19. DelightDoom
19
Delight or Doom
Luce woke to find Samuel gone.
Weak sunlight filtered through cracks in the stone above her, slanting through the cave. Its texture told her it was midmorning.
‘Samuel?’
‘I’m here.’
His voice came from below. She moved carefully to the platform’s edge, peered down.
And caught her breath.
Sunlight streamed into the sea-cave—great golden swathes of it illuminating the sea-pool below. The water was a startling blue-green, glimmering as if a thousand candles shone beneath its surface.
Samuel, standing in the Dove and winding a rope in his hands, looked up at her, grinning.
‘I knew you’d appreciate it.’ He finished with the rope, stowed it neatly away, and hopped from the boat to the stone stairs, climbing toward her.
‘It’s wonderful,’ Luce breathed. The bottom of the pool was covered in pale sand. The water was so clear, she could its ripples and undulations, the occasional hermit crab or shell.
It was infinitely inviting. Part of her longed to leap from the platform and feel that wondrous water on her skin. The rest of her shuddered in terror. She slipped a hand into her pocket, felt the sea-silk there, and quickly withdrew her fingers.
‘You really should have told me about this place,’ she said accusingly as Samuel reached the top of the stairs. His hair, she saw in surprise, was wet, his shirt clinging to his broad shoulders.
‘You swam?’
‘Did I wake you? I tried not to splash.’ He tousled his hair, and droplets of seawater flicked onto Luce’s cheek. She reached up quickly, wiped them away, distracted, for a moment, by the desire to run her fingers across his damp skin.
‘No.’ She dragged her gaze back to the water. ‘No, I didn’t hear you.’
She felt him regarding her.
‘Would you like to swim, Luce? I’d understand if you were afraid...’
‘I’m not afraid.’ She spoke too quickly, dishonesty shining through her words like the sun on that rippling sand below. She was afraid. The feeling of her legs being bound, useless, the failure of her body to save her from the water as she sank deeper and deeper, was impossible to forget. But she was curious, too. And in this place, with such water, and such light.... Surely there was no better time to try?
‘I’m going in,’ she said. ‘With the silk.’
He nodded. Swallowed. ‘All right.’
‘I cannot swim in my clothes.’
He swallowed again. ‘No. Of course not.’
‘I was thinking, if I wore my stays and kept the silk inside them...’
Samuel nodded.
‘And if you turned away, when I first dived?’
‘Of course.’
Luce took a breath. Released it. ‘Very well. Go back down to the Dove and close your eyes. You can open them when you hear a splash.’
She watched him move back down the stone stairs, heart pounding with nerves. She undressed quickly, before she could change her mind: untying her breeches, unpinning her caraco and stomacher, unlacing her white stays. She peeled off her chemise, stockings, and garters and then, completely naked, reached for the stays. Drew the bony, satin-covered wings of them around her body, tightening the laces with practised fingers, bottom to top, waist to breast. She unpinned her hair—it fell down to her hips, long and thick and black—and tucked the sea-silk within the top of the stays, against her skin.
Below, on the Dove, Samuel was quiet as midnight.
‘Dear God,’ Luce whispered. Does God listen to seamaids? She padded to the edge, peeked over. ‘Are your eyes closed?’
‘They are.’
At the sight of him, Luce almost lost her footing. Samuel was naked from the waist up, his vest and shirt draped over the tiller, his arms bent, his hands covering his eyes.
She had seen his body before, of course. But always in glimpses and glances, secret and stolen. Now, completely unhindered, she looked and looked and looked. At his chest and shoulders and back, all sun-browned and smooth. At the muscles curving in his arms and cutting across his belly. At his narrow hips, and the twin creases of muscle disappearing into the top of his breeches.
Dear God.
He must have sensed her gaze. ‘I thought I’d best prepare, as well,’ he said. ‘In case you... needed me.’
Remembering, no doubt, the way she had panicked and sunk that first time. Fear traced its cold claws down her back at the thought. She looked at him, standing in the Dove —with her, unquestioningly, as he always was—and felt a surge of gratitude.
‘Thank you.’
There was nothing for it. She could stand there, near-naked and nervous on the ledge.
Or she could dive.
Freefall, and then the sudden shock of the water’s embrace. She felt the change this time: the magic slicking over her, head to toe, as cool as the green-blue sea. She dipped her head, arched her spine, rolled her hips, adjusting to her new body.
