Christmas Delights (16 page)

“N
o,” Victoria whispered.

The deck shuddered as the tip of the submarine touched the waterlogged ramp. She welcomed the reverberations, grateful for their progress. How were they going to lift it from the lake?

“The water it took on is making it extra heavy. Can we get it on a cart?” one of the more senior men asked.

“We don’t have time. Lewis hasn’t responded,” the earl said. “There are no sounds from inside.”

Victoria could see the tendons in his neck bunch in tight relief as he pulled. She felt skin tearing on her palms, despite her gloves, but she didn’t stop pulling. More men joined them, grabbing the rope behind her. She could smell male sweat and her own fear, fighting the rope as she painstakingly stepped backward with the men.

Inch by inch, the submarine came out of the lake, green with scummy slickness. Men groaned and pulled, breathing hard, but it seemed to come faster as it broke free of the water. The earl winced as the metal scraped.

“I don’t see any damage,” he said, frustrated. “Where is the leak coming from? Why didn’t Lewis do anything?”

The two men in front of her traded glances, looking somber. Did they think her lover was dead? Her stomach clutched, but she ignored the cramp with iron control, and kept at the rope. She wouldn’t think of anything but the physical effort of saving him. They pulled until it seemed her arms were all but dropping out of their sockets. Finally, the earl called a halt. By then, the submarine was on the part of the dock that didn’t slope down to the water.

“Get some blankets and hot water bottles!” he shouted at an undergardener. The man ran off while employees began to work on the hatch.

Victoria heard a cry behind her as Eddy came hurtling down from the stable, his face contorted with fear. Dropping the rope, she grabbed for the youth when he flew past her, afraid he’d knock some of the men into the water. Now she could see the ice that had formed along the reeds. It had not been a good day for an experiment.

“Got it!” the assistant at the hatch called. “Who’s going in?”

The earl used his arms to leverage himself onto the slippery metal surface and crawled to the hatch, then peered into the inky darkness. Victoria hugged Eddy, allowing them to creep closer. She didn’t want to add any complications, but she must know if Lewis was all right. She couldn’t tell whether the lad was crying or gasping for air.

The muffled sound of the earl’s voice was barely audible, but she couldn’t make out any of his words. Then his head popped up and he pulled his feet to the hatch, dropping down. A moment later, she heard retching, and more indistinguishable words.

Eddy grabbed her coat sleeve. “What’s happening? Where is he?”

The assistant waved his arm, ordering more men forward. Victoria barely kept her balance on the dock as three burly men approached. She let Eddy go and pulled off her coat as she saw Lewis’s head appear over the hatch. His hair was plastered so darkly to his skull with water that she’d never have known the original color was blond. Arms reached for him. She saw him weakly push them away, his grin wry as he was unable to fight off the men so willing to carry him. Her stomach contracted when she realized he was alive.

“Place him here,” she ordered, tossing her coat onto the dock and bundling her scarves into a pillow.

Eddy, next to her, was crying freely now, forgetting all manly composure.

As carefully as they could, they laid Lewis down on her coat. She tried to wrap it around him, but he was too broad for that. The earl stripped off his own coat, as did Eddy, and laid their outerwear over him.

“We need to pick him up again, get him to the house,” the earl said.

“I’ll be fine,” Lewis said, then coughed hard.

“Get him onto his side,” Victoria cried.

The men turned him just in time, before more of the water he’d inhaled came out of his mouth.

“Found the leak,” Lewis said, gasping. “Bleeding thing opened right over me, showered my face. Couldn’t breathe. Would have drowned standing up, but then it rocked, knocked me over, out of the spray.”

“Doesn’t matter now. We need to get you warm,” the earl said. “Heave ho, men.”

The four burliest men took Lewis by the arms and legs. The earl gave orders, marching them rapidly up the dock. Eddy ran alongside, one of Lewis’s cold, pale hands in his. Victoria wished she’d thought to do the same but instead picked up her sopping coat and scarves, then trotted to the rear. The men moved slowly as they went up the hill, then faster through the curtain wall and into the courtyard. The boot boy stood aside, confusion furrowing his young brow, as they pushed past him into the mudroom.

