Instantly, her clothing became an enemy. The heavy wool of her gown, the layered cotton petticoats, the stiff canvas of her corset—they drank the lake water greedily. Within seconds, her garments weighed 40 lb. They dragged her down into the murky darkness.
Panic, raw and animalistic, seized her throat. She kicked her legs, but the soaked skirts tangled around her ankles, a heavy net pulling her toward the silty bottom. Water rushed into her ears, drowning out the bright, sunny world above. She opened her eyes but saw only a swirl of green and brown.
I am going to drown, she realized. The thought was icy and clear. I'm going to drown in a man-made pond because Victoria didn't like the way her fiance looked at me.
She felt her lungs scream for air. Her chest burned against the rigid stays of her corset. Her hands clawed blindly at the water.
Then a sudden, blinding rage cut through the panic. It was a quiet, lifelong anger. The anger of eating cold leftovers in the kitchen, the anger of being spoken to like a slow-witted child, the anger of mending the same hem three times while watching girls like Victoria throw away silk gowns because of a spilled drop of tea. She refused to die here. She absolutely refused to let the last thing she heard be the polite, horrified gasps of the aristocracy.
Norah stopped thrashing. She let herself sink for a split second, feeling the squelch of the muddy bottom beneath her boots. She bent her knees, planting her feet firmly in the muck. Then, with every ounce of strength left in her starved, tightly laced body, she pushed upward.
She broke the surface with a violent, agonizing gasp. Water streamed from her hair, plastering it to her skull. Algae clung to her cheeks. She was treading water frantically, her arms burning as she fought the immense weight of her ruined dress. She sucked in breath after ragged breath, coughing up a mouthful of foul-tasting lake water.
The garden party was dead silent. The string quartet had stopped playing. A hundred pairs of eyes were fixed on the water. No one moved. The men in their pristine coats, the women in their pastel silks, they stood frozen on the lawn like porcelain dolls.
Above her, on the stone bank, stood Victoria. Victoria's hands were clamped over her mouth in a pantomime of absolute horror. "Oh, heavens!" Victoria cried out, her voice echoing too loudly in the quiet. "Norah, you clumsy fool. You slipped. Help her. Someone fetch a gardener."
Norah treaded water. She didn't cry for help. She didn't weep. She simply looked up at Victoria. Norah's gaze was dead. It held no plea for mercy, no embarrassment, no shame. It was the look of a woman who had just stared death in the face and realized the world she lived in was entirely devoid of value.
She turned her eyes to Henry. The Duke stood beside his fiance. He was not frozen like the others. His coat was already unbuttoned, his hands gripping the lapels, preparing to strip it off and dive in. But when Norah met his eyes, he stopped. He saw what she was feeling. He saw the cold, furious humiliation and the absolute refusal to be rescued like a stray dog.
Norah turned away from them both. She paddled heavily toward the sloped muddy side of the bank, ignoring the stone ledge where Victoria stood. Every movement was agony. The dress was a lead weight. But she reached the shallows, her boots finding purchase in the slime. She dragged herself upward. The water cascaded off her in sheets, turning the dry dirt of the bank into instant mud. She stood up.
It was an ugly, wretched sight. Her gray wool gown was black with water and slime. Her hair had come unpinned, hanging in dripping ratty strings down her back. A long strand of green pondweed was draped over her shoulder.
A footman rushed forward, holding out a long pole. His face a mask of panicked pity. Norah slapped the pole away. The sound of her hand hitting the wood cracked through the silence like a pistol shot. The footman recoiled.
Norah didn't look at the crowd. She didn't try to wring out her skirts or hide her face. She kept her chin parallel to the ground. She took a step. Her boot made a loud wet shuck in the mud. Then another step.
She walked straight through the center of the garden party. The crowd parted for her like the Red Sea. Aristocrats recoiled, pulling their delicate silks out of her path, horrified by the smell of the pond and the sheer brazen audacity of a servant who did not know how to hide her shame.
She passed Victoria. Victoria opened her mouth, perhaps to offer a chiding reprimand, perhaps to maintain the illusion of an accident.
"You pushed me," Norah said. She didn't shout. Her voice was raw, rasping from the lake water, but it carried perfectly.
Victoria's pale face flushed a violent, ugly red. "You are hysterical from the cold. You tripped."
"You pushed me," Norah repeated, her voice dead, flat and absolute. She didn't wait for a response. She kept walking.
She passed the Duke. Henry was standing perfectly still, his half-unbuttoned coat hanging loose. He watched her pass. There was no pity in his eyes. There was only a sharp, intense focus. He was looking at her as though he had never seen a real human being before this exact moment.
Norah walked up the grand stone steps of the estate, leaving a trail of black water and mud across the pristine white marble. She entered the house. The heavy oak doors shut behind her, cutting off the stare of the world.
The servants' corridors in the back of the Penhalagon estate were dark and narrow. Norah left wet footprints on the floorboards, her breathing echoing in the enclosed space. She was shivering now. The adrenaline that had hauled her out of the water was receding, leaving behind a bone-deep, violent chill.
She reached her small windowless room. She closed the door and leaned against it, sliding down until she hit the floor. She sat there in the dark, water pooling around her.
She was ruined. The realization settled over her, cold and heavy. You do not accuse a wealthy heiress of attempted murder in front of the county's elite. You do not walk away from your betters in dripping, unrepentant silence. By nightfall, she would be fired without a character reference. She had no money, no family willing to take in a disgraced companion, and nowhere to go. Her life, as she knew it, was over.
A sudden, sharp laugh clawed its way up her throat. It sounded terrifying in the small room. Good, she thought. Let it be over.
She stripped off the ruined dress. It took 20 minutes of shivering, agonizing effort to undo the wet, swollen laces of her corset. She left the sodden pile of wool and canvas on the floor like a dead body. She dried herself roughly with a thin towel and dressed in her only other garment, a faded high-collared morning dress she kept packed away. It was slightly too large, but it was dry.
She shoved her few possessions—a comb, two books, a meager coin purse—into a small canvas satchel. She did not bother to pin her hair back up. She simply braided the damp mass of it down her back.