It knew what to do. Her tail flicked of its own accord, and she surged through the water, faster and stronger than she had ever thought possible. She flicked it again. Opened her eyes and found that she could see everything—ripples in the sand, a few stray fish, a scattering of shells—in glorious detail.
Luce propelled herself across the pool, moving sure and smooth, sinking into her new rhythm. She rolled, swam smoothly back, beheld her tail, its glorious fins like tendrils of brightly-hued ink in the water, blues and greens, silvers and pinks, shimmering like a dream. High above, the Dove ’s hull, bubbles trapped against the wood, each plank plain. And a watery shadow that could only be Samuel. He was leaning over the side, watching her. The whiteness of his teeth, his broad, excited grin.
In a burst of sudden joy Luce angled her body and aimed for the surface, swimming hard.
It was easier than walking or running or dancing had ever been. It was easier than breathing.
She cut through the water, sliced for the surface, impelled by the force of her tail.
She dived into air, soared over water, dripping and shimmering. She heard Samuel’s joyous whoop, sensed him leaping with her, before she arched her back and—fingertips first—slipped back into the sea. An explosion of colour and light and water— here and then gone again, the water parting smoothly to admit her once more.
Welcoming her home.
‘Having fun?’ Samuel leaned on the Dove’s bow, grinning and dripping.
Luce had dived and leapt and dived again, over and over, splashing the boat, drenching the sails, the stairs, and Samuel too. Now, there was nothing to do but drift lazily on the surface; to flow along the Dove ’s side, barely touching the boat. There was no need to reach for it, or to cling to its side while she rested. She was light as air, strong as the tide.
‘Look at you,’ Samuel said. His voice was low, his sea-grey eyes dark as a coming storm. They drank her in, those eyes, from her dark hair, trailing across the surface, to the shimmering tendrils of her tail.
Luce, too, was looking. He gleamed with salt and water, his damp hair curling at the nape of his neck, tattoos stark against his bronzed skin.
Elation became something else entirely.
She drifted to the Dove ’s bow and reached up a hand to him, the way she always did when they were diving and she needed him to lift her back onto the boat. And as he always did, Samuel leaned down, trusting and steadfast, and gripped her arm.
It was startling, how easily he fell over the side. His eyes had widened as he felt Luce tense, as the boat rocked and swayed in warning. And then he had simply... fallen, as though he had wanted it to happen. There was a rush of bubbles and limbs, fins and hands and mouths, and then Luce crushed herself against him.
His mouth opened beneath hers, heedless, wanting. She could hear his heartbeat, feel it through the layers of her stays—silk, whalebone, and ribbon—separating them. He was larger than she, greatly so, and yet here, in the water, she felt his powerlessness, his fragility. She could wrap herself about him, tangle her hands in his hair, her tail around his legs. She could steal his kisses and his breath, and give them back to him.
He took them willingly.
They broke the sea’s skin as one, snarled together, mouths and lips, tongues and hips. Sculling for the sea-stairs, the sturdiness of rock.
Half in the water and half without.
Luce let him press her against the salt-stained stone. Ran her hands over his chest, his belly, slipped her fingers across his back, downward, beneath his breeches, across the curve of muscle and bare skin.
The kisses deepened, a delicious sliding of tongues and teeth. Samuel’s hands were roaming, too. They knotted in Luce’s hair, tilted her head back against the stones so he could trail his tongue up her neck, his fingers over her curving, silver-scaled hip.
‘Luce...’ He drew back from her. ‘Is this what you want? What you truly want?’ She knew what he was asking. Had not forgotten his words in the shadow of the ship at the Blessing, the doubt in his eyes.
It was a dream, nothing more. I’ve always known it.
Someone like de Chatelaine.
I’ve regretted it every day. Every hour.
Luce had always believed in the law of the sea—that what you found on its shores was undeniably yours. That every shell, every relic, every oddity washed upon the sand—and into her path— had drifted there of the sea’s accord.
‘You found me on the shore,’ she said. ‘That night when you ran from the jetins, remember?’
A half-smile. ‘How could I forget?’
‘Sea law says I’m yours.’
‘It’s not the sea’s opinion that worries me.’
‘Whose, then?’
He sighed. ‘We are from different worlds, Luce.’
She glanced at her tail, glimmering in the shallows between them. ‘Clearly.’
