31. A Night on the Beach
CHAPTER 31
A NIGHT ON THE BEACH
L ater that night
The remains of their dinner had long been removed from the trestle and most of their party had disappeared into their rooms when Diana made her way to the beach. She was barefoot and carried a bed linen in one arm. Up ahead, closer to the water’s edge, she could barely see the shape of a standing man.
From the bit of silhouette she could make out in the darkness, she knew it had to be Randy. There was something about the way he stood, the angle of his body at ease, that gave him away.
Confidence , she remembered Jane saying. At some point in his future, that air of confidence would serve him well as an aristocrat.
Diana had departed the room she now shared with Jane when the young lady claimed she was ready for bed. Already dressed in a white nightrail and braiding her long, black hair, Jane displayed an enigmatic expression suggesting she and Marcus had come to some sort of agreement. When Diana had asked, Jane sighed and said, “I cannot say anything. I promised him I would not.”
Well, if Marcus was still up and about, Diana was determined to learn what she could from him.
From the sound of male voices coming from outside his room, though, she realized four of them were engaged in a game of cards.
So much for a late night discussion with her brother.
Bored and not the least bit tired, she decided to watch the stars from the beach. With any luck, the meteor shower usually seen at the end of August would be putting on its celestial show for anyone still awake and out of doors.
Diana unfolded the bed linen and spread it out on the sand before carefully stretching out on the expanse of fabric. For a moment, she wondered if Randy wouldn’t notice it in the dark and accidentally walk over it—or her—as he made his way back to the hotel. She had barely settled into place on one half of the linen when he was suddenly there.
He didn’t say anything as he lowered himself onto the linen and lay back next to her, his hands clasped behind his head. He was the first to break the silence, however. “I wondered when you would come out,” he whispered.
Swallowing a sound of surprise at hearing his words, Diana sighed. “Jane’s abed and the boys are playing cards,” she replied. “You were expecting me?”
Murmuring his positive response, he seemed about to say something when a bright light arced across the sky. “That was especially impressive,” he remarked.
“Indeed.”
“I’ve been thinking...”
“Oh, dear,” she whispered, although she made sure to smile when she did so.
He turned his head and scoffed in surprise. “You’re in good spirits,” he accused, pulling his hands from behind his head to slide them down the side of his body.
“I am. I enjoyed spending time at the temple today,” she said. “I didn’t have to do any digging to discover what I was looking for.”
“Which was?” he prompted.
She inhaled slowly. “A garrison general’s dedication. About the temple,” she murmured. “Poseidon’s temple wasn’t the only one for which he was responsible, though. He was apparently very concerned about the health of his troops, so he also built one to Asclepius on the same site.” She motioned up toward the cliff.
“You’re speaking of the dedication by Theomnestos?” he guessed.
Gasping, she stared at him. “You saw it, too?”
“Theomnestos, son of Theomnestos of Xypete, having been erected by the people general in charge of the seaside place?—”
“Coastal countryside,” she corrected him.
“—in the archonship of Menekrates,... then some date—I haven’t yet done the calculation to determine exactly when it was—dedicated this ,” he finished.
“I think it’s from two-eighteen BC,” she murmured.
He glanced over at her. “Did you write it all down?”
Diana nodded. “In my sketchbook.” Until that moment, she hadn’t realized how close Randy was, how his hand brushed hers. She glanced over to discover his face displaying a grimace. “What are you thinking?”
“About you. About spinsterhood,” he replied.
The shock she felt at that moment nearly turned to anger. They had been having a perfectly reasonable and interesting conversation about an ancient Greek general, and yet Randy was thinking about...
Me.
She swallowed as a streak of light lit up the black before it dissipated as quickly as it appeared. Inhaling softly, Diana let out the breath in a huff. “If you intend to lecture me with reasons I should not?—”
“As a spinster, you wouldn’t be held to the same standards as any other young woman,” he stated, sounding rather insistent. “You can do what you like. You can take a lover, and when you grow bored with him, you can simply move on to another.”
Diana closed her eyes and took a deep breath in an effort to tamp down the temptation she felt to respond with a verbal lashing. “Do you mean like what men do with their mistresses?” she finally asked.
“You know about that?” he countered, surprise in his voice.
Despite the dark, she gave him a quelling glance. “As we have ascertained, I have read a great number of books in my nineteen-and-a-half years, and, so, yes, I know about men and their mistresses,” she said. She didn’t try to hide the disgust she felt at discussing the topic. “Throughout all of history, men—especially powerful men—have employed mistresses,” she claimed.
“Plenty of women have taken lovers,” he countered, his words barely heard over the sound of the small waves washing up on the beach. He nearly missed a shooting star directly above them, its tail shorter than those that had streaked across the western sky. “You’re going to require a lover. At least one,” he stated.
Once again sounding her disbelief with a scoff, Diana remained flat on her back and stared at the sky. The new moon was barely visible, so the cloudy band of stars making up the Milky Way, splitting the sky in half, was evident in the inky blackness above. “Require?” she repeated.
“Yes.”
She glanced over at him. “Why?”
