The Escape

by Mary Balogh

  Her mother had felt rejected, then, Samantha thought—by her own mother, who had gone back to her people, leaving her child behind; by her father, who had turned her over to his sister’s care; and by her aunt, who was overstrict and overcritical because she was half Gypsy. She had run away at the age of seventeen—and had met Papa, who had loved her quietly and gently and steadfastly for the rest of her life. Perhaps it was significant that she had married an older man, a substitute father, perhaps. For though she had undoubtedly loved Papa, it had not, Samantha thought now, been a passionate relationship.

  “I do hate to speak ill of the dead,” Mr. Rhys said, “and a former client and friend at that, but Miss Bevan could be as stubborn as a mule too. When her niece ran away, she would not go after her or even write to her to beg her to come home or ask if she needed anything. And she would not go to meet your father when she heard about the marriage or to meet you when she heard of your birth. Your mother did write on both occasions, so perhaps she did try to reach out. Miss Bevan would not forgive her, though, for running away and becoming an actress after all she had done to make the girl into a respectable lady.”

  “And yet,” Samantha said, “she left everything to my mother.”

  “And now it is yours,” Mr. Rhys said. “I am glad you have come.”

  “Thank you,” Samantha said. “I had no idea, you know.”

  “I hope,” he said, “you are not regretting that you did come.”

  She gazed at him for a few moments before answering.

  She had come here to escape. To hide. To break free of the oppression of a too-strictly-applied respectability. To put aside the heavy trappings of her mourning in favor of gentler memories of the man who had been her husband for seven years. To find some peace. To find some freedom. To make a new beginning.

  She had not expected this.

  “I am not sorry,” she said.

  “Splendid,” Mr. Rhys said, rubbing his hands together, though whether his enthusiasm was for her declaration or for the tray of tea and Welsh cakes Mrs. Price was carrying into the sitting room was unclear. Perhaps it was for both.

  He stayed for an hour. Samantha accompanied him to the garden gate when he was leaving since the rain had stopped. Looking up as his carriage moved off, she could see that the clouds were higher and whiter and that there were a few breaks in them, through which she could catch glimpses of blue sky. Perhaps after all the afternoon would be bright and warm.

  Tramp was standing at her side, breathing heavily.

  “Oh, very well,” she said. “But you must give me a moment to fetch my bonnet and put on my half boots. The ground is wet.”

  She was rich, she thought as she stepped inside, and her stomach lurched at the realization. But rich was not quite a strong enough word. She was downright wealthy.

  With property and money her mother had wanted no part of.

  One thing he was not, Ben decided as he drove a hired gig over to the cottage in the afternoon, was a writer. He could see scenery and points of special interest in his head. He could people each scene with interesting characters and their stories. He could formulate his reactions to it all. He could even get it all down on paper without too much difficulty. The problem, though, was that there was an enormous difference between what he saw and heard in his head and felt in his heart on the one hand and, on the other, what was written on the three closely spaced pages with which he ended up. Somewhere between the two all the life and color and excitement had been drained away to leave cold, hard, uninspired fact.

  The only thing any reader would be inspired to do if he plodded through it all was stay home and forget about any itch to travel he might have felt.

  No, he was no writer. It was perhaps a bit defeatist to give up after his very first attempt. But the point was that the whole process had bored him horribly—from the daily scribblings in his journal to the organizing of ideas into some sort of outline to the attempted writing of an opening chapter. It had felt like being back at school, compelled to write essays upon subjects that were as dry as dust. This was decidedly not what he wanted to be doing for the rest of his life.

  Which left an unsettling void—again.

  Quinn was beside him in the gig, though Ben had protested that he did not need to come. His valet was going to unhitch the horse and get it settled in the barn, and then he was going to walk back to the village. He had wanted to take the gig with him and return with it later to drive Ben back to the inn, but Ben had said a firm no. He did not know what time he would be returning. It might be seven or eight o’clock, or it might be midnight. He did not want to have Quinn arriving outside the garden gate with the gig at some inconvenient time.

  He tried not to think about that possible midnight departure. And he tried not to think about swimming and making an ass of himself—or drowning himself. The clouds had moved off and the sun was shining. It was warm. There was no excuse not to swim—unless he offered to guard her towel and clothes while she swam alone.

  Coward, she had called him yesterday—just before he kissed her.

  Well, he could not allow that accusation to become reality, could he, he thought as he walked from the barn to the house. A coward was something he had never been, except recently.

  “Ben.”

  She was out in the garden again with the dog. She was wearing the floppy-brimmed bonnet and a high-waisted, short-sleeved dress of white muslin embroidered all over with peach rosebuds. It had a deep frill about the hem. And it was very obvious to him that she was wearing no stays beneath it. She was hurrying toward him, both hands extended. But she looked at his canes when she got close and clasped her hands beneath her chin instead. She was looking agitated.

  “Ben, I am quite horribly wealthy.”

  “Horribly?” He was tempted to grin, but something about her expression stopped him.