‘That’s not what I mean. How... how could I possibly make you happy? After living as you have for so long? I cannot give you such a life.’
‘Good. Because I don’t want it.’ Luce guided his hand to the top of her stays, curving his fingers around the ribbons.
He hesitated. Then, ‘Delight, or doom, the tales always said,’ he muttered. ‘I understand it now.’
He drew upon the lacings, hooking his fingers between, loosening the silky panels. Each brush of his knuckles against her bare skin was a flame; her very bones were melting by the time he pushed the stays away. The sea-silk was all that lay between them now, pooled against Luce’s breasts.
‘So beautiful,’ Samuel murmured, his gaze, his hands, stroking every part of her—breasts, hips, the sudden, smooth length of her thighs. He stowed the silk within the stays and pushed them onto the stairs above their heads. At the sight of him stretched above her, one long, browned arm gleaming with seawater, Luce was near undone. She arched her back toward him, wrapped her arms around him, kissed him deep as the sea.
‘Delight it is,’ Samuel whispered. ‘And perhaps my doom, as well.’ His hand slid between Luce’s thighs. ‘Let it be so.’
He trailed kisses down her neck, across the swell of her breasts, tasting and savoring. All the while his fingers stroked and circled, quickening in a way that was so startling, so delicious, that she could barely breathe. The Dove rocked beside them, the water lapping at their legs, as though the sea was listening, was just as hungry and desperate. Luce would surely die from this. Would surely, surely die...
Then Samuel’s fingers stilled.
‘Don’t stop,’ Luce begged.
‘Patience,’ he murmured, easing downward, his kisses moving from breast to belly to thigh...
The touch of his tongue against her was so unexpected that Luce opened her eyes.
‘Samuel?’
‘Do you trust me, Luce?’
She managed a nod. Barely.
His mouth was upon her again, his tongue flickering, faster and softer at once. Luce arched against the stairs. A tide was rising within her, quick and strong. She could not stop it now. No one could. She clung to the stairs as though her life depended upon it, desperate, gasping, drowning in a sea of stars.
And then, salvation. Samuel was lying over her, naked, cradling her in his strong, steadfast arms. She felt his wanting against her, tilted her head to watch him gently, slowly, ease within her, utterly lost in the pleasure and the fullness and the wonder of it. She had thought herself sated, but now her body rocked eagerly in time with his, ebbing and flowing in a rhythm as ancient as the tide, or the spiraling of the moon. Half in the water, half without—water and stone, stone and water—her legs entwined with Samuel’s, her body at one with his, Luce found a haven at last. Shelter from the storm, light in the darkness. Home.
‘Well, I suppose that settles that,’ Samuel murmured, some time later. ‘We know how the magic works.’
Luce nodded against his chest, where his heartbeat sounded, steady as the tide. ‘We do.’
They were lying together in the bottom of the Dove, in a nest of blankets and nets Samuel had hastily thrown together when the cold and discomfort of the stairs had become, in his words, ‘fucking unbearable.’
‘I’m a seamaid, Samuel.’
‘Yes,’ he said calmly.
‘Fae.’
‘Yes.’
The force of that one word— yes —and the certainty that the sea-silk could indeed do what they had suspected and turn Luce into a creature half woman and half fish, as strange and magical as the serpents painted on the surface of the globe in her father’s study or in the pages of Poissons, Ecrevisses et Crabes was so shocking that it all but took Luce’s breath away. She held tight to Samuel, concentrated on the steady beat of his heart.
‘I thought you might drown me, at first,’ he said. ‘When you pulled me off the Dove. ’
‘The thought did cross my mind.’
‘Christ.’ He flopped one arm across his eyes, wincing. ‘And I thought loving the daughter of Jean-Baptiste Léon was the most reckless and foolish thing I could do. Turns out it’s far, far worse.’
Luce went very still. Some words, she had found, were more important than the rest. They stood apart from their companions because they gleamed like stars in the night sky. There was one word in what Samuel had just uttered that was shining so hard and so beautifully bright she feared she might be burned.
Samuel, too, had stilled.
Silence yawned between them, a darkling sea.
‘Reckless?’ Luce said at last. ‘Foolish?’
‘Your father is a dangerous man,’ he said, gratefully taking up the line she had thrown him. ‘There’s not many who would willingly cross him.’
‘You think him dangerous? Why?’
