The Escape (Survivor's Club) (34 page)

Tomorrow was Sunday. The first day of a new week. Very nearly the end of his week. He had no idea where he would be next Saturday night, except that it would be somewhere far from here. And he had no idea what he would do. No, that was not strictly true. He was going to go to London, though not in order to participate in the social whirl of the Season or to allow Beatrice to matchmake for him. He was going to explore various ways of employing his time, perhaps in business, perhaps in diplomacy, perhaps in law. He would talk to Hugo, to Gramley, to various contacts he had in the Foreign Office. It did not matter that he did not need to work. He
wanted
to work. And he would work. His elder brother had done so, after all.

But an obstacle stood between him and the rest of his life. There was the end of an affair to live through and goodbyes to be said. It was Sunday tomorrow. He had promised to go to church with Samantha. They were to dine at Cartref later in the day. And then, after tomorrow …

Goodbye.

Surely the saddest, most painful word in the English language.

P
erhaps it had something to do with the fact that Ben walked with painstaking slowness and with the aid
of two canes but with evident courage and determination, Samantha thought. Or perhaps it was his lean good looks, enhanced now by suntan, and the indefinable air of command that always somehow clung about him. Or perhaps it was simply that everyone loved a hint of romance, even a touch of scandal.

However it was, they were both greeted with smiles and friendly nods when they appeared at church together on Sunday morning. Samantha had been half expecting cold stares or frowns and turned shoulders, for obviously there had been talk. Her grandfather had heard it.

And though Ben looked almost austere much of the time, he was quite capable of charm. He used it that morning on the people of Fisherman’s Bridge and its environs. And Samantha smiled about her too, as she had not been allowed to do after Matthew’s death, and shook the hands of those who extended their own to her. She was sure she would not remember the names of all who introduced themselves and said so.

“Don’t worry about it, Mrs. McKay,” the doctor told her. “We have only two new names to remember, yours and Major Harper’s, while you have a few dozen.”

Other people within earshot smiled their agreement.

Samantha would have felt warm about the heart as they left church if her grandfather had not been there too. He had shaken hands heartily with Ben and kissed her on the cheek—while half the village looked on with interest—but he had not pressed his company on them. He had sat in the front pew, which was padded, though he did not act the part of grand gentleman after the service was over. He shook hands and exchanged a few words with everyone in his path. He dug into his pockets to bring out sweets for the very little children, coins for the older ones.

Other people’s children
, Samantha thought with unexpected bitterness. How she would have
loved
to have a grandpapa to beam at her thus when she was a child and give her sweets and coins. How her mother would surely have loved to have a papa to do those things.

It was a cloudy day, but it was neither cold nor windy.

“Do you want to swim this afternoon?” she asked Ben when they were walking slowly back to the inn.

She was feeling a bit depressed. She wished the sun was shining.

“What is it?” he asked without answering her question.

“It would be more appropriate to ask what it is
not
,” she said with a sigh—and then laughed. “The vicar was right about the singing, was he not?”

“Well,” he said, “I was disappointed not to see the roof lift off the building. I was watching for it.”

She laughed again.

“But, yes,” he said. “That church really does not need the choir, does it? The whole congregation is a choir.”

“With harmony.”

“In four parts,” he added. “Yes, let’s swim. There will be time.”

She swallowed and heard a gurgle in her throat.
There will be time
.

Time before they went to Cartref for dinner.

Time before the week of their affair was over.

T
hey went swimming. They raced and floated and talked, and they played silly games, the main object of which seemed to be to swim underwater and come up unexpectedly to submerge each other. It was not a very effective game since there was never any real possibility of surprise, but it kept them helpless with laughter for a time.

Laughter was better than tears.

A week had seemed a long time when they began their affair. But this was the sixth day. The knowledge weighed upon Samantha as if it were a physical thing. And she could not keep at bay the thought that they would be going to Cartref later. She wished she had not been weak enough to agree. And yet … Her grandfather had written, and Papa had written back to him. She ought to listen to his story, Ben had said.

When they left the water, they went to their usual rock, where they were met by a tail-wagging, bottom-wiggling Tramp, who had been guarding their belongings against seagulls. But instead of spreading her towel on the sand as she usually did, Samantha wrapped it about her shoulders.

“I gave Mrs. Price and Gladys the day off,” she said. “It is Sunday. Besides, I will be out for dinner today.”

He looked back at her. He was leaning against the ledge to take the weight off his legs and rubbing his towel over his chest and up under one arm.

Oh, dear, she was going to miss this—the daily swims, the sight of him, the smell of him, the touch of him. She was going to miss
him
.

“Come back to the house?” she said.

They always went to the house after their swim and after lying for a while in the sun. But she knew from the look in his eyes that he understood what she meant.

“Yes,” he said.

And, shockingly, they did not stop to dress but walked back as they were, her towel about her shoulders, his draped about his neck. She insisted on carrying his boots.

She had forgotten why he must leave.

But of course he must. He could not stay here in the cottage with her, even if they married. He would have
nothing to do here. He would be restless and unhappy in no time at all. And she could not go with him. It was much too soon for her to go with or marry anyone. And though he was not homeless, he had chosen to leave his brother and family in residence in his house but had established no other home for himself. He was probably the most restless, unsettled man she had ever known. It had not always been so, of course, but it was now, and she wondered unhappily if he would ever find himself and his place in life.

Yes, he must leave. Sometimes love was not enough—if it
was
love between them. It was probably not. She was lamentably naïve about affairs. Perhaps this was not love but mere physical attraction. That was undoubtedly all it was to him. Men did not fall in love as women did, did they?