  “Mr. Rhys was here this morning,” she told him. “He brought a statement from the bank. I could buy half of England.”

  “But would you want to?” he asked her.

  “I had no idea,” she said. “My mother did not tell me. Neither did my father after she died or later, when I married. He ought to have told me. John did not tell me.”

  “What are you going to do?” he asked her. “About your grandfather, I mean. I have heard that he is away from home at present. Though he is expected home soon.”

  “I hope he never comes back,” she said vehemently. “I hope he keeps his distance from me forever. My great-aunt I can forgive. She was strict with my mother, but I daresay she did not mean to be cruel. I can never forgive him.”

  “Perhaps,” he said, “people need to be allowed to tell their stories.”

  “When has he ever tried to tell his to me?” She looked stormy. “Trust you to take a man’s part.”

  “We had better go swimming,” he said.

  She looked mulish for a few moments and then visibly relaxed. “Yes,” she said. “Let’s, or I will be quarreling with you when it is not you who has offended me. Let’s forget everything except the sand and the water and the freedom and happiness of a sunny afternoon. And the fact that we are together.”

  Sometimes it was good just to forget all that perhaps one ought to remember and simply live for the moment.

  Sometimes the moment was all that really mattered.

  17

  Samantha set her shoes and stockings on the rock where she had left them the day before. Her dress, bonnet, and shift were her only remaining garments. She felt very daring and really quite wicked. But there was no point in walking down onto the beach clad in all the usual finery of a lady. It would only have to come off again before she could swim.

  The beach, she had decided yesterday on her first visit, was going to be her place of freedom, the place where nothing mattered but the moment in which she lived and the beauty with which she was surrounded.

  As soon as she stepped onto it today, she left behind the heavy burden of her wealth; the disturbing glimpses
she had had into her family past; the knowledge that her grandfather, who had abandoned her mother, was as rich as a nabob, to use Ben’s words, and lived in that shining mansion on the hill ironically called home. She left behind the gloom of a recent bereavement, the stern disapproval of her in-laws, the fact that she could not turn for sympathy or help or affection to any member of her father’s family. She ignored the fact that soon, probably very soon, Ben would be leaving to continue his journey and she would never see him again.

  He was with her now, and that was really all that mattered.

  And they were on the beach, where nothing else mattered but the freedom to enjoy the moment. Everyone should have such a retreat, she thought. How very fortunate she was.

  “I have never swum in the ocean,” she said, matching her pace to his, though she would have liked to stride along and even run, and watching an ever-hopeful Tramp go galloping after gulls. “I suppose it is very different from swimming in a lake.”

  “In several ways,” he said. “The water is more buoyant because it is salty. But that makes it uglier to swallow and harder on the eyes. You have to watch out for waves breaking over your head. You may wade in until you are waist deep and then swim in the same area for five minutes only to find when you put your feet down that you are chin deep or knee deep—or out of your depth.”

  “What if I cannot still swim?” she asked him.

  He stopped to look at her.

  “Remind me,” he said, “of who it was who assured me just yesterday that one does not forget.”

  She laughed at him.

  All traces of the morning’s gray weather had been blown away to leave blue sky and sunshine overhead and a sea that sparkled beneath it. The tide was higher up the beach than it had been yesterday morning, almost fully in, in fact. The rock where they had sat was not far from its edge, though the dry sand about it suggested that it was above the normal high tide mark.

  “We can leave our towels there,” she suggested, pointing to the rock.

  He had a bag slung over his shoulder and had more in it than just a towel, she suspected. She had not brought any clothes but the ones she wore.

  She set down her towel and took off her bonnet. She made sure her hair was in a tight knot at her neck and that all the pins were pushed in firmly. But Gladys had done her job thoroughly. She had also been a bit giggly when she knew that Samantha was not going to wear her stays.

  “Are you just going to wear your shift in the water, Mrs. McKay?” she had asked. “I am envious, I am. It’s turned into a beautiful day, hasn’t it? And that major is going to swim too, is he? He is ever so gorgeous, isn’t he, even if he is a little bit crippled. I wouldn’t mind seeing him stripped down for a swim, I can tell you.”

  “Gladys!”

  “Oh, sorry, Mrs. McKay,” she had said, coloring.

  Samantha smiled now at the memory. And she pulled her dress determinedly off over her head even though she felt very exposed in just her knee-length shift. One could hardly go swimming fully clothed, could one?

  He had removed his hat and his coat and waistcoat and neckcloth, she saw when she turned. He had just sat down on the rock to pull off his boots and stockings. It was not easy for him to do, she could see.

  “Would you like me to help?” she asked.

  He looked up and shaded his eyes with one hand—and said nothing while his eyes roamed over her from head to foot.

  “Sorry,” he muttered after a few lengthy moments and lowered the hand. “No, thank you. I can manage.”

  She felt scorched by his glance.

  It took him a while. He was so very different from Matthew, she thought as she watched. He was stubbornly independent.

