Henrietta came to join them, her hand pressed to the floppy straw hat on her head to prevent the wind from taking it. “Is he even wearing a costume?”

“What?” Aunt Charlotte’s head jerked back. “Do you mean to suggest—?”

“I read about it in Papa’s newspaper,” Henrietta said. “Gentlemen visiting Margate often go into the water in a primitive state. The authorities haven’t had any luck forcing them to wear bathing costumes.” She looked to Laura with a grin. “Shall we go down?”

Laura touched her aunt’s arm. “Why don’t you join Squire Talbot?”

“Oh, but Laura—if one of these primitive fellows should approach you in the water—”

“I shall laugh at him,” Laura promised.

It was what the ladies in the water were currently doing with the gentleman in their midst—laughing at him, and with him, as they splashed him with water.

“I don’t mind a gentleman bathing with us,” Henrietta confided as she and Laura walked off together to the bathing machines. “It’s silly for the town council to forbid it. Why, what if the gentleman was your brother? Or your husband?”

“True enough,” Laura said absently.

She gazed out past the sand and to the rolling waves beyond. Farther from the shore, fewer people were in the water. The sea wasn’t as calm there. It was vast and wild. Limitless.

“Laura? Did you hear me?”

Laura turned back to Henrietta. “I’m sorry. Did you say something?”

“I said that I wish Alex and George could bathe with us. Wouldn’t that be enjoyable? But there’s no chance of that, is there? Not with Alex looking after your brother.” Henrietta shot a narrow glance back down the beach where Teddy was seated behind his easel. Alex stood nearby, his back to the sea.

Laura had had precious little contact with him since he’d handed her up into the carriage outside Bramble Cottage. From the time they had boarded the train in Lower Hawley, to their arrival at the York Hotel, Henrietta had commanded all of his attention. Laura hadn’t particularly minded. She’d been too much in awe of her surroundings—and too much occupied with settling her aunt and brother. But now…

She looked at him, a little wistful.

Like most of the fashionable gentlemen at the seaside, he was wearing a sack coat and matching trousers in a neutral shade of tan. Unlike the rest of the men, however, Alex managed to make the staid ensemble look dashing.

His coat was unbuttoned, pushed back by his hands on his hips to reveal the tan waistcoat, white linen shirt, and loosened necktie beneath. And his head was uncovered, his dark hair disheveled from running his fingers through it.

He looked like precisely what he was: a rogue. A feral wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Only a fool would fail to recognize the danger he represented.