15. CHAPTER 15
T he clinking of china was the only sound in the breakfast parlor.
Vivienne lifted her teacup. Set it down without drinking. Across the table, Dalton turned the page of his newspaper, yet she would have bet he was not really reading it.
Three days since Paul and Margaret had sailed for Guernsey. Three days of meals like this one — well prepared, well served, and so polite she wanted to scream into her napkin.
"Did you sleep well?" he asked.
"Very well, thank you."
"Good."
Silence, only broken by the ticking of the clock on the mantel.
She had written to Paul every day since his departure, but other than the brief telegram confirming their arrival, she had heard nothing. No response to her questions about the scarlet fever, the supplies, or the state of the islanders. The silence from Guernsey gnawed at her.
"I confess I'm worried about Guernsey," she said. "I haven't heard from Paul or Margaret."
Something crossed Dalton's face, too fast for her to read.
"If the situation were dire, the yacht crew would have sent word." His voice was calm. "We will know more when they return this morning."
"You seem very certain of that."
"Certainty is preferable to speculation. "
She nodded and smiled for his benefit. He had done more than anyone would expect him to do. His yacht had made two more trips, crammed to its rails with provisions and medicines. He did not know those people. He owed them nothing beyond the refuge they had once offered her.
And yet he spoke of it as though it were nothing.
She did not know what to make of it. What to make of him.
"That portrait," she said instead, nodding toward the wall behind him. She had been staring at it for ten mornings and decided it was as good a topic as any. "Who is it?"
Dalton turned in his chair. The painting depicted a man in an elaborate periwig and crimson coat, one hand upon a globe, the other extended toward a parrot that appeared to be biting his finger.
"The third duke," Dalton said. "Renowned explorer. Or so he claimed."
"He looks rather alarmed."
"The parrot was ill-tempered. It bit three footmen before escaping through a window." He paused. "They found it in the village church, perched upon the pulpit. The rector took it as a sign from God, though no one understood what the sign meant."
A laugh escaped her before she could stop it. Startled and bright, and it changed the air between them.
Dalton's expression loosened. For a moment, she saw something unguarded in his eyes. Surprise. Pleasure. It made the breath catch in her throat.
"You're making that up," she accused.
"I'm not. Venus can confirm it. She was terrified of parrots until she was twelve."
"I can't imagine your sister being terrified of anything."
"Then you remember more than you think." The words came out easily, almost teasing, and then he seemed to hear what he had said. The openness in his face faded by several degrees and he reached for his teacup.
The moment passed, but the thinnest fissure opened in the wall of courtesy they had been building for three days — and she did not intend to let it seal .
"What else?" she pressed. "What other dubious ancestors are hiding in these corridors?"
He studied her over the rim of his cup. Whatever he found seemed to satisfy him.
"The fifth duchess kept a badger in her dressing room. The sixth duke lost a thousand pounds at cards and won it back by betting he could swim the ornamental lake in January."
"Did he succeed?"
"He did. Though his valet reported certain parts of the duke's anatomy did not recover their natural dimensions until April."
She choked on her tea.
Dalton handed her his handkerchief without comment, but the curve of his mouth deepened into something close to a smile. It changed his face. Made him appear less guarded. More approachable.
"I think," she said, pressing the linen to her lips, "that your family is more interesting than you let on."
"I think," he replied, "that discretion has been an undervalued virtue among the St Aubyns."
She laughed again, and this time, he almost joined her. Not quite. But the effort it cost him not to was visible, and that was better.
At that moment, the butler entered, carrying a silver tray.
"A letter for Her Grace, from Guernsey. Delivered by the captain of the yacht."
She was on her feet before the tray reached the table. She tore open the envelope, eyes racing across the page, then slowing, searching between the lines.
"It's from Paul." She looked up, remembering Dalton. Wanting to include him. He deserved that after what he had done.
"So I surmised." The openness from before had vanished.
"He says the supplies arrived. He thanks you.
" She glanced down again and read. " With the excellent stores His Grace so generously dispatched, we have been able to keep the sufferers warm, nourished, and properly tended.
" Vivienne lifted her gaze to her husband.
