Wedding of the Season: Abandoned at the Altar

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  He was already there, waiting for her by the edge of the cliff, wearing nothing but his old football breeches and loafers, but she was too nervous to appreciate the delicious sight of his bare chest in the moonlight.

  As she approached, she heard him give a heavy sigh, and she watched him shake his head. “Why do they make you women wear such silly things to swim in?” he asked, and before she could stop him, he plucked her ruffled muslin bathing cap off her head and dropped it to the ground, ignoring her indignant protest. “Beatrix, be practical. You can’t dive with that thing on your head.” He grasped her arms and turned her slightly to examine the back of her head. “Good,” he said with approval. “You braided your hair nice and tight. You’ll have to take off your bathing shoes and stockings, though. They’ll only weigh you down.”

  Seeing the sense of that, and deciding her own fears were already enough to weigh her down, she unlaced her leather bathing slippers and pulled them off, along with her stockings, and she tried not to think about what she was about to do. She wanted to do this, she wanted to prove to herself that she could, but when he asked if she was ready, she was seized by doubts.

  “What if the waves bash me on the rocks?” She watched the smile curving his mouth, and she scowled. “Don’t you dare laugh! It could happen.”

  “No, it can’t.” He took her gently by the arms. “Listen to me. The cliff overhangs the rocks a good ten feet, and the waves aren’t strong enough to carry you because we’re in a cove. Look,” he added, pointing below. “The reflection of the moon barely makes a ripple. It’s almost as calm as a millpond down there. You won’t be bashed on any rocks.”

  “What if it’s too shallow and I hit bottom?”

  “The depth of the water’s at about forty feet right now. You won’t hit bottom. It’s no more dangerous than diving off the dock.”

  “Yes, it is.” She peered over the edge. “The water is a lot further away.”

  “But it’s perfectly safe. Watch.” Before she could blink, he was gone, going over the edge with no hesitation, his splendid body in perfect form, head down, legs together, back arched, and arms outstretched in a perfect swan dive. He straightened his arms over his head, and when he hit the water, she barely saw the splash.

  When he surfaced, she let out a breath she hadn’t even known she’d been holding. He didn’t call up to her, for if anyone happened to be awake back at the house, they might hear him. The windows at Pixy Cove were always open. He merely beckoned her with a wave of his hand, treading water below, waiting just as he’d waited sixteen years ago, for her to follow him.

  She stared down at him in the cove below, wondering how she always let him talk her into these things. She wasn’t like him. She couldn’t just dive off a cliff, or race the moor on horseback, or go off across the world.

  She must have stood there a long time, because he waved his arms in a negative crossing motion, indicating she should stay where she was and not take the dive. He didn’t have to worry about that, because she was losing her courage more with every passing second. She peered down at him, watching as he started swimming for shore. A few minutes later, he came up the ladder to rejoin her.

  He paused beside her, raking a hand through his wet hair. “If you’d rather look at the view,” he said, “that’s all right, too.”

  “I want to do this. I do. I’ve always wanted to do it. But I—” She looked up into his face. “I don’t think I can. Damn,” she added, feeling her courage slipping irretrievably away.

  He put an arm around her shoulders and pressed a kiss to her temple. “It isn’t as if you’ll never have another chance. Angel’s Head isn’t going anywhere, you know.”

  That didn’t make her feel any better. She leaned over the edge a little and gulped. “It’s such a long way down.”

  “It’s only thirty feet.”

  “Only thirty?” she echoed faintly. “Is that all?”

  “You don’t have to dive off, you know. You could just jump instead.”

  “That might be better.” She peered over the edge again. “Diving off the dock at Pixy Cove is one thing. This is—” She broke off and gulped again. “Different.”

  “How about if we jump off together?”

  She turned to look at him and watched him hold out his hand to her. “If you decide to do it this way, though,” he added before she could reply, “you can’t hesitate. Once we go, we go. No shying at the last second, or we really could get hurt, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t want a dislocated shoulder. So I’m trusting you. That’s what it is, you know. Trust. Do you trust me?”

