Page 93 of Taming the Heiress
"Aye," Dougal replied. Then there was silence.
"Dougal?"
"Meg—air..."
"Dougal!"
Silence. Meg caught her breath, then looked down over the side. Bubbles rose where the various hoses and ropes entered the water, and she saw shadows moving far below. The surface of the water was increasingly agitated. "Dougal?"
She turned, saw Frederick and the other men busy on the cranks and pulleys and hoses, saw Fergus with Iain close at his side, watching from a distance, saw Norrie hurrying toward her.
"He's not answering me," she said. Norrie took the funnel.
"Dougal Stewart!" he called. "Dougal!"
Meg looked down at the greenish, slopping surface of the water, roiling with peaks and waves. He had to live—had to. She could not bear to stand on the rock and wait, listening, watching, hoping, while he was so far below, in trouble.
She could not live without him now.
She wanted to do what Alan had done, tear off her clothing and dive down there too. Dougal had saved Iain and so many others. He had saved her, too, over and over, from the first moment she had met him—saved her, body and soul.
Tearing off her bonnet, she set it aside, hardly caring when it skittered over the edge into the water. She was already working the buttons of her cape and bending to undo the loops and buttons that fastened her ankle boots.
"What are you doing?" Norrie asked. He lifted the funnel again. "Dougal Stewart, answer me!" he called.
Below, Alan burst out of the water, gasping, treading in the waves. "The hoses!" he called. "Dougal's hoses are caught! I need a lever to move the stone!" One of the men climbed downward and extended a long iron rod. Alan snatched it, then dove down againt.
Meg lifted her skirts and reached beneath to undo the tapes of her petticoats. Without a crinoline, four petticoats provided fashionable fullness, and she wished desperately that she had worn the simple garments common to Isleswomen. She tore at the buttons of her blouse.
"What in blazes are you doing?" Frederick called, his hands busy on a cranking handle. "Here, you cannot do that, madam!"
She ignored him, slipping out of her blouse, dropping her skirt to stand in chemise and knickers. "Get this thing off me," she said to Norrie, yanking at the laces of her stays.
"Madam!" Frederick said. Some of the other men protested.
"Turn away," she said over her shoulder as her grandfather gave the corset cords a yank, "though I'm sure you've all seen a lady in her knickers. The men are needed on the equipment. There is no one else to spare. Fergus, keep Iain with you, or he'll fall in," she called, as Fergus ran toward her with Iain chasing behind him.
She had to do this. She could not bear to watch this any longer, knowing that she could help as well as any of the men, and better than some, with her smaller frame and nimble hands and her ability to swim and dive. Not all the men could help, she knew. Fergus, for all his fishing skills, did not swim well.
"Lady Strathlin!" one of the commissioners in black called.
"I'm going in," she insisted, while the men stared at her in dumbfounded shock. She walked to the edge of the cliff.
"Dougal Stewart," Norrie said into the funnel, "your lass is coming down there after you. Go find your kelpie, girl," he added to her.
The wind bit cold and cruel through the thin cotton layers of her garments. She stood in the open, looked down at the water below, bent her knees and poised her hands.
* * *
Eerie and murky, the strange watery world around him grew chilly and dim. He shivered, felt the deep cold entering his bones. The rubber suit, normally inflated with air to add buoyancy and warmth, had torn along the sleeve and now filled with water, growing heavy and exposing him to the cold brunt of the water. The valves in his helmet clicked and whooshed, the reassuring sound of air—and life—but the air seemed odd, thin, and he could not fill his lungs.
Nor did he have strength left to shove. Evan pushed beside him, and Alan Clarke had appeared not long ago to lend his power to the effort, setting his bullish shoulder to the block. Now they repeated the attempt, and he heard the scrape of the stone on the underwater hillside, felt his lead boot give way. He pulled it back, motioning sluggishly to show that it was free.
But he could not escape to the surface. Shifting the block from his foot had trapped his hoses, compressing the flow of air into his helmet. And the world was growing dimmer.
Alan surged upward for fresh air, came down again, carrying a long iron rod used for levering stones into place. He set its narrow tip against the base of the stone and directed Evan and Dougal to push again.
A strange buzzing began in his ears as he pushed. He tried to fill his lungs but could not. The airflow had diminished so much due to the compressed hose that he was in serious jeopardy now.