"He says the epidemic has assumed a milder character than feared. No fatalities. Most are recovering."
"I'm glad."
"They are grateful beyond measure. And so am I."
"Think nothing of it." Gruff. As though her gratitude bothered him.
She folded the letter, watching him return to his newspaper. He turned the page. Then another. He definitely was not reading it.
"If you will excuse me," he said, standing, "there are matters that require my attention."
"Of course."
He left without another word. The earlier ease they had achieved through laughter and banter gone as if it had never existed.
And yet, in every interaction, she could see the yearning in his eyes, the press of a thousand words he held back.
And underlying it all, a beat of something that felt like disappointment.
She wanted to scream in frustration.
Ah, if only she were able to solve the puzzle that was her husband.
She needed to get away from the house. Breathe some fresh air.
The past few days had been rainy, but today the sun blazed bright and warm, the sky was a clear blue. The perfect day to be outdoors.
Half an hour later, armed with a blanket and directions, Vivienne left the house.
The gardens unfurled before her in a haze of color and heat, gravel paths pale beneath the sun. She ought to explore them another time. Today, she had a different destination in mind.
She followed the path as it dipped, curved… and the sea revealed itself in a glittering sweep of blue so sudden it stole her breath.
This was not the same cove where the pier was. This one lay on the other side of the cliff. Hidden even from the castle. So secret she had not known it existed until Lucy mentioned it. Private.
The cove lay cradled in a perfect crescent, cliffs rising on either side like guardians. Within, the waves gentled to a murmur, lapping at sand as pale as sifted flour. The shallows shone aquamarine, clear enough to reveal the rippled patterns beneath.
There was no one in sight. Only gulls and the murmur of the tide. She stood at the bottom of the path with her shoes in her hand, the sand warm beneath her stockinged feet, and felt something tug at her chest.
Not a memory. Something older. Joy without a source. The same sun, hot upon her skin. The same brightness upon the waves. The water closing over her shoulders, her throat, her hair, her entire body. Weightless. Free. Wrapped in liquid light.
The heat pressed against her skin. The water glittered.
She should not. There was no bathing machine, no costume, no propriety to speak of.
She went in anyway.
She stripped to her undergarments behind a boulder, folding her clothes with care.
Then ran toward the waves with childish joy.
The first touch of water made her gasp. It was cold, but not bitterly so.
So she waded in, the thin cotton of her undergarments billowing and floating around her.
When the water reached her waist, she pushed off the sandy bottom and…
Oh…
Her body knew what to do. Arms pulling in clean strokes, legs kicking in a steady rhythm, her breathing falling into a pattern she had not learned. Procedural memory, Paul called it, when her body knew how to do something her mind did not remember.
She floated on her back, eyes closed, the sun warm against her face. For a moment, she was simply a body in the water. No past. No questions.
And then she felt it.
Warmth beside her. A shoulder brushing hers. A presence. Close. Intimate.
She turned sharply.
No one. Only water.
But her skin insisted it had been real. She dipped her head underwater and swam a little longer, chasing that fleeting touch.
D alton retreated to his study and accomplished nothing.
He sat at his desk. Opened the same report three times. Read the first paragraph with devoted attention and retained none of it.
Before the amnesia, conversation between him and his wife had been as natural as breathing.
They had ranged from politics to philosophy to the most intimate nonsense, and the silence itself had been companionable.
Now every topic felt like a minefield. Say too little and he seemed cold.
Say too much and he pressed where he had no right.
This morning, for a little while, they had regained that ease. He had told her silly stories and she had laughed. Twice.
Then the damn doctor's letter had arrived. He had watched the way her face had opened, the way her fingers had trembled at the seal. She wrote to Harrison every day. She watched for the post the way other women watched for a lover's carriage.
Her heart was in Guernsey. With the doctor.
Not here. Not with him.
A curse slipped from under his breath. He pushed back from the desk and went to the window. The restlessness in his limbs was too sharp to sit still.
The day blazed. Too warm for September. He dragged off his coat, then his necktie. Sunlight poured across the lawns, down to the glittering blue beyond.
The sea.
Once he had loved it. Had run toward it with a boyish joy.
Now he saw an enemy. A thief.