  She looked down at his hand held out to her. She looked into his eyes, his gaze so sure and steady, and she knew, for whatever reason, doing this was important in a way that was far beyond his childhood dare and her childhood regret.

  “All right,” she said, and clasped his hand before she could change her mind. “We’ll go together.”

  “The cliff overhangs the cove a good bit here, so it’s really just a matter of stepping off.”

  She nodded. “I’m ready.”

  “We go on three.” He swung their clasped hands forward. “One.”

  She felt old childhood fear tighten in her stomach.

  He swung their hands again. “Two.”

  She told herself nothing would go wrong and took a deep breath.

  “Three.”

  And they went over together, a jump off a cliff and a leap into space. A leap of faith. And for one incredible moment, she knew how it felt to fly like a bird.

  Chapter Sixteen

  She held his hand all the way down, letting go only when their feet hit the water. A moment later, Will felt the edge of her bathing dress glide up his arm as she rose toward the surface. He gave a hard kick, following her, and when he broke the water, the first thing he heard was the sound of her laughing. He turned his head and found her treading water only a few feet away, a big grin on her face.

  “That was smashing!” she cried, rubbing water out of her eyes with one hand. “Absolutely smashing! Far better than any swing could ever be!” She laughed again. “What on earth was I so afraid of all those years ago?”

  He reached for her, cupped a hand to the back of her head, and pulled her toward him for a quick kiss. “The unknown.”

  She glanced up at the cliff in the moonlight, then back at him. “Could we do it again?”

  They did, three more times, hand in hand all the way down. Afterward, he went up the ladder alone and retrieved their shoes and her stockings, then he took her to the pixy cave. He’d already brought everything down for their picnic, and when he lit the lantern, she was able to see what he’d done—the big blanket spread out on the sandy ground, and the picnic hamper, and the fire by the entrance already laid with driftwood.

  “So this is why you vanished after dinner,” she said, and smiled at him, one of the old Trix smiles, a smile that lit up her face and made him feel like a king. “You were setting all this up.”

  But then she shivered, her smile faded, and she rubbed her hands up and down her arms.

  “You must be freezing.” He set their shoes on a nearby rock and reached for the big canvas bag he’d brought down earlier. Opening it, he pulled out the robe he’d brought for her, the warmest robe he owned, a thick, soft garment of claret-red merino wool with a flannel lining. “Here,” he said, handing it to her and reaching back into the bag for matches. “I didn’t know if you’d think to bring a change of clothes.”

  “I didn’t,” she confessed, unfolding it, but as she started to put it on, he gave a cough. “You might want to take off your wet bathing dress first,” he advised. “You’ll be warmer that way,” he added, though he wasn’t wholly motivated by concern for her. “We can dry your things by the fire while we eat. Don’t worry,” he added as she hesitated. “I won’t peek while you change.”

  She laughed. “That’s what you always used to say. Turn around.”

  He pretended to be affronted. “I
thought you were supposed to be learning to trust me again.”

  Beatrix shook her head, unmoved. “When it comes to this, I never trusted you. Turn around. And no sneaking a peek when you think I’m not looking.”

  He sighed and turned his back, kneeling down to light the fire. “I brought you a picnic and everything,” he grumbled. “The least you can do is let me have one little peek.”

  She gave a harrumph, dashing that hope, but there was no stopping his imagination. He listened, striving to hear what she was doing over the crackling sound of the fire, imagining her removing the wet garments. First her tunic, exposing her bare shoulders. Then her knickerbockers, sliding them down her bare legs. And then her combination, working the buttons free and pulling the edges apart to reveal her breasts, full and round with rosy pink nipples. Christ, he thought as his body responded to these erotic images, he had to stop or he’d drive himself insane.

