The Escape (Survivor's Club) (30 page)

“No,” he said, not giving her time to finish.

“Just over five months ago,” she said, “Matthew was alive.”

“And just over five months ago,” he said, “you were spending every moment of your time with him, tending him and comforting him as well as you were able.”

“It is difficult to keep the world at bay, is it not?” she said. “I swore that I would not think of a thing while we
were down here except the sheer enjoyment of being here.”

Without thinking he stretched down a hand toward her, and she took it and held it.

“You can come here whenever you want for the rest of your life,” he reminded her.

“But not with you.”

He could think of no answer to that, and she did not seem to want to elaborate. They lay for a while, hand in hand. Then she got to her feet and stood looking down at him. The front of her shift had dried. It did not cling quite so provocatively.

“I shall wonder about you for the rest of my life,” she said. “I shall wonder what happened to you. I shall wonder if you found what you were looking for. I suppose I will never know.”

“Perhaps,” he said, “you will write to my sister at some time in the future, when you feel more secure here.”

“Ah, yes, of course,” she said. “She will tell me about you. And then perhaps you will learn something of me too. If you wish to do so, that is.”

He took one of her hands in his again and drew it to his lips.

“It would not work for us, Samantha,” he said.

“No,” she agreed. “A mutual attraction is not enough, is it?”

He kissed her knuckles.

“But perhaps,” she said, her eyes on their hands, “just for a day—or two or three. Perhaps for a week. Can you bear to stay a week?”

He inhaled slowly. “Your grandfather is expected home in the next few days,” he said. “I suppose he will discover that you are living here. Perhaps he will choose to ignore you. Or perhaps not. Perhaps
you
will choose to ignore
him
. However it is, I cannot bring myself to leave until … well, until things are more
settled for you. I know you do not like me flexing my male muscles on your behalf. I know you can manage alone. But …”

“But you will stay anyway?”

“Yes,” he said. “For a few more days. A week.”

“Oh, Tramp.” She looked down at the dog, which was making loud lapping noises. “Is my leg salty and must be licked clean? You absurd dog.”

“He is a dog to be envied,” Ben said, and she looked back at him, startled, and laughed.

He swung his legs carefully over the edge of the rock and sat up. He pulled his shirt on over his head. He looked at her and marveled again at the realization that she was the same woman as the morbidly black-clad figure he had almost bowled over with his horse not so very long ago. She was looking disreputable and slightly disheveled now even though most of her hair was still confined in the knot at her neck. She was looking quite scandalously sun-bronzed and bright-eyed and happy. Her nose was shining.

He set his hands on either side of her waist, drew her against him between his legs, and kissed her. She tasted of salt and summer sun.

“You taste salty,” she told him. “Now I know why Tramp is enjoying licking my leg.”

They grinned at each other and kissed open-eyed.

“There is a Latin phrase,” she said. “Something about carps, though not really.”

“Carpe diem?”

“The very one,” she said. “The day flies, or the day is fleeting. Or make the most of what you have now this moment because soon it will be gone.” She rested her forehead against his.

“I am afraid of hurting you, Samantha,” he said with a sigh. “Or perhaps myself.”

“Physically?” she said. “No, you do not mean that,
do you? I think I would be hurt more if you just simply … left. Is that what you want to do?”

He closed his eyes and inhaled. “No.”

“Go on back to the house,” she said. “You can change your clothes there and wash with hot water. I am going to have a run with Tramp.”

And she pulled on her dress and bonnet and dashed off along the beach with the dog in hot pursuit. Where were the stays, and the silk stockings and slippers, and the gloves and the parasol, and the mincing steps of a respectable lady of
ton
? He smiled after her, admiring her bare, sandy ankles and her exuberance.

She wanted him. He wondered if he would disappoint her—or worse.

But enough of that. He was not going to be offering himself for a lifetime, after all, was he? He would give as much of himself as he could for both their pleasure—and pray God there would not be too much pain the other side of the pleasure.

For he feared they were playing with fire.

M
rs. Price cooked them a chicken-and-vegetable pie, which she explained was her son’s favorite dish and had been her late husband’s. It was to be preceded by leek soup and followed by jellies and custard. She set out cups and saucers with sugar and milk and a cloth-covered plate of cake on a tray in the kitchen. The kettle was left to hum on the kitchen range with the teapot warming beside it.

Gladys laced Samantha into her stays and helped her into her rose-colored silk evening gown, which she had ironed carefully so that even the two frills about the hem and the small ones that edged the sleeves were free of wrinkles. She dressed Samantha’s still slightly damp hair in an elegantly piled and curled coiffure. She clasped the pearls about her neck and clipped pearl earrings to her lobes before standing back to admire her handiwork.

“Oh, you do look lovely, Mrs. McKay,” she said. “I bet you could turn heads even at one of them grand balls in London town.”

“And all thanks to you, Gladys,” Samantha said with a smile. “But all I have to attend is dinner downstairs.”

“It is with the major, though,” her maid said with a sigh. Clearly she was smitten with Ben. “I bet you will turn
his
head.”

“If I do,” Samantha said, rising from the stool in
front of her dressing table, “I shall be sure to tell him that it is all thanks to you.”

“Oh, go on with you,” Gladys said, blushing rosily. “He will only have to take one look at you to know how silly
that
is. You could be dressed in a sack and outshine every other lady for miles around.”

Samantha did feel good, even exuberant. She had used to feel just so when dressing for assemblies and balls during her youth and the early months of her marriage. But, it struck her suddenly, perhaps it was unfair of her to dress with particular care for the evening when Ben would be wearing the clothes in which he had come from the village this afternoon, or, rather, the dry ones into which he had changed after their swim.

