Sea Of Dreams

Chapter Two

The candlelight flickered across Victoria's face as her eyes fluttered open. She looked around, wincing at the pain from the movement. She was on her bed, covered in soft blankets.

From outside the window, she could see it was twilight time, the sun's last rays slipping behind the grassy lawns.

Trying to sit up, Victoria blew out a gust of air from the effort.
The sound of approaching footsteps and the turning of a creaky doorknob made her shift her gaze to the left.

"Oh thank the stars you're awake! You caused the house quite a scare today, child, bless me, you did!" Nanny Margaret entered the room with the maid trailing behind her, holding a tray laden with food.

The maid set the food tray across Victoria's lap as gently as a feather.
"She's right, you know. We all feared the worst, Victoria. If it wasn't for that angel who saved you, you could've very well bleedin' died!"

"Hush, Lillian, don't frighten her." Nanny Margaret reproved as she took a seat in a wooden chair next to Victoria's bed, leaning her cane against her leg tiredly. She gave the young maid a stern look that promptly made the girl close her mouth and bow her head in acquiescence.

Like Nanny Margaret, Lillian had been with Victoria for the majority of her young life. Only a few years older in age, they got along more as fast friends then their given stations would permit.

"An angel saved me? What?" Victoria's mind raced to make sense of the turn of events that had just taken place, but was left just as confused as when she awoke. Turning round eyes from Lillian to Margaret, she asked quickly, "What about my sketchpad? Did anyone find it?"

Lillian guffawed. Her Nanny stared back at her like she was suddenly the most dim witted creature she had ever seen. Margaret's mouth hung open for half a second before she regained a calm expression of patience, perfected by years of practiced etiquette.

"You ran headfirst into a riptide, child. Your sketchpad was the least of my concerns. I could no longer see you. I called for help and a couple of the stablehands and footmen came to aid in your search. I...I began to fear the worst..." Margaret's voice faltered and died off for a moment as she paused and blinked up at the ceiling. When she looked back at Victoria, her eyes were slightly red and puffy.

Guilt was not a good feeling, Victoria realized as it struck a chord inside her heart. Her Nanny continued,
"After an hour of searching, there was naught else to be done but to inform your father. I thought you had drowned right in front of my very eyes." Margaret pulled out her thin, lacy hand kerchief and dabbed both her eyes quickly.

Victoria held her breathe as she took in Margaret's words. They could not find her for an hour? Of course they assumed she was dead! She stilled and held onto that thought...
Why wasn't she dead?

Lillian tapped her hand against the bed post impatiently, startling Victoria out of her thoughts.
"Oh, but there is more!" She insisted with a smile. Nanny Margaret flashed her an irritated frown, but straightened in her wooden chair next to the bed.

"Yes, well I returned to the house to write your father. I was not at my desk for more than a moment or so, when the butler came in and alerted me that you had been found."

"By a most dashing man." Lillian interjected with an excited grin.
"Lillian!" Nanny Margaret thumped her cane on the wooden floor. Lillian grinned, lifting her shoulders but said nothing more.

Of course she could not hold it past Lillian for being giddy about an attractive young man showing up on their doorstep, appearring every bit a hero for returning their young charge.
Nanny Margaret had met him at the door, upon the butler's annoucement. He had been standing there with Victoria cradled unconscious in his arms.

The young man had indeed been handsome. He was tall and exuded a quiet strength about him. His tricorn hat was pulled low over his face, shadowing half of his face and making his hairline completely invisible. He had a strong jaw lined with high cheekbones, a narrow nose led up to shaded eyes.

However, Nanny Margaret knew to look deeper than that. She was old and weary from her many years on earth, but widsom was a wonderful, understated perk of seniority.

She had taken one look at him and had immediately felt the hairs on the nape of her neck begin to rise with the sense of danger. A predator's prescence.

The air was thick with tension as she asked him where he had found her and asked whom she might thank for her rescue.

He had looked up at her then, giving her a dim flash of eyes an unearthly shade of blue.

"Making my rounds on the beach, catching up my nets when I found her washed up on the high tide. I tried to revive her, but she fell asleep right after. From the search going on down at the beach, I assumed this was what you were looking for...stay away from the shore tonight. There's rum runners about." He had finished, handing Victoria to the butler. With those final parting words, he turned and strode away.

"It would seem a good samaritan spotted you up the shore and did a very charitable and christian deed by returning you to us." Nanny Margaret finished her story curtly.

Victoria let her words sink in, but still had to ask, "Did this good samaritan happen to have my sketchpad as well?"

Nanny Margaret's mouth hung open.
"No! No he did not, Victoria! My god, have you no consideration for your own life? You could have died today!"

"If not for her guardian angel." Lillian cooed with a faraway look in her eyes and smile.

"Get back to work, Lillian, or I'll consider letting Cook have an extra helper down in the kitchen tonight!"

Lillian ducked her head down and scurried away with an impish grin.

Victoria wrung her fingers together and tried to keep her sorrow from bursting out. Her sketchpad, her precious works of art, her painted memories were all gone.

Now she had yet another reason to hate the ocean.

Before she could stop them, the tears were already trailing down her cheeks.
She heard Nanny Margaret sigh and felt the rough rub of her old weathered hand smooth against her back.

"Oh my dear, I'm so sorry you lost your sketchpad, I truly am. However you must realize how you put yourself in danger. You must promise me you will never act so forthright again."

Victoria nodded as she fell back asleep from fatigue and weakness controlling her frail body. Her sketchpad still floating atop the water in her memories and the creature that no one else had seen but her. She drifted back into sleep.