“Can you get him up the stairs?” the earl asked.

“Just tell us where to go. ’E’s an ’eavy one, milord,” the man who had Lewis’s left shoulder puffed.

“Take him up the servants’ stairs,” Victoria called. “It’s closer.”

They went down the long hallway to the left of the mudroom. Eddy ran ahead to open the door. Lewis gave the order to be let down, insisting he could walk.

“No. Let us do this fast,” the earl demanded. “We need to get you out of those clothes.”

“A couple of shoulders under my arms and I’ll do fine. No room to carry me,” Lewis insisted.

“Do as he says,” Victoria interjected. “It will be faster than arguing with him.”

A goofy, unfocused smile broke over Lewis’s face when he saw her. The men who were holding his legs slowly let them drop to the floor. Lewis’s knees buckled, but then he found his footing, and the two men who had held his shoulders tucked themselves under his armpits instead. Victoria could see the water from Lewis’s clothes dripping down their bodies.

She shook her head at him, but the infuriating man just grinned and slowly turned away. “I’m going to nurse him,” she told the earl. “I’m a widow.”

The earl shrugged. “I’m not going to stop you. I have a leak to repair.”

She shook her head in disgust. “Was it worth a man’s life to find it?”

“He didn’t die. You’re going to dry him out, right?” The earl smirked at her, then held out his arm to her.

He actually had the gall to apply levity to the situation. How were gentlemen trained that they could joke about nearly dying? Perhaps they couldn’t go to war without such a mentality, or risk their lives in other ways.

When they reached the top of the stairs, the men insisted that Lewis be carried again, but two of them formed a chair with their arms and staggered to his room in that fashion. Eddy opened the door and Victoria was able to reach the coverlet and pull it down before her lover was deposited on the mattress.

“Get his clothes off quickly, before he soaks the bed,” she urged.

The men looked at her strangely, as if they’d decided their work was done as soon as Lewis had made it inside.

She grimaced. “Eddy?”

“Right. Got to get the boots off, milady. You work on his jacket and I’ll tackle the laces.”

She nodded and pulled the sodden coats off Lewis’s front, which had all but been glued to him with the water. Then she began to work on the buttons of his jacket, wincing as her torn palms touched the icy fabric.

Lewis could do nothing but cough and she feared for his lungs. While the workmen left, the earl ordered tea. A footman arrived carrying more blankets and hot water bottles. Victoria ordered that they be tucked around his pillows for now and kept working. After a couple of minutes of tapping his foot and looking irritated, the earl began to worry at a boot lace as well.

“You have disgusting feet, pale as a dead jellyfish,” the earl said when he’d achieved the removal of the sock on his side.

Eddy almost fell over as the boot on his side finally popped off, releasing a stream of water over the foot of the bed.

“I’m going to need you to roll out of your jacket,” Victoria told Lewis.

He attempted to comply but began coughing again and lay back.

“Give me your arm.” When he did as told, she crossed it over his belly and pulled him over, panting at the exertion. Eddy ran to grab the jacket and waistcoat from under his back.

“Milady, your hands,” the boy said. “You need those doctored.”

“What did you do?” Lewis asked, twisting to grab at her hand.

“Doesn’t matter,” she said briskly, pulling them away.

A maid appeared at the door with a teapot and cups on a tray.

Victoria nodded. “Good, let’s get this into Mr. Noble. Can you fetch some beef tea, please? That would be better. Very strengthening.”

The maid set the tray on the bedside table and went to get the broth. Victoria began to work on Lewis’s shirt.

“Both socks off now, milady. Should we work on his trousers?” Eddy asked.

“Certainly not,” Lewis said, sounding stronger, as if in response to the effrontery of the question. “I will do it myself.”

Victoria glared at him. “You will lie back and do as you’re told.”

“You are not taking off my trousers, Lady Allen-Hill.” He said her name with great emphasis.

She realized he didn’t want her to reveal her overfamiliarity with his person. “I am a widow, sir. You have nothing I have not seen.”

“Nursed your husband, did you?” Eddy asked.

