The Romance by M. C. Beaton, Marion Chesney

the situation distressful.’
    ‘They seem the best of friends,’ said Lizzie, ‘which all goes to show that Gyre is not the man for you.’
    ‘Stop talking fustian,’ snapped Belinda. ‘I have no interest in Gyre whatsoever.’
    She walked faster and Lizzie scurried to keep up. ‘You see,’ panted Lizzie, ‘I am afraid history will repeat itself and you will be like our elder sisters and throw up the chance of Mannerling for love.’
    Belinda stopped and faced her. ‘Our sisters decided not to marry highly unsuitable men and as a result are all happy.’
    ‘I knew it! You are interested in Gyre.’
    ‘Lizzie, you are making my poor head ache. If only we could talk to Miss Trumble. I feel the need of some sensible conversation.’
    *      *      *
    Later that day, Lord Gyre, followed by two grooms who claimed to be excellent swimmers and also by a farm labourer leading a sturdy horse, headed for the lake.
    The idea was that the grooms were to dive down where the rowing-boat had sunk and attach ropes to it, which would then be fastened to the halter on the horse. Then the horse would be backed away from the lake and so pull the boat out.
    The grooms stripped off, chattering cheerfully to each other and obviously treating it all as a bit of an adventure.
    Lord Gyre waited patiently as each man with a rope in his hand dived into the lake, swam to where the boat had sunk, and dived again. It was only a few moments before both surfaced, gasping and spluttering and then swimming frantically for the shore. They scrambled out. ‘What on earth are you about?’ demanded the marquess wrathfully.
    ‘There’s a drowned man down there, m’lord,’ gasped one. ‘I was groom at stables when the previous owner was here. It was that Mr. Cater, the sugar planter, him what used to call. He…reached out his hands for me.’
    ‘Dolts,’ said the marquess savagely. ‘Oh, I’ll do it myself. Thank God the ropes are floating on the surface.’
    He stripped off, tossing his clothes at his feet, strode to the water’s edge and dived in.
    As he managed to locate the boat by feel, he wondered furiously how those idiots had managed to see anything at all at the bottom. He attached one rope, surfaced, and swam back with it and threw it on the bank, where one white-faced groom fastened it to the horse’s collar. The marquess then swam back and repeated the process with the other rope.
    The farm horse was backed slowly up the bank and gradually, with the men helping, the boat was pulled to the shore and up the grassybank. Naked, with water running down his body, the marquess bent down and examined the boat carefully. Then he stood up.
    ‘Someone sawed a hole in the bottom of this boat. Something must have been put over the hole to cover it so that it would sink after a certain time.’
    Lizzie and Belinda, who had gone out for a walk, had entered the folly. They looked down at the tableau by the lake—two naked grooms and an equally naked marquess. Lizzie let out a squeak and then covered her eyes with her hands. Belinda finally dragged her own eyes away and led Lizzie out of the folly and back towards the house.
    ‘I did not know naked men looked like that,’ said Lizzie at last.
    ‘We have seen classical statues,’ said Belinda in a bracing voice which belied the fact that she was quite shaken and that the statues she had seen had all worn decorous marble fig-leaves.
    *      *      *
    The marquess had urged the grooms not to talk nonsense about a drowned man in the lake, but then he became anxious that there might really be a body down there and informed the authorities. The house party gathered again at the lake as it was dragged by a team of men from the nearby market town of Hedgefield.
    Somehow, the marquess was not surprisedwhen the search was finally over without anything being found. He wondered then whether to turn the authorities’ attention to the rowing-boat but decided against it. Perry