Deleted Sea Bathing Scene from: The Best Bride for the Duke
- Evie
- Sep 16
- 7 min read
There’s a scene in To Dance with the Earl, where the heroine, Gabrielle, and Charlotte, the little girl in Gabrielle's care, look over the railings along the edge of the Marine Parade, and see two ladies making their way to the bathing machines on the beach below. The ladies are Meg Thompsett, the heroine of The Best Bride for the Duke, and her Aunt Phyllis.
I also wrote that scene from Meg's point of view. In the end, I decided not to include it in the final version of The Best Bride for the Duke, but this is how Meg and her aunt experienced it. Meg decided to try sea bathing, even though she doesn't have any spectacles at this point in the story, because she wouldn't have worn them into the sea anyway.
“Oh!” Phyllis’s arm jerked within Meg’s grasp. Meg instinctively tried to steady her aunt, though she wasn’t feeling very steady herself.
Phyllis muttered something unladylike under her breath as they halted.
“Are you all right?” Meg asked. “What happened?”
“Yes…yes, I’m all right,” her aunt confirmed. “My ankle turned when a pebble rolled under my foot, but thankfully I haven’t damaged it.”
“Perhaps you should hold on to me, and then tell me where to go,” Meg suggested.
They both started to laugh, leaning against each other as they surrendered to their slightly hysterical merriment.
Before they’d regained their breath a figure appeared before them.
“Ladies, I’m Susannah Webster, one of the best dippers in Brighton,” the figure announced. “It’s my bathing machine you’ve hired. Now I will assist you to it.”
And she did.
Meg held on to one of Susannah Webster’s arms, Phyllis the other, and the dipper walked sturdily toward the wheeled hut that awaited them.
They climbed up the steps into the gloomy interior and Susannah shut the rear door.
Meg squinted around and discovered that the only windows were narrow affairs, positioned just beneath the roof line. The bathing machine was clearly designed to preserve the modestly of any partially dressed occupants.
“I wonder—” Meg started.
The hut jolted forward.
Meg wobbled, throwing out her arms for balance as the bathing machine began its bumpy journey into the sea.
“Gracious!” Phyllis said. “Sit down on this bench, Meg. I’m going to do the same. We’ll take off our cloaks when we stop.”
Underneath their cloaks, they were wearing linen shifts, the hems sewn with small weights, suitable for their dip into the sea. In addition to wearing their concealing cloaks, they’d each brought a small bag containing dry clothes for after they emerged from the waves.
Meg cautiously touched the bench she was sitting on, mindful of possible splinters, but the wood was well-worn and smooth. The air felt damp. And with both doors closed, the smells she associated with visiting the sea were more pungent than out in the freely moving breeze.
“This is an adventure,” she said, her shoulder bumping against her aunt’s as the big wheels rolled forward.
The sound of the sea had been ever-present, but not overwhelming when she’d been standing on the beach.
Now waves were slapping against the boards beneath her feet and the rumbling wheels. She was directly over the sea—and soon it would surround her body, her only protection her linen shift.
“It is an adventure,” Phyllis agreed. “When I return home, I’m going to take great satisfaction in describing my experience of the Brighton sea cure to Mrs Exeley. She’s been boasting about her trip to Bath since last year.”
“You don’t actually need to be cured of anything,” Meg pointed out.
“Only increasing age, and I doubt the sea is going to reverse that process,” Phyllis agreed. “But we shall see. When we return to our lodgings, I’ll ask Drew if my wrinkles have diminished.”
Meg smiled, despite her growing unease. “You don’t have any wrinkles that require diminishing.”
“Yes, I do,” Phyllis said. “You just can’t see them clearly.”
They both laughed, and then Meg realized the bathing machine had stopped moving.
“I think it’s time.” She fumbled to unfasten her enveloping cloak.
Now the moment of her dunking in the sea was imminent, trepidation filled her.
She couldn’t swim, and she’d never found herself in any larger body of water than could be contained in a bathtub.
