The Escape

by Mary Balogh

  Her very dark hair was plastered to her head and held in its tight knot at her neck. Two shapely bare arms came out of the water, one after the other in a steady, graceful rhythm, and slid back beneath the surface. He could see the outline of her body through the water, her shift like a second skin. Her legs, propelling her along, were long and sturdy and shapely and mostly bare. She was not slender, but she was beautifully, perfectly proportioned. She was every man’s dream of femininity.

  She caught his eye and smiled. He smiled back.

  She rolled onto her back and floated, her arms out to the sides. He floated beside her. There was not a cloud in the sky.

  This, he thought, was one of those rare, perfect moments. He wanted to capture it and keep it and treasure it so that he could look at it from time to time and feel again what he felt now. But of course, he could do just that. It was called memory.

  “You were swimming,” she said.

  “So were you.”

  “You were swimming, Ben.”

  He turned his head to look at her. “You were right. I can swim.”

  If he had been able to get down onto the beach at Penderris, perhaps he would have discovered it long ago. If he had been able to spend more time at Kenelston after leaving Penderris, perhaps he would have gone to the lake and made the discovery there. But it had never occurred to him that there was an element in which he would not be handicapped—or not completely so, anyway. So far he had tried only a very leisurely crawl. But perhaps he could build strength in the water by challenging himself to try more vigorous strokes. Perhaps he had not, after all, reached the limit of his physical capabilities.

  She turned her head to look back at him. “I am right occasionally, you know.”

  Their fingertips touched inadvertently as they bobbed on the water, and then they touched deliberately. He rested his hand on top of hers, and she turned it so that they were palm to palm.

  “I am glad there has been this day,” she said.

  “So am I.”

  “Will you remember this when you have traveled far and wide and gathered enough material for ten books?” she asked him. “And become hugely famous?”

  “I will remember,” he assured her. “And will you remember when you have an army of friends and admirers here and are busily involved in village and parish life? And when you have learned Welsh and have sung to help raise the roof off the church?”

  She smiled. “I will remember.”

  They floated for a while longer. The dog, he could see when he looked, was stretched out by the rock and the towels and their discarded clothes. The sun was warm.

  There was nothing for her in England. There was nothing for him here. There was nothing there for him either unless he asserted himself at Kenelston or else set up house in London or Bath or somewhere else where he could establish some sort of routine and some sort of social life. He was not going to be a traveler. He could not bear the thought of doing it alone. And he never wanted to see a journal or a blank sheet of paper again. Perhaps he ought to try some sort of career. In business or commerce, perhaps, or the law? Or in the diplomatic service? He had never before given serious thought to actually working, except as a landowner on his own land. He did not need to work, after all, since he was in possession of a sizable fortune.

  But now was not the time to consider his future.

  Now was the time for now. Now was one of those rare and precious moments with which one was gifted from time to time. That was all it was. A moment. But it was one to be enjoyed to the full while it lasted and treasured for a lifetime after it was over.

  “And it is not even over yet,” she said, echoing his thought.

  “No.”

  There was still dinner to be enjoyed at the cottage. And then …

  He was not at all sure it would be wise. He could, if he chose, enumerate in his mind all the many reasons—and there were many, for both of them—why it would not be. But he was not going to think. He was going to hold on to the moment. The rest of the day would look after itself.

  She had turned onto her front and had begun to swim slowly back toward the beach. He followed her.

  “Stay here,” she said, when she was able to stand in the water. “I shall fetch your canes.”

  The tide had ebbed a bit, he could see. It was a farther walk to the rock now than it had been when they came in.

  He trod water and watched her return across the sand, his canes held in one of her hands. Her shift clung to her body, leaving virtually nothing to the imagination. Yet she seemed unself-conscious.

  She was beautiful beyond belief. And desirable beyond words.

  “Life is really not fair,” she cried, splashing back into the water. “It was freezing coming in, and now it is freezing getting out.” She held the canes high as she waded toward him.

  “Whoever told you,” he asked her, “that life was fair?”

  He took his canes from her. It was time to be earth-bound again.

  The dog was prancing at the edge of the water, barking at them, impatient for them to emerge.

  Ben leaned one shoulder against the rock when he had reached it and rubbed his towel over his upper body and his hair. He would change into the dry pantaloons he had brought with him if she would turn her back.

  “I did not bring a dry shift,” she said, and his hand paused with the towel held to one side of his head. “I thought I would let it dry here in the sun.”

  But she did not mean what he thought she meant, he realized when he saw her spread her towel on the sand. She was not about to strip it off.

  “Shall we lie down and soak up some sunshine before going back to the cottage?” she suggested.

  “Have you heard of a beached whale?” he asked her.

  She looked at him, arrested.

  “You would not be able to get up again, would you?” she said and then laughed. “I am so sorry. I did not think of that. How foolish of me.”

  “Lie down,” he said. “I will sit here.”

  She regarded the stone ledge on which they had sat yesterday.

  “You can stretch out along it,” she said, “and relax better. You could get up from there, could you not?”

  And so they lay side by side on their towels, though she was three feet below him on the beach. He shaded his eyes with one forearm.

  “Are not ladies supposed to protect their complexions from the merest suggestion of sunlight?” he asked.

  “I have the complexion of a Gypsy,” she said. “Even when I have not been in the sun people frown upon me because my face is not all porcelain and peaches and roses. Why bother depriving myself of feeling the heat and light of the sun on my face, then? You cannot know how irksome it was for almost four months to have to wear a black veil every time I set foot over the doorstep—when I did step outside, that was. Oh, Ben, there was not even any daylight in the house. Matilda insisted that the curtains be almost closed across every window. Sometimes, when she was not in the room with me, I used to stand in the band of daylight and breathe in gulps, as though I had been suffocating.”

  “Those days are gone,” he said.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “Thank God. And I am not blaspheming.”

  They were probably both going to end up with some sunburn. He did not care.

  “Am I horribly wicked—?”

  “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.<
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  “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.

  18

  Mrs. 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.