‘For lots of reasons. He’s rich, for a start. That means he’s powerful. He’s wily, too—he knows his business, the difference between a solid venture and a risky one. He was a fine captain, in his day, and he knows ships. People, too. There’s not a man, woman, or child in Saint-Malo unknown to Jean-Baptiste Léon. He knows every crew, every vessel, who mans her and what they’re carrying. He understands the importance of investors, of sharing the risks. Stand by him, earn his trust, and he’ll be loyal as the day is long. But cross him and, well...’
‘What?’
‘I’ve heard it said that betraying your father is like prodding a lion. He might lie quiet, or... well... you might turn around one day to find him quietly stalking you. By then, of course, it’s too late. There is nothing to be done but hope the end comes quickly.’
A chill ran up Luce’s spine.
‘I can’t say I’m overfond of the idea of your father knowing what I’ve been doing with his daughter in my boat.’ Samuel spoke lightly, but Luce sensed the truth beneath the words. ‘I’d be torn to shreds in a matter of moments.’
‘I would never let him do that.’
‘They say a lion knows nothing of pity, Luce. I fear you’d not be able to stop him.’ Samuel touched her hair again, ran it through his fingers. ‘It would be worth it, though.’
‘Don’t say such things.’ She drew him close. They were wrapped in the thick blankets Samuel always carried in the Dove, yet she was suddenly cold.
‘It’s true.’ His voice had lost its playfulness now. ‘All I ever wanted—all I ever wished for, since first I saw you in the water at the cove—was you.’
They had come back to it at last, that word. Its brightness and its softness. Its warmth.
‘And I you,’ Luce said, pressing her forehead to his. ‘And as much as I’d enjoy staying here and doing things with you in your boat, I want to know more about what I am. I need answers, Samuel.’
‘Then let’s find them. Mother Aggie’s house isn’t far. I’ll take you to her now.’ The purposeful words were completely at odds with the wanderings of his hands, his mouth. ‘There’s just one very important thing I need to do first...’
He raised himself over her, his lips, his hair, trailing across her breasts.
‘Oh,’ Luce said with a sigh. ‘ That important thing.’
‘Very, very important...’
Later, they climbed from the sea-cave into the brightness of the day. A magnificent headland rose beneath their feet, challenging the sea, while the wild, windswept curve of the coast peeled back to watch. Pale cliffs, a perfect, startling white, rolled one after the other, hazy with salt, spray, and distance. The wind was strong, tugging at Luce’s hair, loosening the hasty plait she had woven. She held it back from her face, drinking in the sight.
‘The entire coast is made of chalk,’ Samuel said, pausing on the barely discernible path through the thick, waving grass. ‘All the way to Kent,’ he added, pointing. ‘And east, to Lyme.’
‘It’s beautiful.’
They followed the narrow path east, until Luce saw a village sheltering in the curve of a cove far below, its thatched rooftops warm against grey stone. Mother Aggie’s tumble-down cottage sat away from the other houses, closer to the sea. The garden was scattered with treasures: old fishing nets, glass floats, and dried seaweed. There were shells in the crevices between the cottage’s stone walls, and hanging from strands of fishing line tied to a large piece of driftwood fixed above the single, crooked window. They chimed softly in the morning breeze. Unlike the tidy gardens of the nearby cottages, Mother Aggie’s garden was thick with wildflowers. Sea thrift foamed in shoals of pink and mauve, along with wild clary, sea holly, and campion.
Samuel led Luce through the rickety driftwood fence and along a path made of sand and crushed shells.
‘Are you ready?’
Luce nodded, swallowed. ‘Yes.’
Samuel knocked gently on the faded door. A faint shuffling from within, and then the door opened, revealing an old woman with white hair so long and thick it trailed almost to her knees. Her dress was rough, patched in faded squares of fabric Luce suspected had washed up on the beach after storms: greys and blacks and washed-out blues, silken reds and faded pinks, even a salty gold.
‘Well then,’ Mother Aggie said, in English. ‘There’s a handsome smuggler at my door.’ She squinted up at Samuel, who towered over the little woman, his shoulders filling the doorframe.
‘Hello, Aggie,’ he said easily.
Mother Aggie peered around him, her gaze catching—and holding—on Luce. ‘And what have you brought me, rogue?’
‘This is Lucinde,’ Samuel said. ‘A friend of mine. We were hoping you could help us.’
