The Escape

by Mary Balogh

  “Have I spoiled your first visit to a beach?” he asked her.

  “By being tired and needing to sit down?” she said. “No, of course not.”

  He took her hand in his and laced their fingers—probably very unwisely. She dipped her head to rest on his shoulder. The soft brim of her bonnet bent easily to accommodate her.

  “It is lovely here,” she said. “I will always remember today. Oh, but look, your poor boots are caked with sand.”

  “It is more poor Quinn than poor boots,” he said.

  “I am going to swim here,” she said after they had sat in silence for a while. “Not now, but soon. I am going to get right under that water and swim. Do it with me, Ben. You can swim. You told me so.”

  “That was when I was a boy and had two fully functioning legs,” he said.

  “I do not suppose you have forgotten how.” She twisted her head so that she could look up at him. “You walk even though I daresay every physician you ever consulted warned you you never would.”

  “I am not exactly proficient at it,” he protested.

  “You walk,” she said, lifting her head and glaring fiercely at him. “Swimming would be easier, would it not? You would not have to put weight on your legs.”

  “I would probably sink like a stone and never be heard from again.”

  He grinned at her. But could she possibly be right? What if he tried to swim and could not and was then unable to get his feet under him again? But what if he had listened to all the what-ifs with which his mind had bombarded him when he had tried to walk? He would still be lying on a bed or sitting confined to a chair. He may not be walking very well, but he was walking. He was here, was he not, sitting on a rock in the middle of a beach, a fair distance from the cottage?

  “Coward,” she said.

  He kissed her.

  She tasted warm and salty, and he reached his tongue into her mouth to taste more of her. He gathered her more closely into his arms, and she twined both her own about his neck.

  They were both breathless when he drew back his head.

  “When?” he asked her.

  “Tomorrow,” she said. “In the afternoon.”

  They held each other’s eyes.

  “I will have Mrs. Price cook dinner for two before she leaves,” she said. “We are bound to be ravenous after swimming.”

  Ravenous.

  They would be alone in the cottage.

  She did not look away from him or he from her.

  “I daresay I will eat every mouthful set before me, then,” he said.

  “If you have not drowned.” She smiled dazzlingly.

  He had not told her what he had learned about her grandfather, he remembered suddenly. Had anyone else told her? But he doubted it. Surely she would have greeted him with the news if she had heard.

  But now was not the right time.

  They were going to swim together tomorrow. And then dine alone together at the cottage. Both servants would have returned home for the night,

  I promised that you would be safe from me.

  Sometimes safety seems a dull, unadventurous thing.

  16

  After having luncheon together at the cottage, they rode into the village, Samantha on the horse Mr. Quinn had ridden earlier. He had found an old sidesaddle in the barn during the morning and had worked on it for a couple of hours, checking it for safety, making a few repairs, and cleaning and polishing it until it looked quite respectable. He would walk back to the inn, he assured Samantha. It was not far.

  And so finally they rode together, she and Ben. Matilda would have forty fits of the vapors, especially if she could see Samantha in her very old blue riding habit. But Matilda already seemed like someone from another lifetime.

  “It will really be a very short ride,” Ben told her, a note of apology in his voice. “It is no distance at all to the village.”

  Just too far for him to walk. She understood. She rode slightly behind him and watched him. He always looked so very virile and at home in the saddle. She had almost thrown herself at him this morning, she remembered. Whatever had possessed her? But it had struck her that she would regret it if he went away and they had shared no more than longing and a few kisses.

  It would not be wrong, surely, if they enjoyed a brief affair? They were both single adults. They liked each other. They were attracted to each other. It was too soon for her to think of marrying again, if she ever did. He had said he would never marry, and certainly he would not do so before he had found what he was searching for in life and had settled down—if he ever did.

  So where would be the harm?

  Would they swim tomorrow? Or would it rain, as it had that infamous day they had planned to ride together? Would he be able to swim? And what would happen afterward, when they were alone together in her cottage?

