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It couldn’t be borne. Lavinia broke Emmeline’s grip and clambered up onto a piling. She had to see. The wind almost bowled her over, but she held herself upright. The rain had slowed and more of the sea was visible, the agitated surface striped with foam. The man—the vicar—he hadn’t misled. Two boats were halfway to the headlands, their crews pulling hard on the oars. She realized her fingers had twisted together with brutalizing force. The bending bones would snap. Her rings would slice her pinky in half. Men were leaning from the first boat, straining to pull something from the water. A boy. They had him under the arms and then he was over the side. She searched the bay, sweeping her eyes from left to right

“Davy!” The name burst from her. “He’s there. He’s there!” It didn’t matter what she said. No one out on the water could hear her. But the second boat was approaching the rock to which Davy clung. They’d seen him.

Neal. She tottered as the wind slacked. Where was Neal? In her nightmares, she found herself often on the Thames embankment, watching as George was fished from the river. He was wearing the charcoal-gray lounge suit he’d worn on the ferry to Dieppe. His eyes stared through her.

In those nightmares, she couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. The horror unfolded again and again. The man she loved, whose warm body had been her delight, cold and stiff.

Now, she watched from the shore as Neal floundered somewhere in that crushing volume of water.

Where? As the sea rocked, she saw debris in the trough between waves. A plank of the shattered boat. Two figures holding on to it.

“There!” She was yelling for all she was worth. “There!” And, as before, no one could hear. But the men in the boats didn’t see the plank, its human burden. They were moving in the wrong direction.

The horror unfolded. She changed nothing. Couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. No. No. No. Fate’s witness. Fate’s victim. No. She jumped from the piling, fell forward onto her knees.

“There!” She could speak even if no one heard. She would keep speaking until they did. She would scream until her throat ran with blood. And she could move. She had control of her limbs. She could act, would act. She ran through the crowd to the edge of the water and then she was wading. The sea lapped her shins, cold as ice. She waded parallel to the harbor, toward the cliffs, pointing, her voice ripping out of her.

“There! He’s there!” A swell lifted the water to the height of her waist, and she flinched but didn’t stop, didn’t let it carry her over. Another swell pushed harder, tugged her skirts so she staggered. Oh God, if she fell, if the water rolled her, rolled over her . . . She found her footing.

The crowd on the shore had taken notice. She could hear the shouts, a tumult of voices, and then, as more and more people understood, as they tracked her movement, her extended arm, a collective call rang out.

“There! He’s there!”

The whole village was chorusing, the chant rising, equal to the gale. And the second boat, it was turning, beating toward the cliffs. She was shaking violently. She couldn’t feel her legs, her feet. The waves pushed and dragged, tireless, wearing her down. She tucked her arms, hands fisted under her chin. The first boat shot past, its grim crew leaping out into the shallows, tugging it up onto the sand. Lavinia turned and saw Davy holding his brother in his arms, splashing to shore. Tomas and the vicar ran to him, and together they lowered him onto the vicar’s black coat. When she turned back to the sea, the second boat was only yards away. Neal sat among the men, hair black and dripping, shirt plastered to his broad shoulders.

He didn’t stare through her. He stared at her. And then that boat, too, had passed. She heaved her legs to change course, her skirts tangling. She could move faster now, back to the pier along the water’s margin. Ahead, the other boy was being carried from the boat, coughing and twisting. Tomas knelt by the first, lifting and bending his arms and legs. Loveday and Davy stood pressed together.

“He’s breathing.” Tomas looked up at them as a woman broke vigorously through the crowd. She gathered the boy into her arms and rocked him with unspeakable tenderness, then widened her arms so the second boy could lean into them. She never stopped murmuring, and as Lavinia approached she made out the words, a steady stream of threats and dire warnings.

That would be their mother.

“Get them home to the fire.” Tomas stood, hand on his forehead, expression haggard.

“Muriel!” Loveday caught sight of her and held out her hands.

At what moment had the transition taken place, formality giving way to familiarity? It had begun in the kitchen, with shared endeavor, and then, the tempest, the crisis, had stripped all of them down, not only her and the Traymaynes, but the whole village. They were joined by fear, hope, common purpose.

She grasped Loveday’s hands and Loveday gasped. “You’re cold as ice.”

“Bloody hell,” Tomas growled. “What’s this I hear about you diving off a cliff?”

Neal had come up behind her. She turned as Davy charged, clapping him in an embrace. “God love you for a maniac.” Davy let go abruptly, pivoting to expel water. He’d swallowed a fair quantity.

Neal shook wet hair from his eyes. “I was most of the way down already.”

“Bird’s nest? Or was it some blasted rare moss that caught your eye?” Tomas’s gruffness made poor cover. He’d been well and truly frightened. It was written in the lines of his face.

“A bonnet, in fact. On a ledge.” Neal’s gaze slid over and found hers. She was too cold to laugh. She blinked at him. She didn’t doubt that he’d gamble with his life for a bit of vegetation. But for her bonnet?

“Tomas, don’t keep them talking,” Loveday touched her brother’s sleeve. “They’ll catch their death of cold. All three of you need to get out of those wet clothes.”

Bad luck that Lavinia was still looking at Neal. Had her face betrayed her at the phrase? Get out of those wet clothes. He might as well take his shirt off now. The wet cotton molded to the muscles of his arms and chest. His trousers seemed suctioned to his thighs. Her throat felt very tight.

The crowd was dispersing. Everyone was cold and wet, even those who hadn’t dunked in the sea.

“And I need to go lock the twins in their room until they’re forty-five, so they never make such damnable mischief.” Tomas shook his head. Imagining his own sons out on that boat. “What were those boys thinking?”

Davy coughed. “Thinking it’d be fun, I’d wager. They’ll catch it from Mum, you’d better believe. I should help get them home.”