“There they are!” Bryce pointed across the water.
Shocked, everyone looked.
Stunned, Diana saw a small rowboat bobbing on the slightly choppy lake. Two small figures, one with fair curly hair, the other with a sleek dark head, were frantically flailing the oars about as, caught in a slow current, the boat drifted farther from shore.
“Good Lord!” Diana heard the same sentiment echoing in Italian all around her.
His hands on his hips, Toby stared at the boat. “How on earth…?”
Giovanni was frowning. “They are panicking, yes? They cannot manage the oars.”
“How will we get them back?” Barbero asked of no one in particular.
A discussion ensued, and it was suggested that someone should run to the dock and arrange for one of the boats from Orta to come and help.
Toby, his eyes narrowed as he studied what was going on in the boat, shook his head. “That will take too long.”
A stir among those packed into the alley led to people pulling back, allowing a young man to push through. He stared at the rowboat in disbelief. “What’s it doing out there?”
It transpired his father owned the boat, and the lad had left it with the oars shipped and the hull half in the water while he returned to the house to speak with his parents.
“Where’s the nearest other rowboat?” Toby asked the lad, judging that he would know.
Several of those watching called suggestions, one of which the lad endorsed.
Toby grimaced. “Still too far, too long to get to them.”
Agitation was mounting as the rowboat drifted farther away.
Toby turned to the onlookers. “Who can swim well enough to reach the boat?”
He wasn’t entirely surprised to see no hands raised.
Grimacing, he looked at Diana, then sighed and shrugged out of his coat.
She took it from him, and he bent to pry off his boots.
“I take it you can swim that far?” she asked.
“Easily,” he grumbled. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to enjoy it. The water will be cold.”
Leaving his boots in Bryce’s keeping, Toby straightened and looked over the water. “I suppose this is the price of familial responsibility.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw Diana’s lips twitch.
“I rather think it is.”
He sighed again, then walked down the short ramp beside the pier and waded into the lake.
From behind him came encouraging calls in Italian and English. He snorted in mild disgust and, ignoring the rippling water’s creeping chill, dove in.
He kicked to the surface, drew in a breath, then with strong, powerful strokes, cleaved his way to where the girls were still frantically swinging the oars about.
Luckily, they saw him coming and stopped bashing at the water, and Evelyn’s piping voice carried to him. “It’s my papa! He’s coming to rescue us!”
My papa.
He heard Evelyn clapping excitedly, and then she and the other girl—Dominica—shrieked in rapturous welcome.