  She did not have long for such thoughts. Fisherman’s Bridge was indeed only just over the sand dunes.

  She was eager to see it and a bit anxious too. This village and these villagers would become a part of her life, perhaps forever. She would need to find acceptance here and friends and acquaintances and things to do. For a moment she wondered if anyone knew about her, but of course everyone would. Mrs. Price lived at the smithy, and Gladys lived here. Both were talkative and sociable. And Ben was staying at the inn.

  “I wonder what the people here do for a living,” she said as she looked about her with interest.

  “Some work here in the village,” he said. “There are fishermen, as one would expect from the name. I talked briefly at breakfast this morning with a potter who sells his wares to summer visitors both here and in Tenby. I believe most people, though, are employed at Cartref in one capacity or another.”

  “Car—?”

  “Car, as in carry,” he said, “and trev as in the name Trevor. The emphasis is on the first syllable. The r in both syllables is slightly rolled. It is the first Welsh word I have learned, and since it will probably also be the last, I am determined to pronounce it correctly. It means home.”

  “You have gone through that explanation and learned a whole new foreign word,” she said, laughing, “just to inform me that most people work at home?”

  “No,” he said. “Cartref is the name of a particular home. Let’s ride along to the end of the street. The road crosses the bridge there, the one that gives its name to the village. Though how anyone can fish off it when the river that flows beneath it is so close to the sea I do not know.”

  “Perhaps no one does,” she said. “Perhaps it is so named because it leads across to where all the fishing boats are moored.”

  They passed a few people on the street, and Samantha inclined her head to them and smiled. She guessed that her visit here would be the subject of several conversations for the rest of the day. She wondered what the nature of those conversations would be. Would it be remembered that her great-aunt had raised a half-Gypsy girl and that that girl had been her mother? But of course it would. Mrs. Price knew it. Would these people resent the fact that she had inherited the cottage and come to live here? Or was she being oversensitive?

  She would find out soon enough, she supposed.

  It was a picturesque bridge, humpbacked and built of gray stone. A shallow river bubbled beneath it on its way to the sea. She gazed ahead to the small boats bobbing on the water and thought it one of the prettiest sights she had seen. Would she ever have a chance to go out in one of those boats?

  “Ah,” Ben said. “I was told I would be able to see it from here.”

  “See what?”

  He was not looking at the boats. His horse was turned the other way, and his gaze was fixed upon something inland. She turned to look too.

  There was no need for him to answer her question. There were low hills a mile back from the sea. Halfway up one of them, nestled within a horseshoe of trees, was a great mansion, which gleamed white in the sunshine. Even from this far away she could see that it had large windows on all three floors, dimi
nishing in size from the ground floor to the top. There must be magnificent views from every one of those windows. A bright green lawn, which was obviously well kept, swept down the slope to the plain. The rest of the garden or park was hidden from view.

  “That is Cartref?” she asked. “It looks very grand indeed, does it not? I did not expect to find any large estates outside of England. To whom does it belong, I wonder. Do you know?”

  He did not answer. His horse had become suddenly restless, and he was concentrating upon bringing it under control.

  Then the truth struck her, rather like a fist colliding with her stomach.

  “Oh, no,” she said.

  He looked apologetically at her, as though the answer to her question was his fault.

  “It is my grandfather’s?”

  “He is as rich as a nabob, Samantha,” he told her. “He owns coal mines—plural, I understand—in the coal mining valleys in the east part of the country. He inherited those from his father. He also owns ironworks in the valleys close to Swansea, where industry has been springing up and thriving.”

  If she had not been on horseback, she might well have swooned.

  There were seagulls crying overhead, sounding almost human.

  “And I have always imagined,” she said, “that he was a laborer or a wanderer, a ne’er-do-well who married a professional nomad and then, when she abandoned him, foisted his child upon a sister who had somehow gained ownership of a run-down hovel. Why did my mother never tell me?”

