Page 57 of Heartbreaker of the Ton
“Meswim!”
“Perhaps another time, sweetheart.”
“Swim! Swim!” the boy cried, his voice rising.
“Not here, Gabriel,” Frances said. “The currents are strong and might pull you under. But I can teach you to swim in the lake by my pa’s farm. How about that?”
“Lake! Lake!”
“Not today, my love,” Etty said. “You say the currents are strong here, Frances?”
The girl nodded. “Only at certain times. Along this part of the beach there’s a current that can pull you out to sea. You can see it sometimes—a patch of water calmer than the rest of the sea, stretching outward, like a column.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“Only if you can’t swim and don’t know what to do.”
“And what do you do?”
“You have to swimacrossit,” Frances said, “to one side, rather than back toward the beach, until you can no longer feel the current. Then it’s safe to swim back.”
“Has it happened to you, Frances?”
The girl shook her head. “Jimmy got caught in it once, but the vicar was there and told him what to do. He’s ever so kind, isn’t he, the vicar?”
“Yes,” Etty said, “he is.”
The memory of Andrew’s kiss still lingered on her lips. Only last night she’d woken from a dream where he’d claimed her, bringing her to pleasure—but it was a pleasure she couldn’t quite understand. In the dream she’d cried his name, but for what? Some unfathomable, imaginary sensation.
Whatwaspleasure?
She shuddered at the memory of Dunton’s words.
Pleasure is for the man to savor and for the woman to give.
A hand caught hers.
“Ma’am?”
Etty blinked and glanced toward Frances, who stared at her with compassion in her eyes.
“You’ll feel better after your swim, I’m sure, ma’am,” she said. “It’ll help your body to heal—and perhaps”—she blushed and hesitated—“if I may be so bold, it’ll help your heart to heal also.”
Such insight for a young girl—a village child whom Etty would never have deigned to notice before. Meek, mild, an outcast from society.
A misfit, like me.
But, perhaps, the world misunderstood misfits at its peril.
Etty strode into the water.
“Mama!” Gabriel jumped up and down, laughing, while Frances held his hand.
“What’s it like?”
“Wonderful!” Etty laughed at the tickling sensation on her skin as the waves crashed against her feet, moving toward the shore, then retreating, forming a plume of water against her calves. She winced at the sting of the salt water on her grazed skin.
“Too cold to swim?” Frances asked.
