They swirled around in the sandy silt churned by waves and feet. She turned her face to the sun. Lord Richard wasn’t coming today. Freckles be damned.
“Look out!”
Miriam rolled aside. The ruined hat, now a toy, plopped where her face had been a moment before. Lizzie laughed hysterically. “Good aim, Spence!”
“That’s my head you were aiming at!” Miriam laughed and tried to kick water at him but was hampered by her skirts. She recognized Spencer Laughton as one of Lizzie’s many distant cousins. The Laughtons had taken a family mill and, over two ruthless generations, turned it into an enterprise stretching from Chicago to New York. Lizzie’s mother was a Laughton, as well.
“Aye, and I’d have nailed you too if Lizzie hadn’t shouted warning!” Spencer splashed away, out of range. A dark scowl flitted over Lizzie’s face. Miriam turned to glance over her shoulder. A tall, well-formed man dressed in white linen sauntered up the beach. A frisson of anticipation skittered through Miriam. She forced her attention back to Lizzie.
“Hmph. If he thinks he can just show up late and pretend that everything’s all right, Lord Fancypants has another think coming.” Lizzie turned and dove in the water toward Spencer. She popped out of the water and kissed him square on the lips.
A beat of collective astonishment settled over the beach. Even Spencer’s eyes had grown wide as wagon wheels. He alone looked pleased. The youngest child whooped, and the spell broke.
Miriam glanced up the beach to where the Englishman had stopped. From this distance and with so short an acquaintance, she could detect no sign of irritation. Instead, he casually bent to pick up something from the beach. She felt cold standing there ankle-deep in the water, so she splashed her way out and worked her way up the shore in the direction of her tent. By the time she collapsed in its shade Miriam was panting. Mrs. Kent cast fluttered nervously at her side as they spread Miriam’s sand-crusted skirts wide to dry.