  He fiddled unnecessarily with the fire and tried to suppress the arousal flaring up in his body, but when she told him he could turn back around, he realized his efforts were wasted. The garment covered her, swamped her, in fact, and he couldn’t even see her hands—and yet he found the sight of her in his robe wildly erotic. Perhaps, he thought, lowering his gaze to the sash tied around her waist, that was because now only the flimsiest barrier separated his hands from her naked body. Or perhaps it was because he could see her pretty toes peeking out from beneath a sea of fabric. Or perhaps it was the sight of her lacy muslin combination spread out on the rock by the fire. He forced his gaze back to her face, but that didn’t help, because she was staring at his chest, and all he could think of was how it would feel to have her hands touching his bare skin.

  “We should eat,” he said, needing to say something. “We don’t have more than about two hours before we have to go back.”

  She nodded and sank down cross-legged onto the blanket, carefully arranging the folds of his robe around her. That was when she noticed the ice bucket and bottle behind the picnic hamper. She gave a throaty chuckle. “Champagne?”

  “I thought of bringing lemonade.” He pulled the bottle out of the half-melted ice and reached for a glass. “Since you became so fond of it during my absence that you gave up champagne in favor of it.”

  She sighed. “I only gave up champagne because Aidan can’t drink.”

  “Can’t drink?” he echoed as he filled their glasses. “What do you mean?”

  “He said more than one glass of wine or spirits makes him quite drunk and when he’s drunk he has a tendency to do wild things.”

  Will tried to imagine Trathen doing anything wild and failed utterly.

  “I never could imagine Aidan drunk and wild,” she went on, almost as if reading his mind, “but he assured me that’s what happens when he drinks too much. He always limits himself to one glass of wine, but he loves champagne, and if he starts drinking that stuff, he finds it hard to stop. Because of that, I felt it was unfair to drink champagne in front of him, and we decided that it would be best to stick to lemonade.”

  Her smile faded, and he was struck by the change. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I was just thinking of Aidan.” She bit her lip. “He didn’t deserve what he saw that day.”

  “No,” Will agreed, handing her a glass of champagne. “But it happens.” Deciding it might be best to stop talking about her previous engagement, he added, “I also thought about bringing caviar tonight, since you love the stuff so much. But at the last minute I changed my mind.”

  “Thank goodness,” she murmured, and gave the same sort of shiver he’d seen that day on the Maria Lisa. “Horrid stuff. Tastes like wet beach sand.”

  He gave a shout of laughter. “It does, rather,” he agreed as he set the bottle back in the bucket. He took a swallow of champagne, placed his glass on a flat part of the rock beside him, and pulled the picnic hamper closer to open it.

  “I brought bread and cheese,” he told her as he laid them on the blanket. “And,” he added, rummaging in the basket again, “I also brought these.”

  She gave a delighted exclamation as he brought out a pair of long-handled forks. “So we can toast our bread and cheese over the fire!” she cried, laughing.

  “As we always do at Pixy Cove. Well,” he amended, handing one of the forks to her and starting to tear the bread into pieces, “at least as we used to do until Antonia found the rope ladder, realized we were all sneaking out at night, and started watching you girls like a circling hawk. I wouldn’t have been surprised,” he added, “if she’d begun sleeping outside your door.”

  “She didn’t, but her maid did. Don’t you remember?” He shook his head and she went on, “You probably never saw her, since your rooms have always been on the other side of the house. She sat in a chair by the servants’ stairs at the end of the corridor. Julie tried to sneak out again once or twice, but the maid always woke up and caught her. I didn’t even try. I’m just grateful Antonia didn’t write Papa and tell him we’d been sneaking out all along, or the fat would have been in the fire and I’d never have been allowed at Pixy Cove again. But I suppose Antonia decided to keep mum and not tell Papa because I was too young for any of it to be a scandal anyway. I was only, what, ten or eleven by then?”

  “Ten,” he said and began to pare cheese off the block. “It was shortly after the day you wouldn’t dive off Angel’s Head with me.”

  “That’s right.” Beatrix took the bread he handed her, speared it with her fork, and laid the slices of cheese on top, then stretched her arm toward the fire to toast her makeshift sandwich at the edge of the flames.