‘Of course. Come in, come in.’ The little woman ushered them inside, and they were immediately folded into the scent of damp and brine, the after smoke of cooked fish. Samuel was forced to duck his head to avoid bumping it on the low ceiling, but even so the house was brighter and more comfortable than Luce had first supposed, with two small windows opening onto the cove and a fire burning in a stone hearth. A sleeping space was half-covered by a faded curtain; four stools set around a little table, a bowl crowded with shells, sea glass, and interesting stones at its center.
‘Sit,’ Mother Aggie said, gesturing to the stools. Luce did as the old woman bid, tucking her dark woolen skirts beneath the table. Beside her, Samuel folded his long legs with difficulty. ‘Tea?’
‘Yes, please,’ Samuel said, and Luce nodded eagerly. They had eaten the last of Samuel’s bread and cheese on the walk across from the headland, but the thought of hot tea made her belly grumble happily. Mother Aggie poured fresh water into a pot, swung it over the open flames.
‘How would you like to begin?’ Samuel asked Luce softly in French.
Luce shrugged. ‘I hardly know.’
Mother Aggie’s ears pricked up. ‘You are from across the Channel?’ she asked Luce, in smooth French.
Luce nodded in surprise. ‘Yes,’ she said, in English. ‘From Saint-Malo.’
‘Saint-Malo? Gah,’ Mother Aggie spat. ‘That hornet’s nest. Bane of the English Navy, and the king himself. Long have I wished to see it. Tell me, are the ramparts as impressive as they say? And are they truly made of enchanted stone?’
Luce grinned. Mother Aggie was like the rare shell in her father’s study, seeming at first one colour, one texture, then, when turned a different way, becoming another. ‘They are. The city has never been breached. Not even when the Dutch tried in 1694.’ Luce could not help the pride in her voice. Her father had read to her of the raid when she was a child. The Dutch and English together bombarded the city for four days, damaging some of the buildings and even the cathedral. Even so, the city had prevailed.
‘It will fall one day,’ Samuel said. There was a hardness to his tone that caused Luce to glance at him, surprised. ‘All cities must, in the end.’
‘Perhaps. Perhaps not.’ Mother Aggie shifted in her seat, her eyes, beneath the fall of white hair, sparkling and shrewd. ‘But you did not smuggle Lucinde across the Channel like fine French silk to speak of walls. Why have you come to visit me?’
‘We were hoping you might be able to tell us about this.’ Luce reached into her pocket, slipped free the sea-silk. ‘Samuel said you might know its origin.’
The silk glimmered in the cottage’s stony light as she lay it across Mother Aggie’s table, a streak of otherworldliness on the scrubbed timber.
‘Good grief,’ Mother Aggie whispered, tracing one finger against the silk. She looked up, searched Luce’s face. ‘Where did you get this?’
Luce hesitated. She glanced at Samuel, unsure how much she could safely say.
‘We will tell you, Aggie,’ Samuel said, meeting Luce’s worried look with a slight nod. ‘But we would first need your promise of... discretion.’
‘You shall have it,’ Mother Aggie said, getting to her feet. ‘I know everything that happens in this village,’ she said, adding tea leaves and the now-boiled water to an ancient little pot. ‘When the fish are biting, and when the storms will come. I know where the revenue men roam, and who pays them to look away.’ She placed the pot on a tray and added three cups. ‘I know other things, too. Generations of secrets, the truth behind decades of carefully crafted lies—the fabric of any and every village.’ She set the tray on the table. ‘Your secret is safe with me.’
Luce looked into Mother Aggie’s sea-green eyes. Samuel believed the blood of the sea-folk ran in the old woman’s veins. Looking at her now, she believed it.
‘I am the adopted daughter of Jean-Baptiste Léon,’ she said. ‘His father, and his father before him, were shipowners. Corsairs. My father is a wealthy man, with many beautiful belongings.’
‘Of course,’ Mother Aggie said. She lifted the pot, poured them all tea.
‘Thank you.’ Luce accepted her cup gratefully. ‘I found this silk within a sea chest in a secret chamber in my father’s house.’
Mother Aggie touched the silk with gentle fingers. ‘There are tales about women who look inside chambers and chests that are forbidden to them,’ Mother Aggie said. ‘They do not end well.’
‘Do you know what the silk is? Where it came from?’ Samuel asked.
‘Of course,’ Mother Aggie said. ‘It came from the sea-folk.’