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 was 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 squelch 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.