He rolled onto his stomach, bringing him so close their bodies nearly touched. “Because there will be nights—mornings, perhaps—when your body will demand it be touched. Held. Stroked. Kissed,” he said softly. “Made love to.”
She recoiled at hearing the insistence in his voice. “You know this... how?”
He moved a hand closer to her face, one finger bent so he could stroke a knuckle along her cheek. “You’re human. History has shown over and over we require someone with whom to share our lives, or at least a few hours of our day.”
“How is it you can be so certain?”
“Because it is how I awoke this morning. How I will feel before I go to sleep tonight,” he replied without pause.
She lifted a hand to grasp the one stroking her cheek. “You should stop that,” she whispered.
“Why?”
Her breaths increasing in number, she stared at him. “I may require you be the one... to... to fill that position,” she whispered. “It would serve you right.”
He turned her hand in his and pulled it to his lips. She gasped when his lips took purchase on her bare skin, kissing the back of her hand and turning it around to press his lips into her palm. “You say that as if you think I would deny you.”
Her eyes rounded when she realized her dare hadn’t worked to deter him. “You’re not going to?” Although she thought to pull her hand from his hold, she didn’t think he would easily let go. She also knew his words about touching were true. She had’t realized how much she craved it until her hand was engulfed in his.
“I would be honored to be your lover.” He lowered his voice so his words could barely be heard. “You would have to… guide me, of course. Tell me what to do. How you like it.”
The gasp she made wasn’t due to a meteor. “Guide you?” she repeated, at the same moment a shooting star did arc across the western sky. Was it some sort of sign she needed to end this entirely inappropriate conversation?
“Well, it’s not as if I…” He stopped speaking, embarrassment apparently halting his tongue.
“As if... what?” she pressed.
“Have experience. With a spinster,” he stammered. “Or any other woman, for that matter.”
Diana stared at him before she drew her brows together. “How old are you?”
“Three-and-twenty.”
“You went to university.”
“Three years,” he acknowledged.
She lifted herself onto an elbow and stared down at him. “And you’re trying to make me believe you have not lain with a woman?”
He shrugged. “I may have heeded my father’s warnings a bit too much,” he said.
“What sorts of warnings?”
He dipped his head between his shoulders. “Bastard children. Venereal disease. Broken hearts.”
“Yet you offer yourself as a lover knowing I could end up with child,” she accused, settling onto her back.
“I would employ a French letter,” he quickly countered.
Her breathing hitched before she realized how very serious their conversation had become. How she never could have imagined discussing such intimate details with any man. “I will not reach my majority for another year and a half,” she whispered, almost glad she had an excuse to put him off.
Almost.
“So?”
Damnation . “I can’t really be a spinster until then,” she reasoned. “By that time, you’ll be?—”
“I can wait,” he stated. “Be at your beck and call, although...”
“Although?” she prompted.
“Would one man be enough for you?” he asked in a quiet voice. “I would be quite jealous if you showed favor to any others.”
Diana swallowed at hearing the confession. He would feel jealousy? That implied... well, surely he wasn’t professing anything more than lust at the moment, although even that was more than she had ever thought to incite in a man.
She thought back to the story Jane had told in the coach earlier that day and allowed amusement to sound in her voice. “Well I can’t imagine trying to manage seven ,” she said on a soft chuckle.
“Seven?” Randy countered, sounding shocked, his expression conveying a host of conflicting emotions.
“One for every night of the week,” she replied, grinning at how ridiculous it sounded. “Miss Jane told us about a bluestocking in Bath with seven lovers. She even calls them by their day of the week...” She stopped, clamping her mouth shut when she remembered she had called him ‘Mr. Saturday’ when they were making their way up to the temple.
For a moment there was silence, and then Randy rolled onto his back. “Was her favorite ‘Mr. Saturday’ by any chance?” he asked, clasping his hands together atop his waist as another shooting star crossed the sky.
Glad her reddening cheeks didn’t show in the dark, Diana said, “I believe so.”
He chuckled softly in the dark before turning his head in her direction. He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “You minx,” he accused. “If I don’t leave you this instant, I’m going to thoroughly ruin you,” he warned. “Not that anyone would see, it’s so damned dark out here.”
The oddest sensation passed through her body just then. Pleasant and exciting. Warm and welcome. Tingly and altogether foreign to her.
Desire .
“Then you had best go,” she whispered, glad for the reminder they couldn’t be seen by anyone and for the hypnotic sound of the waves as they lapped onto the beach. She had a thought she would simply close her eyes and fall asleep, although it would be some time before her body would stop whatever it was doing to leave her so discombobulated.
“I’m not leaving you outside by yourself,” he murmured.
She inhaled deeply and let the breath out in a whoosh . “Oh, all right. I’ll go to bed.”
Randy was already up and reaching out to help her to stand before the words were out of her mouth. “If you wake early and would like, I’ll walk with you up to the temple. We can watch the sunrise.”
“Yes, I’d like that,” she agreed, not intending to sound as breathless as she did. She bent to lift the bed linen from the sand and shook it out before quickly folding it into a square.
They made their way into the building and down the corridor to their respective rooms, neither saying another word.