She was not sorry, though, when she saw the admiration in his eyes as she joined him in the parlor. And he looked very good indeed to her eyes. He must have found a brush with which to rid his coat and boots of all traces of sand. And polish too—his boots gleamed. His waistcoat was neatly buttoned beneath his coat, and he had tied a fresh neckcloth in a style more suited to evening. His hair was neatly combed into a Brutus style, which suited him.

He got to his feet, even though she signaled him with one hand to stay where he was, and made her a courtly bow.

“You look beautiful,” he said.

“Despite the sunburn?”

His own face was ruddy with color, but attractively so. He looked healthy and virile.

“The sun turns your complexion bronze instead of scarlet,” he said. “Yes, beautiful despite the sun.”

Mrs. Price appeared in the doorway at that moment to inform them that she had set the hot dishes on the table and they must come now if they did not want their food cold and spoiled. And she would, if it was all the
same to Mrs. McKay, hang up her apron and walk home with Gladys.

And so they dined alone together, Samantha and Ben, though Tramp came padding in from the kitchen to plop down in front of the empty fireplace and keep an eye out for fallen morsels of food. None did fall, but Ben fed him a few morsels anyway, to Samantha’s amusement. He pretended to dislike the dog, but she had never believed him, for Tramp liked
him
, and dogs did not like people who disliked them.

The food was plain but wholesome and delicious.

He told her some stories from his military years—not anything about the fighting and the violence, but amusing anecdotes. She told him stories about her year with Matthew’s regiment, mostly funny little incidents involving the other wives that she had not thought of in years. He told her stories from his Penderris years—again light, entertaining incidents involving his friends. She told him about the kittens at Leyland Abbey. A groom had discovered a litter of them in the loft of a barn and had concealed them and tended them in secret so that they would not be drowned—until Samantha had caught him at it. But she had not reported him. Rather, she had aided and abetted him and had loved those kittens until they grew into cats and deserted in order to earn their living and their daily bread as mousers.

“Ungrateful wretches,” she said, laughing softly.

She had forgotten until now that there was anything at all good about that year in Kent.

“But you would not have wanted them at your heels for the rest of their lives, would you?” he asked.

“Oh, heavens, no,” she said. “There were eight of them.”

“The dog’s nose would be severely out of joint,” he said.

“Yes,” she agreed. “Poor Tramp. He would have been
grossly outnumbered and would doubtless have slunk along at the back of the line instead of asserting his superior size. He does not
know
he is large, you see. He believes he is a puppy.”

They both laughed, and Tramp thumped his tail on the floor where he sat.

Samantha cleared the table and carried the dishes into the kitchen, where she stacked them on the counter. She made the tea and carried the tray into the sitting room and lit the lamp. And they sat and talked more—mainly about books this time—while they drank their tea and the sky beyond the window turned a deeper blue. And then indigo.

Then it was dark.

She got up to close the curtains.

And suddenly there was no way of reviving the conversation. The very fact she had moved had acknowledged the fact that night had fallen and they were here together in her cottage, quite unchaperoned. She stood facing the window for a few moments even though she had already drawn the curtains.

“Should I leave?” he asked. “Do you
wish
me to leave?”

Perhaps she should simply say yes. Nothing much had happened between them so far, despite a rather lengthy journey that had thrown them into proximity. In another few days he would be gone. And it had to be that way. There could be no future together, for any number of reasons. Perhaps it would be better not to take that extra step into the unknown, the unpredictable.

Perhaps it would be disappointing if they did proceed. No, that was not what made her hesitate. Perhaps it would be painful. Not the act itself, but its aftermath. For he
would
leave. There
would
be a goodbye. Which would be more painful? Not to have slept with him and
forever regret it? Or to have slept with him and forever … regret it?

He had asked her a question. Two, actually.

She shook her head as she turned. “No, don’t leave.”

And so she committed herself.

She watched as he got to his feet, using his canes, and she moved toward him until she was standing in front of him.

“Don’t leave,” she said again, and she lifted her hands to cup his face. He had even shaved, she realized. He must have brought his razor with him. He must have expected to stay.

“Are you sure you will not regret it?” he asked her. “I cannot take you with me, Samantha. I am, at least for the present, a nomad. And I cannot stay. There is nothing for me here. Besides, it is too soon for you to remarry. And I cannot … ever marry. I do not have wholeness to offer.”

Because he was half crippled? Strangely, she would have agreed with him just a few weeks ago. She had wanted nothing more to do with wounds and disfigurement. But, slow as he was in his movements, it was hard to think of him as disabled. Except that he could not hold her now because he needed his hands for his canes.

“I was once promised a lifetime,” she said, “and was given four months. Not even that, actually, as it was all illusion from the start. It was all a lie. This afternoon you promised me a week. Let us make it a week to remember.”

“An affair to remember?” he said.

“With pleasure and affection,” she said. “And no regrets. Will
you
regret it? Would you rather go back to the inn?”

For a few moments she thought he was going to say yes. Then he dipped his head closer to hers, closed his eyes, and set his forehead against hers.

“I am afraid,” he said, “that I will be inadequate.”

Did he mean impotent? Did he fear that?

“I am afraid I will disappoint you,” he said.

She stepped back from him and smiled as she went to fetch the lamp.

“Come upstairs,” she said. “Even if you do no more than hold me, I will not be disappointed. One of my loveliest recent memories is of waking at that inn where we were forced to share a room to find you holding me against you, one arm about me. It was so very long before that since anyone had so much as touched me—except you, when you kissed me at Bramble Hall.”