Actually, she had not been involved in the intimate details of caring for Sir Humphrey’s body. She’d been such a new bride that his valet had taken on most of the nursing duties, although she had done her best. She made a noncommittal noise as she pushed Lewis’s suspenders down his arms. Coughing all the while, Lewis rolled out of his shirt. The earl found a nightshirt and they got it over Lewis’s torso after Victoria wiped him dry as best she could with a towel. By the time that had been done, a footman had assisted Eddy with the lower half of Lewis’s garments.

“He should have the thickest wool socks you can find on his feet,” Victoria told Eddy. The boy went to look for some in the bureau.

They tucked Lewis in, adding hot water bottles, and spooned beef tea into him. His skin still felt icy after an hour, though he had stopped coughing. Victoria stared at his pale face, wishing she could curl up against him and offer him warmth. A wife could do that, but not a lover. She’d offered a bath, but he refused it, pleading exhaustion.

“I think he just needs to rest,” the earl said, coming back to the bed after stirring up the fire. “It’s blazing hot in here now.”

“You should see to your own attire,” Victoria said. “You have been in those damp clothes for too long, Lord Bullen.”

“I’ll keep watch over him, milord,” Eddy said. His eyes were still reddened by emotion. “You’ve missed luncheon, Lady Allen-Hill. And you are damp, too, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“The same goes for you,” she told the boy. “I’ll send someone up with hot, nourishing food and ensure you are checked on every fifteen minutes or so.”

“He’ll be right as rain by tomorrow,” the boy promised. “He wasn’t in that long.”

“I know,” Victoria said.

Lewis smiled at her and took her hand. “You’ve done everything for me you could. Let nature take its course now.”

She nodded, her throat suddenly parched. “I shall check on you later.” Head held high, she left the room. Tears came when she had the door shut behind her. How close had she come to losing him? It was best not to consider what had not happened. He would be fine, since he was so young and strong. Strange that she had not understood quite how large and muscular he was when she was in his arms. But just now, she’d felt quite overwhelmed by his size.

When she reached her room, she ordered a bath, thinking they perhaps should have insisted on that for Lewis, but it was too late now. When she was safely in the steaming water behind the screen, she finally gave in to emotion and sobbed.

When she climbed out, every muscle still ached. She clumsily doctored her hands but fell asleep before she had wrapped them properly. She woke up within half an hour, her body too sore for proper rest. An hour later, she had just finished dressing herself in a simple wool gown when Penelope appeared, trailed by a nursery maid.

“Did you know there is a wishing well on the property?” the girl asked. “We should make a wish for the new year!”

I could wish for Lewis to suffer no ill effects from his experience.
“Yes, that sounds like an excellent notion after we check on Mr. Noble.” She felt quite warm, especially since she’d slept before the fire.

“Do you think the wishing well was here in Princess Everilda’s day?” Penelope asked as the maid went to retrieve their outerwear.

Had the girl decided her story was real? Victoria smiled at the notion. She supposed her cousin had to find something to believe in after yesterday’s troubling revelations about her mother. “It probably was,” she said cautiously.

“Do you think it will be important to the story?”

“I have no idea,” Victoria said. “When last we left the princess, she was waiting until midnight to go to the bell tower.” The maid handed her a coat. It wasn’t her fur-trimmed winter coat, and it took her a moment to remember that that was still on the floor of Lewis’s room somewhere. “I wonder if you might have someone retrieve my coat, and Eddy Jackson’s as well, from Mr. Noble’s floor and have them brushed and dried?”

“Yes, milady,” the maid promised, handing her a pair of gloves. “I couldn’t find a muffler for you.”

“Also on the floor,” Victoria said.

“We heard what happened at luncheon. Poor Mr. Noble. Will he take sick?”

“I hope not.”

“What happened?” Penelope demanded.

“He was trapped in the submarine when it sprang a leak,” Victoria explained. “But the earl got him out.”

“He’s a hero, like Prince Hugh.”

“Prince Hugh hasn’t done anything except get himself captured,” Victoria said. “The princess is the heroine.”

“There has to be a hero.” Penelope screwed up her face. “Is he going to do something marvelous at the end? Like kill a dragon?”