“Now we wait.” He looked out to where the line of waves was coming ever closer.

“Once the boat floats we’ll have to swim to the sand,” Petra pointed out. “Can you swim, Clothilde?” She held out her bloody hands to pull the woman into a sitting position.

Clothilde shook her head. She seemed to have lost the power of speech during her ordeal. She shivered and Guy pulled a handkerchief out of his jacket pocket before taking off the jacket and draping it around Clothilde’s shoulders.

“It shouldn’t be too long now,” he told her, trying to sound reassuring before turning to Petra. “Let me look at your hands.”

Petra extended them palms up in silence. Guy spat on his handkerchief and wiped away as much of the blood as he could. “They’re scrapes rather than cuts,” he declared. “Keep dabbing at them and the bleeding will stop.”

Petra watched the tide racing in. It was astonishing how fast it came. She knew all the stories of unwary people caught by the tide on this beach and the many lifeboat rescues, and she’d read the stories of those who’d died in the mud, but still the speed of the oncoming tide shocked her. Within fifteen minutes of Clothilde’s rescue the dinghy was beginning to float and small waves were lapping at the sand twenty feet away. There was no sign of the treacherous mud beneath the blue-green water.

“Instead of swimming, why don’t we see if we can row the dinghy closer to the shore?” Petra suggested. “Once we reach the sand, you can help Clothilde to walk onto the beach. I don’t mind bringing the boat back to its mooring and then swimming back across the mud.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Guy stated. “Your heroics, madam wife, are over for the day.” He leaned sideways, resting on the palm of one hand against the thwart, and kissed her mouth. He glanced at Clothilde, who now sat on the second thwart, huddled in his jacket.

“What in the devil’s name were you doing here, Clothilde?”

Petra kept silent. She had the feeling that Guy was about to dispense with his customary courtesy.

Clothilde said nothing, but turned her head away, looking toward the beach. Guy unhooked an oar from one of the rowlocks and reached across for the other. He turned the little boat and began to row to the beach. Just as the boat was about to run aground again, but this time on sand, he said somewhat curtly, “Get out here, Petra, and go to the Ship. Get a room, order mulled wine, and get out of those clothes. I’ll join you within the hour.”

“But . . . but . . .” She looked expressively at Clothilde.

“Would you just for once do as you’re told.”