  “I suppose she would have,” he said, “if she had lived until you were older.”

  “I would never have come if I had known,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  She wheeled her horse about to face him. “He had no legitimate reason for abandoning my mother. He had the home and the means with which to raise her himself. He had the means with which to go after her when she went to London, and to attend her wedding, and to visit her after her marriage. He had the means to come to see me. And what, do you suppose, is the tidy sum that was left my great-aunt and then passed to my mother and so to me—with the interest it has gathered? Ben, how wealthy am I? I do not want to be wealthy. Not in this way. I do not want any of it.”

  “Think a minute.” He was annoyingly calm. “That money, however much it is or is not, was left to your great-aunt by your great-grandfather. None of it came from your grandfather.”

  She frowned at him for a few moments. He was right, of course. But even so … Oh, all the sparkle and joy were gone from the afternoon.

  “I wish I had never known,” she said. “I almost wish I had not come.”

  “Where else would you have gone?” he asked her.

  “I could have married you,” she said, “and wandered footloose and carefree for the rest of my life.” But the look on his face restored some of her humor and she smiled. “I had a premonition that I would be opening Pandora’s box by coming here. Once that box had been opened in the myth, there was no stuffing all the troubles back inside it, was there? I cannot now leave here and forget what I have learned. Am I talking sense?”

  Her grandfather had not wanted her mother or her. John had not wanted them either. All she had ever had were her mother and father, and they were both gone. She felt awash with a terrible sense of aloneness. Yet nothing had changed. As Ben had said, everything was as it had been ten minutes ago and last week.

  Oh, but everything had changed.

  “Strangely, yes,” he said. “Come to the inn for some tea.”

  But as they turned their horses back into the village, they were hailed by a genial-looking, gray-haired man and a plump, smiling lady.

  “Mrs. McKay?” the gentleman asked, doffing his tall hat.

  Samantha inclined her head.

  “Pardon me for intruding when you are out enjoying your ride,” he said, “but I thought it must be you and the gentleman who is staying at the inn—Major Harper, I believe? I am Ivor Jenkins, the vicar here, and this is my good wife. We are taking a stroll along the front to look at the boats, it being such a lovely day and my sermon for Sunday all written. It is my pleasure to welcome you to our community, Mrs. McKay, and to hope that we will see you at church on Sunday?”

  Mrs. Jenkins did not say anything, but she beamed up at Samantha and nodded her head.

  “I shall certainly be there,” Samantha assured them. “Thank you, Mr. Jenkins. I shall look forward to it.”

  “Marvelous,” he said. “I hope you will enjoy my sermon, which I think particularly clever. I always do, though my parishioners often do not agree. I know you will enjoy the music. It has been said that when the whole congregation sings, the roof lifts an inch or two off its moorings. I don’t suppose it is true, is it, or it would blow away in a strong wind, but it is true that if you want to hear singing as it was meant to be heard, you must come to Wales.”

  He joined in Samantha and Ben’s laughter.

  “Ivor.” His wife set a hand on his arm.

  “I will not keep you any longer,” the vicar said. “I have a tendency to do that when my good wife is not present to remind me that people have other things to do than stand talking with me. I look forward to serving you in my capacity as vicar, Mrs. McKay. And I hope you will enjoy the rest of your stay here, Major. We do not have much to offer here except scenery and views, but they are without compare, I always think.”

  He restored his hat to his head, and he and his wife proceeded on their way across the bridge to look at the boats.

  “There is a welcome here for you,” Ben said softly. “You can make a home here.”

  “Can I?” She looked at him with troubled eyes for a moment and then smiled. “The Reverend Jenkins seems kindly, and his wife looks sweet, though it would appear she knows how to keep him in line. Yes, let’s go for tea, Ben.”