The front door opened to reveal a rectangle of bright fuzzy light. The raucous cries of circling gulls grew louder, and a strong gust of air blew straight into Meg’s face. It pressed her linen shift against her body and tugged at her hair. When she licked her lips, she tasted salt.
She heard the wooden steps being put into position, and then Susannah Webster said, “We’re ready to dip you, ladies."
Meg stood up, determined to get the adventure over with as soon as possible. “I’m closest, I’ll go first.”
Her heart thudded behind her ribs, but the door was so near that she was able to grab hold of the wooden frame without difficulty.
She stood in the space for a few breaths, trying to bolster her courage. All she could discern below and in front of her was a hazy, shifting, pattern of lighter and darker colors—the surface of the sea in constant motion. And the indistinct figures of the dippers, standing on either side of the door, but she couldn’t see the steps.
“We’ll help you down, miss,” Susannah said.
Strong hands seized each of Meg’s arms. She tentatively stepped forward and down. Cold water slapped around her feet and ankles.
She gasped, cringing at the unpleasant sensation, but went down two more steps.
The gulls’ cries receded from her awareness. The waves tugged at her shift. Despite the small weights in the hem, the garment swirled around her legs in what she feared was a distressingly immodest way.
She tried to pull one arm free to push the shift down, but the dipper held on tight.
“A few more steps, miss, then we’ll dip you,” Susannah said.
Meg had never longed so much to be on dry land, in a nice warm parlor. The prospect of this cold, ever-moving body of water closing over her head was dreadful.
But she was too proud to retreat.
She went down the last steps in a rush, until she was more than waist deep in the sea.
The chilly water snatched the breath from her lungs. She tried to inhale. Tried to take another step—but her foot slipped on the rocky ground hidden below the shifting water.
She lifted her head—
And a rolling wave of water battered against her body, rising as high as her chin.
Meg screamed.
She’d never felt more helpless or frightened in her life.
The dippers’ hands on her arms gave her no comfort at all.
She had no doubt that the sea outstripped all of them in its terrible power and magnitude.
“Don’t fret, miss,” Susannah said briskly. “The sea’s nice and quiet today. Take another breath and then we’ll dip you. The doctors all agree it’s very good for you.”
“D-don’t dip me until I n-nod, please,” Meg said, desperate to regain some sense of control.
She tried to stand as tall as she could, lifting her face up to the sky to reduce the risk of a wave covering it, and took two breaths. She held the second one in her lungs, closed her eyes, clamped her lips together and nodded.
As the dippers pulled her downward, she wondered chaotically if this was how doomed queens felt when they went to their execution?
Had Marie Antoinette held her breath and nodded when she went to the guillotine?
“Breathe out through your nose,” Susannah ordered.
A moment later the water was level with Meg’s mouth. Even though it went against all her instincts, she tried to do as the dipper said as she went under the surface.
It was the strangest sensation she’d ever experienced. She only remembered the gulls overhead when she could no longer hear their cries from beneath the waves.
Then she couldn’t bear the sense of complete vulnerability any longer. She thrust herself upwards with all her strength, desperate to feel breathable air against her face.
“Well done, miss.” Susannah steered her back to the bathing machine.
The taste of salt filled Meg’s mouth. Her hair hung half over her face in sodden disarray. Her eyes stung, and beads of water clung to her lashes, becoming unfocused discs of light that made it even harder to see anything.
The morning breeze, which had seemed pleasantly refreshing earlier, now cut through her sea-soaked linen shift like a winter blizzard.
But Meg didn’t care about any of those things. All she wanted to do was get her hands on the step ladder and climb to the relative safety of the bathing machine.
“Here, Meg.” Phyllis helped her back in. “You did very well. Now it’s my turn,” she sounded more apprehensive than she had when they’d first arrived on the beach.
“You have to breath out as they’re dunking you,” Meg gasped, trying to push her hair out of her face. “You deserve to have no wrinkles after this, Aunt Phyllis. So do I.”
Deleted scene from The Best Bride for the Duke: copyright © 2025 Evie Fairfax