  There was a wicked-looking scar across the top of one of his feet, she saw when he had removed his stockings—gouged there by a stirrup, perhaps? He was fortunate that his foot had not been completely severed. He was not, she realized, going to remove his pantaloons. But he pulled his shirt free of them, crossed his arms, and hauled it off over his head.

  She stood looking at him while he raised his eyes to hers. She had lain close to his naked upper body that night at the inn, but she had not seen it, and she had not explored it with her hands. There was a nasty puckered scar between his heart and his shoulder.

  “A bullet?” she asked.

  “I was more fortunate than Captain McKay,” he said. “The surgeon was able to dig it out.”

  She winced.

  His chest bore other scars, some worse than others, as did both his arms. Any one of those wounds could surely have killed him. She raised her eyes to his and licked her lips.

  “You were in more than one battle?”

  “Eight,” he said, “and a number of more minor skirmishes. Cavalry are always getting embroiled in skirmishes.”

  Rather than marring his appearance, the scars somehow accentuated his masculinity. And it was very clear that he worked on his physique. His muscles were firm and well defined. He looked suddenly like a tough, even brutal soldier. Brutal in battle, that was. But magnificent as a lover?

  She took a step back and turned to look at the water. There was an uncomfortable throbbing in her womb, and the sun felt hotter than it had a few minutes ago.

  “The water is close,” she said. “Can you walk there without your canes if you set an arm about my shoulders?”

  “You are not my servant,” he said.

  “Is it such a humiliation,” she asked him, “to set your arm about me and lean on me for a short distance? Will it quite diminish your masculinity?”

  His jaw was set hard when she turned back to him. But he nodded and then smiled.

  “I believe it will challenge my masculinity,” he said. “I have noticed, you see, that you are scantily clad.”

  So that was the reason he was reluctant to touch her?

  “Are you a prude, Major Harper?” she asked him.

  “Merely a normal red-blooded male, ma’am,” he said brusquely, getting to his feet with the aid of his canes and then setting them back against the rock and taking two steps without them before reaching for her. “Lead me to cold water, please. And the faster the better.”

  It was amazing what a difference a few layers of clothing could make—or the lack of those layers. Yesterday she had been aware of his lean, strong physique as they walked in the water and it had attracted her. Today she could feel the power in his bare arm about her shoulders and was aware of the rippling muscles in his chest, pressed to her side. She was aware of his masculine hip, of the warmth of his skin. She was aware of his height—a few inches above her own. And she was aware of her own near nakedness next to him.

  She felt as if some of her half-shriveled youth was gathering itself into bud getting ready to burst into bloom again.

  She turned her face up to his as they reached the incoming water and laughed.

  “It is c-c-cold,” she said, deliberately stuttering as they stepped into it. She splashed it with her feet and sent cold droplets splashing all over them. “We are going to f-freeze.”

  Tramp was running along the edge of the water behind them, barking with excitement and further wetting them.

  “It is too late to change your mind now,” he said, grinning back at her. “I am going in, and you must too because I need you to get from here to there.”

  An incoming wave broke over their knees, and Samantha gasped.

  “Whose silly idea was this?” she asked.

  “I am not even going to venture an answer to that,” he said. “I am ever the gentleman.”

  By the time the water reached her waist and then higher, Samantha thought the idea worse than just silly. His arm was a little less heavy about her shoulders, she noticed. And then it was gone altogether and he had ducked beneath the surface of the water. He came up, shaking his head so that she was showered with droplets, and spreading his arms along the water. And he was standing alone, she realized. His dark hair was plastered to his head. Water was beaded on his face
and eyelashes.

  He was all handsome, virile masculinity, and he was upright, unaided by either canes or her shoulders. Oh, how absolutely gorgeous he must once have been.

  He grinned at her, and she grasped her nose between a thumb and forefinger and went under. She came up gasping and sputtering.

  “Oh,” she said, “I see what you mean by buoyancy and taste. Here comes a swell.”

  But they had come too far in for it to break over them in foam. Samantha lifted her feet and bobbed over it at the same time as Ben lay back on the water and floated. He was not, then, going to sink like a stone and drown.

  She watched as he turned onto his front and began to swim in a slow crawl, his powerful arms doing most of the work, though his legs were moving too, propelling him along. She swam to catch up with him and realized that she had been right yesterday. She had not forgotten how. Neither had he. She would have whooped with delight if she had had the breath.

  She drew level with him, and they swam side by side, stroke for stroke.

  It seemed to Samantha that she had never been happier in her life. If only they could swim forever and never have to go back to shore.

  Ben could have wept. Not only could he remember how to swim, but also he could swim. He could move his legs without pain.

  He could move.

  Without pain.

  He was free.

  He did not know how far he had swum before he became aware of Samantha alongside him. And that was strange since he had been aware of her with every fiber of his being ever since he set eyes upon her back at the cottage. And when she had stripped down to her shift … Well, it was difficult to find words. And then when he had stepped up beside her to set his arm about her shoulders …