of you, Mr Ashton! Do show me how to do it.’
He picked up another stone and put it into her hand. ‘You need to throw it quite hard and keep the trajectory low,’ he said. ‘Set it spinning flat as it leaves your hand.’
She tried and failed and tried again. ‘No, do it like this,’ he said, taking her hand and closing her fingers round the stone. Mark and Jane, who had gone a little ahead, turned to see why the other two were not close behind and were greeted with the sight of Drew with his arms about Isabel, trying to direct her aim. And they were both laughing.
‘Oh, dear,’ Jane said. ‘Isabel has no sense of propriety at all. It is as well there is no one on the beach who knows us.’
‘It is not her fault,’ Mark said. ‘Drew sometimes forgets he is not still in India where no doubt such familiarity is allowed.’
Jane did not know how accurate that statement was, but it was so like Mark to see no harm in his beloved. She hurried back to her sister, followed by Mark.
‘Drew has been teaching me how to make a pebble bounce,’ Isabel called to them. ‘Do come and try it.’
Jane could not rebuke her sister in front of others, but as they walked further along the beach she contrived to draw her out of earshot of the gentlemen. ‘I hate to scold, Issie, but really, you should not have allowed Mr Ashton to put his arm round you, nor should you have referred to him by his given name. Surely, you know better that that.’
‘Oh, don’t be such a fusspot, Jane. There was no harm in him showing me how to spin a pebble and Mark always uses Mr Ashton’s given name. It just slipped out.’
‘I am sure it did, but do try to be more careful.’
‘You are a fine one to talk. You have been seen in the village with Mark’s arms about you. Sophie had it off her friend, Maud Finch. Mrs Finch saw you with her own eyes.’
Jane had a vague memory of seeing Mrs Finch talking to Mrs Stangate when she met Mark and Drew on the village green. ‘I stumbled and he prevented me from falling,’ she said. ‘You may trust Mrs Finch to make a mountain out of a molehill and Sophie should not have repeated it.’
‘You have quite ruined my day with your scolding.’ Isabel pouted. ‘I was having such fun.’
But it was not long before she was holding her skirts up in her hand and racing over the sand to the water’s edge, laughing as the waves rippled over her kid shoes, which would undoubtedly be thrown out when they arrived home. Jane felt unhappy about the rebuke. It had made her sound a killjoy and she had not meant it to be like that at all. Her concern was for Mark. He had said nothing and even tried to excuse Isabel, but underneath he must have been feeling hurt. And if Mrs Finch’s gossip reached his ears he would be doubly embarrassed.
Further along the beach they watched some fishing boats unloading their cargo of crabs and Mark bought two for the girls to take home for their cook and then they returned to the promenade for refreshments in the Red Lion. A short walk along the cliff top followed when they all used Drew’s telescope to scan the beach and the horizon.
‘How close everything looks,’ Jane said. ‘Why, I can see the sailors on the deck of that ship and its name quite clearly. It’s called Morning Star.’
‘That is the vessel that brought me home from India,’ Drew said. ‘It is a very good ship, well run and fast. It is something like that I have a mind to purchase.’
‘And then Mark and I will go to India on it,’ Isabel said. ‘Three more weeks to go. I can’t wait. Will you be sailing on her, too, Mr Ashton?’
‘It depends on what turns up,’ he said. ‘Perhaps.’
‘I think it is time we made our way back to the coach,’ Jane said. ‘Mama will be wondering what has become of us.’
* * *
The coach deposited them back at the Manor at five o’clock. Jane and Isabel said goodbye to their escorts and carried the parcel of crabs into the house. They were tired but happy, ready to regale their mother with what they had seen and done. No one that evening thought about tragedy and Isabel had ceased to moan about bad omens and suchlike fancies.
* * *
They had not expected to see Mark again so soon, but he arrived at an unheard-of hour next morning, looking so sorrowful that Jane immediately wondered what was wrong. Sir Edward had gone out to the stables to check on one of the horses that seemed lame, but the ladies were still seated at the breakfast table.
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