They went upstairs as soon as they reached the cottage while Tramp padded off to the kitchen in search of his food bowl. Samantha led the way into her bedchamber. She drew the curtains across the window, though they were not heavy and did not block out much light. She peeled off her wet shift, toweled herself off, and rubbed at her hair, even though it was still in its tight knot at her neck.

Ben was sitting with his back to her on the side of the bed. He was pulling off his wet pantaloons, though he had drawn the bedcovers up over himself to mask her view.

“Don’t,” she said, kneeling up on the bed and moving across it toward him.

“Don’t?” He looked over his shoulder at her.

“Don’t hide yourself,” she said.

He held her eyes for a few moments, his own suddenly bleak, and then pushed back the covers, finished removing his clothes, and lay back on the bed, lifting his legs
onto it one at a time. He looked at her again, his eyes hard now.

His legs were thinner than they must once have been. The left one was slightly twisted, the right more noticeably so. They were horribly scarred.

“Now tell me,” he said, “that you want me to make love to you.”

His voice matched his eyes.

She moved a little closer and set her hand on his upper right thigh. She stroked it lightly downward, feeling the deep gouges of his old wounds and the hard, raised ridges of the scars where the surgeons had tried to mend them.

And the foolish, brave man had insisted upon walking again.

She returned her hands to her own thighs as she kneeled naked beside him, and raised her eyes to his.

“Ben,” she said, “my dearest, I am so very sorry. I am sorry for the pain you suffered and still suffer. I am sorry that you cannot do what you most want to do in life. I am sorry you feel diminished as a man and inadequate as a lover, that you feel ugly and undesirable. What
happened
to you was ugly, but
you
are not. I think you are the toughest, most courageous man I have ever met. I
know
you are the loveliest. You must believe me. Oh, you
must
, Ben. And yes, I want you to make love to me.”

He gazed at her, his look still hard, though she had the curious feeling that he was fighting the welling of tears to his eyes.

“You are not repulsed?” His voice was still hard too, though there was a suggestion of a tremor in it.

“Idiot,” she said and smiled. “Do I
look
repulsed? You are Ben. My lover. For this week anyway. And I have had enormous pleasure with you. Give me more.”

She was remembering that she had called him
my dearest
, and she did not want him to believe she had fallen in love with him. And so she spoke of the pleasure she had had of him—which was no lie. He must be the most wonderful lover in the world.

He reached for her and she moved to straddle him. His hands moved over her upper thighs, over her hips, in to her waist, up to her breasts, which he cupped lightly.

“You are perfection itself,” he said.

“I am not slender.”

“Thank God for that,” he said without contradicting her. “Do women really believe that men want them looking like sticks?”

“And I am no English rose,” she said. “I am downright swarthy.”

“My Gypsy Sammy.” He grinned at her. “My
perfect
Gypsy Sammy.”

She laughed, set her hands on either side of his head, and leaned over him to kiss him.

His legs were not quite helpless, as she had discovered on previous occasions. Before she knew it, she was on her back and he was on top of her, his legs between hers, and his lips were on hers, his tongue deep in her mouth, and his hands were fierce on her and then beneath her buttocks and holding her firm while he thrust deep into her.

She lifted her legs from the bed and wrapped them about his lean hips, and they loved each other long and hard until they were both panting and slick with sweat and they broke together into glory and collapsed into the world beyond.

They lay side by side afterward, sated and drowsy and dozing, their hands touching. Last night had felt a bit like goodbye, she thought. The melancholy of it had remained with her this morning. And now?

No, she did not want to think.

“I believe you will make a wonderful new life here,” he said at last. “You have neighbors who seem very ready to accept you and welcome you into their midst. You will make friends here. And you have family here. You have a grandfather who wishes to be a part of your life. Listen to him this evening, Samantha, and think well before you reject him for all the apparent wrongs of the past.”

“I have agreed to listen,” she reminded him.

“I think you did the right thing,” he said, “coming here. And I think it will be time for me to leave tomorrow, before speculation and a bit of gossip can blossom into scandal as they surely would if I stayed longer.”

“I have delayed your travels for long enough,” she said.

He did not answer her, and they lay side by side, no longer either drowsy or dozing. Samantha fought tears. She fought the urge to beg him to stay just one more day or perhaps two. For he was right. It was time for him to leave. It was time for him to go in search of his life and for her to settle to her new one.

It was time to let him go.

After a while he turned and sat up, moving his legs over the side of the bed.

“I had better return to the inn,” he said. “I will bring the carriage later to take you to Cartref?”

“Yes,” she said. “Thank you.”

She felt about as bleak as it was possible to feel.

M
r. Bevan had the good manners and easy address of a true gentleman, Ben thought, even if he was not one by birth. And he dressed with fashionable elegance yet without any ostentation or grand display of wealth. The wealth was clearly there, however.

He took them on a tour of the house. Everything was of the finest but with not the merest suggestion of vulgarity. The room in which they lingered longest was the long gallery at the back of the house. It was filled with paintings and a few sculptures by the great masters, a few of them acquired by his father, he told them, but the majority by him. And he always purchased what he most liked, he explained to them, rather than what was most valuable. Though Ben guessed there was a fortune in that room alone. There were paintings in every other room too, some of them by acclaimed masters, some by unknown artists Mr. Bevan had admired and wanted to encourage.

And wherever he took them, there were views from the windows, over the rolling Welsh countryside, over the beach and the sea.

He plied them with sherry and conversation in the drawing room and then with good wine and food and conversation in the dining room. He told them about his travels and his reading. And he asked them about their own lives with skilled questions that would draw more than monosyllabic answers from them and yet would not seem intrusive. When Ben asked him about his businesses, he answered thoroughly but without monopolizing all their time and perhaps boring Samantha.

He appeared totally at his ease and in perfect good humor with his guests.