  The sky was leaden gray, Samantha could see when she woke up the following morning. And when she sat up in bed, she could see that the water was a deeper shade of the same color. There were raindrops on the window. They did not obliterate the view, and she could not hear any more pelting against the panes. But it was not a promising start to the day.

  She was hugely disappointed. If they could not swim today, Ben would perhaps leave instead. There was really not much reason for his staying any longer at the village inn, was there? She had a more than decent house in which to live, she had servants, she had her own competence and more at a bank in Tenby. A few people had nodded to her in the village yesterday, and the vicar and his wife had stopped to introduce themselves and welcome her. Both the landlord of the inn and his wife had chatted amiably with them over tea. No, there was no reason for him to stay any longer.

  She was tempted to burrow beneath the bedcovers again and go back to sleep. But she knew it would be impossible. Besides, Tramp would be ready for a walk. And she could hear Gladys in her dressing room and Mrs. Price down in the kitchen. She could smell cooking. What a lazybones she must appear to them. They had both walked from the village this morning.

  Ben planned to spend the morning at the inn, working on all the notes he had made in his journal to see if he could organize them into some semblance of chapters for the book he hoped to write. He was to come to the cottage during the afternoon. It was with some surprise, then, that Samantha heard horses’ hooves in the middle of the morning. She had been sorting through the volumes in the book room and went to the window.

  It was Mr. Rhys.

  He had come, he explained, to satisfy himself that Mrs. McKay had found everything in order and that she approved of the servants his clerk had picked out on her behalf. He was at her service, he told her, if there was anything more he could do for her.

  She did not really want to ask. Indeed, the very idea of doing so made her feel almost physically ill. But while she might have remained blissfully ignorant of the answer for the rest of her life if she had stayed in England, there was no avoiding it indefinitely now that she was here.

  “Mr. Rhys,” she sai
d, “you mentioned the money my great-aunt left my mother and that my mother in turn left me. I did not know of it until two days ago. Is it a great deal?”

  “I have a statement from the bank here with me,” he told her, reaching into the leather case he had set beside his chair. “I thought you would wish to know. I knew the principal but not the exact amount of interest that has accumulated. You can see for yourself, ma’am. You will be pleased, I think.”

  He handed her a sheaf of papers.

  She lowered her eyes to the top page. Please God, let it be a smallish sum, a pleasant addition to her own modest resources, but nothing too—Her eyes focused upon the total, and then she closed her eyes and licked lips turned suddenly dry.

  “It is a nice tidy sum, isn’t it?” he said.

  “Yes,” she said. “Tidy, Mr. Rhys.”

  “I hope you are not disappointed,” he said. “Mr. Bevan left the bulk of his property and fortune to his son, which was only natural, I suppose, when he was going to be the one continuing with the business.”

  “I expected only the cottage,” she told him. “I wonder why my mother never drew on any of the money.” And why had she never so much as mentioned it? Had Papa known about it? But he must have, after her death if not before. Why had he never said anything? Because his daughter had become more wealthy than his son? Because he respected her mother’s wish to have nothing to do with her past? It would have been that, she decided. He would have respected her mother’s rejection of her past even after her death—and even at the expense of their daughter.

  Mr. Rhys was looking uncomfortable. “I know Miss Bevan was very fond of her niece,” he said. “She took her in and she fed and clothed and educated her. But she was always afraid—she confided in me on a few occasions since we were in the way of being friends. She was always afraid the girl would turn wild and go chasing after her mother’s people. And she did like to go barefoot out of doors and run on the beach and swim in the sea. It was what all children were like, I tried to tell Miss Bevan. My own were not much different. But she was afraid. And fear made her overstrict. And maybe a bit overcritical too. I am not sure if that was what drove your mother away. I think there may have been some sort of quarrel between your great-aunt and your grandfather, though they were scarcely on speaking terms at the best of times. And I am not even sure about the quarrel. However it was, your mother went. She was very young. Perhaps she did not know that quarrels are best made up as soon as tempers have cooled, especially with family members.”