moving images left little to the imagination. One middle-aged woman fainted near the gazebo, while raised voices competed in their outrage, demanding the movie be stopped immediately.
Sonja smirked as William, having climbed down on the far side of the pavilion, tiptoed into the shadows behind an overgrown bower. Slick as a knock-off artist. Whatever the cousins had done to tick him off, he’d settled that debt as well.
Outrage among the partygoers fell away to morbid fascination as the scene played out, the wide open mouths of many guests almost matched in size by their bulging eyes. Especially the so-called gentlemen. The Sorensens sobbed onto the shoulders of gallant saviours who carried them back into the house, away from this humiliation. Damn. The end of the show. Merry had only taken a few minutes of film from her hiding place in the bushes behind the lake, using Father’s dynamo camera.
The image crackled and then flickered out, leaving the blank screen to flap in a sudden gust. Men who’d climbed the pavilion roof disabled the projector, and the tattling began around the now noticeably colder garden.
Sonja shivered. She tugged the sleeve of Merry’s gown, flashed her a grin. In reply, her sister clamped her teeth on her lower lip and flicked her eyebrows up in delight. Good, tonight had been everything she’d expected. A complete and utter victory, worthy of Nelson on the Nile or Nemo in the Atlantic. Whatever happened next, Merry would always have this to look back on, to hopefully negate the nightmares.
Sonja puckered her lips and whistled silently as gazes burned into her back. She linked arms with her sister and marched over to the yellow cloudberry plants, where it was poorly lit. Here they shared a giggle of relief and a hug, and Sonja loved the sound and feel of Merry’s long, relaxing sigh against her.
“So it’s over.” Merry juddered as she lifted free. “We showed them, didn’t we.”
“Absolutely.”
“They still don’t know what hit them, I’ll bet. Rotters, bombing us with ink, of all things.” Merry spread her fingertips on her temples. “The nerve! After what they did last time, and they still weren’t satisfied. My God, if ever revenge were justified, I mean—they just handed it to us on a silver platter. All this time, and the bitches only got bitchier. Tell me we’ve hit them where it hurts.”
Sonja clicked her heels to attention, hoping to lighten the mood. “Aye, Captain. We raked ‘em, for certain.”
“Raked?”
“Yes, that’s when you hit their stern with a broadside and your shots travel lengthways along their decks. Maximum damage.”
“Ooh, I like that. We raked ‘em and watched ‘em get dragged to port. And now I think it’s time we made ourselves scarce. Come on—” she pulled Sonja toward the greenhouse abutting the empty conservatory, “—let’s find your mystery boy. We both owe him a kiss.”
Sonja wasn’t normally one for lollygagging, but her feet suddenly dragged like anchors over the gravel. Kissing William?
That had better be a joke. Never mind three years—a lifetime of embarrassment awaited her if she had to go through with that.
Chapter Two
Dark Salt
They crept around the exterior of the north wing by the brilliant light of a gibbous moon, peering in through every open window. Pale servants scurried hither and thither fetching blankets and smelling salts and jugs of water and other cautionary measures to the drawing room, where the vanquished cousins were no doubt licking their wounds, milking the attention.
Boo-hoo! What a to-do. Partygoers invaded by the score to enquire after the trollops—ooh, what a horrible reaction to insect bites—my word, they’d never seen the like this time of year—ah, at least there was no swelling—it was likely shock that rendered them mute for the present—cluck-cluck, cluck-cluck, etcetera. Meredith and Sonja hadn’t had such a fuss made over them three years ago, and they’d been much younger, genuinely inconsolable.
“Father will be all right, won’t he?” Her young sister’s concern made Meredith swallow too, but she didn’t want to dwell on it. This victory was still too raw, too invigorating. The end of an era. Let her have this one night to celebrate without repercussion—the consequences could roll over her tomorrow and forever on for all she cared.
A sugary rush gummed her insides and left her tingly. Warm tears welled in her eyes. The resulting shiver filled her with sublime satisfaction, as though the world could end right now and she could happily make her peace.
“Ah, there you are, Miss McEwans...Misses McEwan...I mean Miss and Miss McEwan.”