haven’t had your treatment yet,” her stepmother protested. “And I will not pay our bathers to watch you look for shells!”
“It’s not that,” Meredee called. “Someone’s in trouble.”
“Oh, she’ll be fine,” Mrs. Murdock said in her booming voice, her vowels as long and fluid as the waters stretching out behind them. “Just put your foot down now, miss,” she shouted to the girl. “It’s not so deep here.”
But the girl was clearly becoming panicked. Barely keeping her mouth above the water, she flailed her arms. “Hurry! Please!”
Meredee could see the fear on the girl’s face, hear it in the sharp little cries. Surely someone should go to her aid! Mrs. Murdock evidently thought better of her words, for she started forward. But Mrs. Price held her back, clinging to her and Mrs. Lint as if afraid the sea would rise and swallow her too. And there was no help anywhere else. Up and down the beach, the dandies and fine ladies who flocked to Scarborough for the summer were staring, pointing.
“Will no one help?”
At the sound of the anguished cry, one of the horses reared in its traces. Meredee gasped as the wagon jerked and swung to one side, knocking one of the bathers into the waves with a splash. The other clung to her perch, face white, as the wagon teetered on two wheels, overshadowing the girl, who stared up at it as if in a trance.
Enough! Meredee didn’t wait another second. She waded over, seized the girl under the arms, and dragged her away from the wagon. Still the girl struggled, her slender body colliding with Meredee’s. Her fear was very nearly contagious. The sand shifted under Meredee’s feet; the waves broke against her back. The cold was nothing compared to the chill inside her.
Help me, Lord. I can’t lose someone else at Scarborough.
She widened her stance and tightened her grip. “You’re safe,” she said against the girl’s temple. “I have you.” She nearly cried out in relief when the girl went limp in her arms. “Just put down your feet.”
Wet skirts brushed hers as the girl complied.
“There,” Meredee said soothingly, as much to calm the girl as to settle her own pulse. “You see? We’re fine.”
She released her hold, and the girl turned to face her. Her eyes were deep brown and wide with shock. “Oh, thank you! You saved my life!”
Meredee shook her head, but, before she could protest, one of the girl’s bathers waded up. “Everything all right here?”
“This woman is a savior,” the girl declared. “I might have drowned if it wasn’t for her.”
The bather’s face tightened. Meredee knew that even a rumor that the bather had been negligent might keep others from patronizing her. Rumors flew fast in the little resort town and quickly grew out of proportion.
“You know, you might have drowned at that,” Meredee’s bather declared as she splashed up to them, Meredee’s stepmother in tow. “A body can drown in just a few feet of water. That’s why you have us.”
“And that’s why we pay perfectly good money for the treatment,” Mrs. Price said with a pointed look at Meredee. The refrain was all too familiar. Though her scholar father had left the family with a comfortable living, his second wife refused to allow a single penny to leave her fingers until she had wrung the life from it.
As if the other bather sensed that Meredee was about to be scolded, she stepped closer. “Ah, but look at your daughter, now. Perhaps we should hire her out. Regular mermaid, isn’t she?”
Meredee was certain her cheeks would have reddened in a blush if they hadn’t been tingling with the cold. Her thick, wavy hair might qualify as golden and her late father had always said her eyes were the color of the sea in a storm, but she was hardly a mermaid. Her interests in Scarborough lay cradled in the sands, not out among the waves.
“She is not my daughter,” Mrs. Price said, eyes narrowing. “I’m quite certain I am entirely too young to have a daughter of five and twenty.”
That she had a son two years older by a previous marriage did not seem to trouble her. It was only Meredee she found such a terrible burden.
Lord, give me patience.
“Now, come along,” Mrs. Price said, her lips a determined shade of blue. “You can see this person is fine.”
The girl didn’t look fine. She clutched her soaked gown to her chest, trembling. Meredee’s heart went out to her, but she knew her duty lay with her step mother. She offered the girl a smile before turning to go, but the girl reached out for Meredee’s arm. “No, wait. I must know the name of my savior.”
The title felt entirely wrong. “I know only one Savior,” Meredee told her, “but my name is Meredee Price.”
“Lady Phoebe Dearborn,” she replied, voice trembling, as well. “And I shall be forever in your debt.”
Meredee thought her stepmother might try to curry favor now that she knew the girl was titled, but Mrs. Price’s financial concerns proved paramount. “Then perhaps you would be so good as to pay our bathers,” she put in, nose in the air. “They charge by the hour, you know, and we are taking up a good deal of their time.”
Lady Phoebe dropped her gaze and her hold on Meredee’s arm. “Of course. I’m sure my brother would be delighted. I’m terribly sorry to have inconvenienced you.”
Meredee couldn’t bear to see the girl so forlorn. She enveloped her in a hug, the chill of the bathing costumes warming for a moment, then stepped back. “It was no trouble, I assure you. Perhaps we’ll see each other in town.”
An answering smile lit Lady Phoebe’s dark eyes.
“I suppose we’ve forfeited Meredee’s time for a cure,” Mrs. Price said, heaving a martyred sigh as Meredee followed her and Mrs. Murdock back to their bathing machine.
“Not at all,” Mrs. Murdock said with a wink to Meredee. “I’ll be more than happy to give Miss Price the cure, no charge. Anything for the savior of Scarborough Bay.”
Meredee smiled at her but shook her head. “No, I wouldn’t want Mrs. Price to take a chill.” She gazed down into the waters one last time, but the movements of the horses and bathers had so muddied her view that she knew she’d never spot what she’d been searching for now. Suppressing a sigh, she climbed the few steps into the bathing machine for their trip to the shore.
Mrs. Price’s mood improved along the way as Meredee helped her into her underthings and the sprigged muslin gown that had been hanging from pegs on the white enameled walls of the cozy wooden box. But then, Meredee had found, her stepmother’s moods generally improved as long as Meredee devoted herself to the older woman’s comfort.
“I suppose Scarborough isn’t the end of the world,” Mrs. Price said with a final shiver. She took a seat on the bench that lined one wall as Meredee began changing, as well. “Still, I never intended to see this place again. I cannot imagine what Algernon was thinking to bring us here. Surely there are more fashionable bathing places.”
Oh, there were no doubt more fashionable bathing places—like the prince’s favorite summer