  He did the same. “And after Antonia figured out what we’d been up to,” he went on, “you were so scared of getting caught doing anything naughty. You refused to sneak out for midnight adventures with me for another seven years, not until after we were engaged.”

  “Is that why—” She broke off, and when he looked at her, he found her looking back with an uncertain expression. “Is that why you proposed?” she asked. “So that we could . . . could . . .” She paused again, and he thought she blushed, though in the light and heat of the fire, it was hard to tell. “You know,” she said softly.

  He was astonished. “Is that what you think? That the only reason I proposed was because I just wanted to make love to you and couldn’t manage it any other way?”

  “I did wonder.” She wriggled on the blanket, ducking her head, looking uncomfortable. “Especially after you went away. I couldn’t help thinking you must never really have loved me at all.”

  He studied her bent head, her golden hair shining in the firelight, and he felt a fierce, hot ache inside his chest. “I always loved you, all my life,” he blurted out, and immediately tore his gaze away, staring at their hunks of bread and cheese side by side. A long silence stretched out, the crackle of the fire the only sound before he said softly, “I never stopped.”

  Those words hung in the air, suspended in fire smoke and sea air and childhood memories, and joy rose up inside her like a bubble. She caught back the happy, silly sob in her throat, holding it back so he wouldn’t hear it. She bit her lip, keeping her gaze on her lap, trying to hold on to reason. It was just words. He was leaving. They weren’t going to spend their Augusts together at Pixy Cove or sneak off for kisses in the wine cellar or the garden. They wouldn’t be putting presents for their children under the Christmas tree, or doing any of the other things she’d wanted. That dream was dead. It had died six years ago.

  “Careful,” he said, and she looked up through a blur, realizing her bread was burning at the edge. She jerked her arm back, saving her meal just in time.

  “I know it doesn’t do any good to say things like that,” he told her in an unbelievably level, ordinary voice, “because you’ve already refused to marry me. But I thought you should know. More champagne?”

  “Why can’t you stay here?” she whispered without looking at him, her heart constricting with pain.

  He refilled their
glasses without answering and set the bottle back in the bucket, rattling the little bits of ice that remained. “Because they are expecting me at the excavation. I have work to do there and people counting on me. I know you think I’m not a responsible sort of fellow, but I can’t let them down. And you won’t come with me, so there we are.”

  She nodded. She really hadn’t expected any other answer, and yet a dull ache formed at the center of her heart, and she didn’t want to think about how things would be when he left and she was alone again and there were no more adventures.

  They ate their bread and cheese in silence, and it wasn’t until they were putting the remaining food back in the picnic hamper that he broke that silence. “I think I’m the one who’s ruined our adventure.”

  “No, you haven’t. It’s been wonderful. Maybe next year, I’ll actually dive off Angel’s Head.” But she knew without him, she wouldn’t. “Maybe, if you—” She broke off, afraid to say what she wanted to say. She turned, shifting on the blanket to stretch out her legs beside the fire, giving herself time to find the nerve. “Maybe if you come back next August, you can watch me do it.”

  He didn’t answer, and she shoved down her disappointment. Silly of her to think he’d promise her he’d come back, silly of her to wish for it. But when the silence continued, curiosity impelled her to glance at him, and when she did, she saw that he wasn’t looking at her face. He was staring at her legs where they were partly exposed between the edges of the robe, and in his expression was the same hungry desire she’d seen that day on the Maria Lisa.

  Warmth washed over her, warmth that had nothing to do with the fire, warmth that radiated through her entire body. She thought of that kiss by the swing, the kiss at Phoebe’s Cove, and all the other kisses they’d had, and she decided it was time for something more. She downed the last of her champagne in a couple of swallows and took a few deep breaths, working up her courage. He wasn’t coming back, she knew that. And she wasn’t going. And she knew there was one more adventure they had to have before he left. “It’s been a wonderful escapade,” she said, and stood up. “The best we’ve had yet.”