The boat was making way fast now, moving out to sea. She heard a male voice, loud into the wind. “Ahoy! Get yon boat out of that! This is for ladies only! Get you gone!”
Turning, Delia saw a burly individual shaking his fist and dodging the waves. The guardian of the beach, it would seem.
Sally was still calling and Delia pushed her way through to the shore, a thrum in her veins as the questions continued to plough through her mind.
“Goodness knows what’s got into you, Miss Delia! Why didn’t you come out at once?”
Delia listened with only half an ear as Sally scolded, rubbing her down with the towel. The wrapper was flung about her still damp limbs.
“Shove your feet into the sandals, dovey, and let’s get you back. Her ladyship should never have allowed it. Young ladies these days, I don’t know.”
Delia could not resist looking back as she was hurried up the beach, Sally’s arm protectively about her. The little boat was already at a distance, tacking off towards the mouth of the estuary. The guardian was standing watching it still, arms akimbo.
As they reached the entrance to the bathing room, a huddle of the other swimmers was found to be in the way, exclaiming and complaining of ill-usage.
“If they cannot keep it private, I for one shall not swim again.”
“I shall report it to Mr Rodber.”
“Yes, indeed. He’ll see to it the authorities are alerted.”
Delia resisted the urge to say that the guardian would no doubt inform them, instead requesting a passage. “Will you excuse me, if you please?”
The little crowd parted to let her through, and she received one or two minatory looks. What, because she had not rushed out of the water like a demented hen?
Sally hurried her through and up the steps into the bathing room where she lost no time in informing Lady Matterson, who had just come back from her dip, of the shocking event.
Chagrined, Delia heard the exclamations break out around her.
“Gracious heaven!”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing!”
“Oh, I should have been mortified!”
“Were you not dreadfully afraid, dear Miss Burloyne?”
Delia turned to the speaker, a youthful creature and, like herself, companion to an older relative. “No, I wasn’t at all afraid. It was only a couple of men in a rowing boat after all.”
She spoke more stoutly than she felt. She had been apprehensive, but only on account of the men possibly having a more sinister purpose than trying to catch a glimpse of scantily clad female forms.
Her rebuttal produced a chorus of protest, but Delia excused herself on the score of needing to go home and change. She found her way to Lady Matterson. “Aunt, are you ready?”
A gimlet eye raked her, but the response was mild enough. “Indeed. I am ready for my breakfast too. By your leave, ladies.”
Grateful for her aunt’s ready acquiescence, Delia exited the place with her, Sally at their heels. She sighed inwardly, however. Lady Matterson’s aspect warned of a coming interrogation. Heaven grant she might think up a convenient excuse for her tardiness in leaving the water.
CHAPTER SIX
The rector’s calm served only to increase Giff’s impatience.
“I’m grateful, sir, for your concern, but it’s time and past I left here.”
He was partaking of a hearty breakfast in the kitchen, Aggy having piled his plate with cold beef and a thick wedge from the remains of last night’s pigeon pie which she’d heated in the bread oven. His uncle’s cook-housekeeper amused Giff with her evident enjoyment of his voracious appetite. The Reverend Gaunt, he’d discovered, regularly incurred her displeasure for his habit of eating sparely.
His great-uncle set down his empty coffee cup. “Time enough to be off when your wound is fully healed.”
“It’s sufficiently mended, thanks to your ministrations. I hardly feel it.”