Adele was afraid to turn. She was afraid her face and her expression would give her away.
The loud blast of the horn announced the start of the next race. It jolted Adele. Almost before she processed the thought, she spun about and shouted in German, “Watch out! Everyone duck!”
From the corner of her eyes she could see people swinging about to look at her with started or puzzled expressions.
Winnifred ducked, cringing, looking out from under her hat for the danger.
The chaperone stared at Adele, her mouth parting. Then she snapped it shut again and murmured quickly to Winnifred.
The girl straightened, turned and began to walk as swiftly as polite company deemed suitable toward the back of the enclosure where the entrance lay.
“Good lord…was that…? It sounded like German,” someone muttered.
Adele put her glass on the bar with a thud, dropped her parasol and walked after Winnifred.
“It’s that strange de Morville woman. Look, there she goes.”
“Too long in the colonies, that one.”
Adele ignored the comments and tried to close the distance between her and Winnifred. The younger woman walked at a speed that was very nearly a run, around the corner of the Ladies’ Tent, and down to the back end of the enclosure, where the gate was located.
The two butlers manning the gate, to turn away the hoi-poloi, nodded as Winnifred passed through. She immediately turned to the right and strode across the grass, through the ordinary spectators sitting on their blankets. She was heading up-river.
Winnifred glanced over her shoulder, saw Adele passing through the gate and increased her speed.
Adele picked up her skirts and broke into a run.
The girl must have heard Adele’s boots thudding on the grass. She didn’t look behind her, but immediately began to run, too.
And she was faster.
Running in a corset and boots in this heat immediately drained Adele. She had not done more than a mild jog since she had donned her first corset at sixteen. Her hat pulled back on her hair as the wind from her passage pushed at the big brim as it would a sail. She snatched at the hat pin, tossed it away and let the hat fall behind her. She lifted her skirts higher and picked up her pace.
Winnifred was angling toward the riverbank. She was causing heads to turn, and mouths to gape at her as she galloped through and around groups of people and families enjoying the spectacle on the river. As Adele passed, they all gaped at her, too.
Ahead, Adele saw Phillip Cowden by the tree he had adopted as his writing desk. He was staring at Winnifred with a bemused expression, as was everyone around him. Winnifred was going to run straight passed his tree, through the five-foot gap between the tree and the river bank.
“Stop her, Cowden!” Adele cried out. It took two breaths to get the whole sentence out.
Cowden looked startled. He straightened up from his lean against the tree, his astonished expression giving way to puzzlement, as Winnifred thudded past. At the last minute, he stuck out his foot.
He didn’t catch her ankle, but his boot did tangle with the mass of white muslin and cotton lace petticoats beneath, yanking Winnifred off her feet as effectively as a shepherd’s crook around the neck would have done.
She sprawled, letting out a whoofing sound.
Cowden straightened, untangled his foot and lifted his hat toward the prone girl. “I do apologize,” he told her. “I don’t understand this at all.”
Adele put on a burst of speed, astonished at herself. She was about to catch the girl. Behind her, she could hear people shouting at each other, puzzlement thick in their voices. More thudding on the parched grass. People were chasing her.
Just as Adele drew close to the tree, Winnifred pushed up with her arms, got her feet beneath her and sprinted away along the riverbank, her arms pistoning like a steam train.
“Damn!” Adele cried as she passed by Cowden.
“What on earth, Lady Adelaide?” Cowden called back from behind her.
Adele slowed enough to turn her chin over her shoulder. “She stole my reticule!”
She raced after Winnifred, but she could feel her energy flagging. They passed the starting line for the races and the sculling crews sorting out their shells for the next race. Then they were into parkland dotted with the ungainly backs of inns and houses, which faced the road. The river they passed was empty of boats, sculls or birds. Ahead was the old stone bridge, about two hundred yards away. Adele would have to catch the girl before she reached the bridge, for the bridge provided too many directions for Winnifred to take.
Adele was out of breath. Each ragged gasp tore at her throat and burned in her chest. But letting Winnifred slip free was unthinkable.
Then Winnifred jigged sideways. Perhaps there was a pothole in the beaten path she was following. Or something she didn’t want to put her foot into. But suddenly, the girl threw up her hands and windmilled her arms frantically, as she tottered on the very brink of the reedy bank. With a cry, she fell into the water sideways, with a great splash.
Adele came to a bellowing halt, her hands on her knees. Her hair fell about her shoulders, for she had lost all her pins, not just the hat pin. She pushed it out of the way.
Winnifred’s head bobbed up from beneath the water more than a dozen yards down river from where she had fallen in and moving fast. “Help me!” Winnifred cried, her arms flailing.
“Oh, lord…she can’t swim. Of course she can’t swim…” It was rare for women to take swimming lessons, but Adele had been one of them. She picked up her hems once more, ran for the edge of the river and dived in, her hands together.
“Adele, no!” Daniel’s voice, from just behind her.
Too late.
Adele plunged into the water. It was a cold, intense shock after the heat of the day, and she lost most of the breath she had taken as she
