15. CHAPTER 15 #2
He turned from the window. Tried the report a fourth time. Gave it up. Went to find her, because the alternative was sitting in this chair pretending he was not counting the minutes.
"Where is the duchess?" he asked the first footman he encountered.
"She went to the cove, Your Grace. "
Alarm bells exploded in his brain.
"To the private cove?"
"I believe so."
"By herself?"
The footman took a step back, alerted by his rising tone.
"Yes, Your Grace. She requested a blanket."
Alone. To the cove. To the sea that had taken her seven years ago.
He was running before reason could catch him.
He was acting like a fool, he told himself as he took the stairs two at a time. A ridiculous, overbearing fool. She would be sitting on the sand with her parasol.
Except she had once loved swimming in that cove.
He ran faster.
Overgrown foliage covered the path to the beach. A path he had not used in seven years. He pushed through it, rounded the last bend, and stopped dead.
A blanket on the sand. Shoes. Stockings. A pile of clothing arranged with neat precision.
His wife was nowhere in sight.
Good God, she must have gone into the sea. Cold dread swamped his chest, spreading through his body faster than a tidal wave. He ran to the shoreline, frantically scanning the waves. Nothing. No movement. No sound but the gulls.
"Vivienne!" he roared, already wading into the water.
A head surfaced a few yards ahead.
"Dalton? I'm right here."
His knees almost buckled. He wanted to weep. He wanted to fall on the sand and give thanks.
"Get out of the water this instant!" he bellowed.
"I can't."
Fear sharpened her voice. He waded toward her.
"Why not? "
Was she stuck? Hurt? Two more strides and he was almost within arm's reach of her.
"Because I'm in my underwear. Turn around, please."
He stared at her. Then the absurdity of the thing struck against the terror still running through him. Modesty. She was worried about modesty. When he had nearly lost his mind.
"You should have considered that before you stripped off your clothing and got into the sea." He reached her in two more strides and hooked an arm around her waist.
"Let me go!" She squirmed against him, one hand pressing her chemise flat against her breasts, the other shoving at his chest. The thin cotton clung to every curve, revealing the shape of her, the dark circles of her areolas… he tore his gaze away.
"Stop. I'm your husband. I've seen you naked before."
Rougher than he had intended. She gasped and threw him a wounded look, but she stopped fighting him.
He carried her to the blanket. Set her down. Turned away.
Or tried to. His eyes kept returning. Wet cotton. Fair skin.
"Did you at least bring a towel?"
"No." She was crouching over her clothes, wringing water from her chemise. "I hadn't planned on swimming. It was an impulse."
"Evidently."
She snatched up a petticoat and blotted herself as best she could, then tried to step into her hoops — a maneuver made impossible by wet skin and the sea breeze. The movement parted the slit in her drawers, and he caught a flash of auburn curls at the apex of her thighs.
He looked away. Looked back. The view had not improved. Or it had improved too much. Depending.
"For God's sake." He took the damp petticoat from her hands and dropped it over her head, settling it at her waist.
"I need to put on the hoops first!"
"You need to cover yourself fast," he gritted out, snatching her corset from the pile and lifting it over her head.
Thankfully, she obediently put up her arms to let the garment fall over her head.
He turned her by the shoulders and laced her with quick, sure pulls until she was tightly bound. Secure.
His hands knew this work. The distance between eyelets, the tension of the cord, the way the boning sat against her ribs. His fingers moved through motions they had performed a thousand times, and the familiarity of it ached in a place he could not name.
"The skirt will drag without the hoops," she protested when he pulled the skirt over her head.
"You'll hold it up."
"I'll look absurd."
"At least you'll be dressed, which is the improvement we are after."
Her skirt in place, he handed her the blouse and turned his back. His pulse was still hammering. Clothes soaked to mid-chest. His hands, which had just laced her corset with the surety of long practice, were shaking.
"You may turn around," she said.
He did. She was glaring at him like a bedraggled kitten, wet hair plastered to her face, spiky eyelashes magnifying the fury of her hazel-green eyes. Water dripped from her hair onto the sand.
He wanted to kiss her senseless. Or take her over his knee and spank her for what she had put him through. No, he should not be thinking about spanking her. That last image did not help the state of his cock, or his mood.
"Of all the harebrained, reckless, idiotic ideas — " he started.
"Why is it idiotic? I was perfectly fine before you arrived like a madman to drag me out."
"Like a madman? Damn right I was. I was mad with terror. How can you even bear to go into the sea after what happened? I found your clothes on the sand, and you were gone, Vivienne. Gone."
The word fell between them. Heavier than he had meant.
Her face changed. The fight left her eyes.
"Oh," she said. "I hadn't realized. The sea… what happened to me. This mu st have been — "
"Don't." He turned away, raking a hand through his hair.
He had caught her wet, undressed, and utterly exposed. But while her nakedness had been skin deep, he had just completely exposed his soul. Every feeling raw and visible.
Her hand settled on his arm. Light. Careful. The first time she had touched him of her own choosing since Guernsey.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I don't remember my ordeal, so I'm not afraid of the sea. From the moment I first saw the cove, I felt a pull I couldn't explain. As though I'd done this before."
Because she had. They had both spent summer afternoons in this cove. Swimming, laughing, making love on the sand with only a blanket beneath them and the sky above. He could taste the salt on her skin if he let himself remember. He could feel the sun on his back and her fingers in his hair.
He could not tell her any of it. The doctor had warned him. Do not force her memories. Do not tell her too much too soon.
"Did you remember anything?" He kept his voice level.
"No." A pause. "I'm sorry. I had a sense of familiarity. Of having been here before and having loved it. But nothing I could hold."
He nodded because he did not trust himself to speak.
"This was worse for you, wasn't it?" Her hand slid down his arm and found his. She laced their fingers together. "My amnesia has been its own kind of hell, but at least the missing memories spared me the worst. The grief. The unbearable memories. You had no such mercy."
He swallowed a knot that had lodged itself in his throat. If she kept speaking, if she kept looking at him with those eyes, he was going to break, and he did not know how to put himself back together.
He pulled his hand from hers and saw the hurt cross her face.
"I'm fine." Too brusque. "You are the one who needs care. Just promise me you won't swim alone."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then I'll set someone to follow your every step."
She drew herself up. Five feet and four inches of wet, bedraggled indignation. "As if I were a prisoner? "
"As if you were a woman who just gave her husband a decade's worth of gray hair in five minutes."
Her lips twitched. She fought the twitch and lost, and then won again, pressing her mouth flat. But he had seen it.
He tried once more. Slower.
"I don't mean to limit you. But the cove can turn dangerous — the tides, the currents, a cramp. If you wish to come here, tell me. I'll come with you."
"You would come with me? To the sea?"
She did not know what she was asking. Seven years of nightmares compressed into the seconds before her head broke the surface.
"Yes," he said.
She nodded. "I promise."
"Good. Now allow me to escort you to the house. I wouldn't want you to catch a chill."
For the first time, she looked down the length of his body.
"Goodness, you are still wearing your shoes! I'm afraid those are quite ruined."
"My valet will be devastated, I'm sure." He replied as he bent to gather the blanket. He did not give a damn about his shoes. Had not given them a second thought. He gestured toward the overgrown path. "After you, Duchess."