th tears, his eyes wide with fright and his little chest heaving.
‘What is it?’ Luc swept him up in his arms.
‘Matthew… Moat,’ he managed.
Luc thrust the shaking child into my arms and ran, James on his heels. I passed Charles to his grandmother, reasoning that I was more likely to be helpful at the moat than soothing a distraught little boy, and ran too.
We found Matthew clutching a spindly branch of a dead pine tree that extended a good ten feet up over the murky water of the moat. He must have been inching out, slipped, and was now clinging upside down like a small, desperate, sloth.
‘Matthew! Hang on, we’re here,’ Luc shouted up and was answered by a faint wail.
‘Can we get him to drop?’ I suggested. ‘If we are in the water we can fish him out the moment he lands.’
‘It is too deep for us to stand and if he hits the surface wrongly…’ James didn’t have to finish. The child could break a limb, or worse.
I started stripping off my skirts, then kicked off my shoes and pulled off my stockings.
‘What are you doing?’ Luc demanded as I ripped my petticoat vertically at the front, pulled it through and tucked it in at the waist.
‘Climbing. I’m the lightest of us.’
The tree trunk was rough and gave a good, if painful grip to my bare feet. And, like all conifers, it seemed to have numerous snags and broken bits of branch, making it easy enough to reach the branch Mathew was clinging to.
‘Hold on,’ I called to him. ‘I’m coming to get you.’
I lay flat on the branch and began to inch out along it, then froze when there was an ominous cracking sound.
‘Stay still, Matthew. James has gone for a ladder,’ Luc called up.
The branch sagged and I knew I couldn’t wait for James. I scooted forwards, reached down, got one small wrist in my hand. ‘Let go, Matthew!’
Brave little boy, he did as I told him, falling down to the full stretch of my arm. I swung him back blindly towards the bank and let go, trusting to Luc to catch him.
There was an, ‘Ough!’ a thump and a cry of ‘Papa!’ which was drowned in the sound of the branch I was on giving up the struggle and breaking off.
It wasn’t far down to the water, and I managed to kick free of the branch before it dragged me under. James contrived to fall in “helping” me out and we collapsed in a sodden, muddy heap on the bank.
Luc was decidedly white about the lips, but his voice was steady as he set his son on his feet. ‘What do you say to Miss Lawrence, Matthew?’
‘Thank you very much for rescuing me, Miss Lawrence,’ he managed. ‘An‘ I’m very sorry, Papa.’
‘What did you promise me about the moat?’ Luc demanded, still seated. I suspect he didn’t trust his legs.
‘Not to go within six feet of it, Papa. But I wasn’t. That’s more than six feet ’cos I measured it with a long stick and then the ruler, just like Mr Prescott taught me.’
You had to hand it to the child, he was nothing if not bright. He even succeeded in silencing his father who just sat there, eyes closed, probably counting to one hundred in German.
‘Miss Lawrence! Do come inside and get out of those wet clothes.’ It was Lady Radcliffe carrying Charles and followed by a small battalion of household staff, all armed with towels.
She set Charles down and, miraculously, all his tears had gone. He grinned at his twin and rushed up to wrap his arms around him.
Luc opened his eyes and got to his feet. ‘Thank you, Cassie.’ He held out his hand and hauled me up.
Lady Radcliffe gave a faint shriek at the sight of me. ‘Hopkins! A towel for Miss Lawrence! The largest one.’
* * *
We finally reconvened in the drawing room rather early for dinner, but bathed, changed and respectable again. Luc was looking frazzled after a prolonged session with the twins, extracting promises on moats, trees, fences, roofs and just about any hazard he could imagine.