Chapter Seven #2
She did not look at Samuel and pulled her hand from the crook of his arm.
“I apologize,” he said softly. “I did not mean to pry.”
“I know,” Rose said determinedly, not looking at the man standing beside her and instead concentrating on taking off her shoes.
“What… What are you doing?”
She did not need to look up to see the confusion on his face—it was so potent in his voice. So when Rose did look up, she winked. “I am taking off my shoes and going paddling.”
“Paddling,” Samuel repeated in a confused tone.
“Paddling,” Rose repeated with a bright grin. “In the sea. You’ve never done such a thing?”
The tall gentleman beside her glanced at the ice-cold waves rushing toward her toes. “Yes, but…”
“Well, stay here if you want,” Rose said gaily. “But I’m going in.”
Sometimes it was the only thing that helped her brain to reset.
Sometimes it was the only place she wanted to be.
Rose had always lived by the ocean, or at the very least a river; the water somehow managed to wash away all her pain, all her frustrations, even if she could not go swimming. Sometimes, paddling was enough.
She would have to hope it would be enough tonight.
“Rose!”
Rose ignored him. Gasping with a laugh at the freezing temperature of the water now pouring over her feet, she strode forward, not bothering to hold her skirts up, as it would only be a matter of time before a wave caught at them.
The fabric clung to her calves as she luxuriated in the solitude of it all. The sea, herself, and nothing—
“This is absolute madness,” said Samuel, his voice short as he shivered, standing suddenly beside her in the ocean. “Absolute madness!”
Goodness. She had not actually expected him to follow her.
Her eyes now accustomed to the darkness of night, Rose took him in. The same handsome face, the broad shoulders, the wide chest—but now his trousers were damp almost from the knees down, and she could just make out his boots on the shore.
And a smile, one she had not known for a great long time, creased her lips. “You’re here.”
“You invited me,” said Samuel simply, though there was a wry look in his eyes. “Not that ‘stay here if you want’ is the most appealing invitation, but still.”
Before she could think what to say, he had slipped his fingers to her hand and interlocked them together. They stood there, staring at each other as the ocean lapped at their legs, the freezing water somehow nothing compared to the strange tension between them.
“Samuel,” Rose said softly, hardly knowing what she was about to say next. “Samuel, I—aarghh!”
Her instincts overcame her, launching her into the embrace of the man beside her as a huge wave crashed over them, drenching her skirts almost to the waist and causing Samuel to curse under his breath.
“That’s damned cold!”
“Ohhh!” was all Rose could manage as she clung to him, desperate for his warmth. “Ohhh I d-did not s-see that coming!”
She looked up, his charming face suddenly much closer, his immensely kissable lips—
Rose did not exactly pull away, as the man’s warmth was far too crucial for that…but she did turn away ever so slightly so that though the man’s arms were around her waist and her hands were splayed against his chest, her mouth was not quite within kissing distance of his own.
Not quite.
“There’s so little I know about you,” came Samuel’s quiet words. “But I know you love the sea.”
Rose could not help but laugh. “Any water, really. I’ve not met a river I didn’t like.”
“You are a strong swimmer, then?”
She nodded. “One has to be, growing up in—”
Just in time, she managed to halt her lips.
No. No, he did not need to know that. Any of that. There was still a chance that he…that they…that some of her family was still there. She did not need the news of her marriage to reach them.
Goodness knows what would happen.
“I learned to swim in Stanphrey Lacey’s lake,” Samuel said, as though he had not noticed how she had cut off her own speech. “It’s very deep at one end. My cousins and I used to dive for pearls.”
Rose glanced over. “‘Dive for pearls’?”
He laughed, and she felt his laugh move through her, so close were they together in the freezing ocean. “Well, any pebble would do. It was a marvelous game.”
“It sounds delightful,” she had to admit. “I always wanted siblings.”
“You have none?”
“Only one.” Rose had spoken before she had realized what she was doing and cursed silently.
She had never intended to give the man any information about herself—it was not necessary.
It could only end in harm. And now the blaggard knew she did not get on with her father, and that she had a sibling.
That was more than anyone had ever known about her since…
She swallowed, hard, but it did nothing to dislodge the lump in her throat. Damn.
“I cannot imagine a life with only one sibling. I have three, as you know, and I have over a dozen cousins,” Samuel said conversationally, as though she had not revealed a crucial piece of information about her past. “They drive me to distraction at times—my siblings, I mean—but I suppose I would rather have them than not. Most of the time.”
Try as she might, Rose could not quite manage to release herself from the man’s grip.
He was so…so warm. And not warm in a cloying sort of way, the way that a stuffy summer’s afternoon in Rome could be.
No, he was warm in a…in a just come in from the cold and the fire was already lit, and a glass of ginger wine has been pressed into your hand by a friend and they are smiling at you way.
It was an intoxicating way, ginger wine or no.
Rose tried to smile. “You are lucky. To have a family you care about.”
“Oh, they have their downsides. Everyone is involved in everyone else’s lives, arguably too involved, and that gets old remarkably quick,” Samuel said ruefully. “But you—you must have a family.”
And there it was again. Not a question. The man seemed an expert at asking questions without actually asking questions. Most irritatingly.
“I had a family. They’re gone now.” Well, it wasn’t precisely a lie, Rose told herself encouragingly. She was not a liar. She was just…keeping to the minimum of the truth.
“I am sorry.”
“Don’t be. I am not,” Rose said as radiantly as she could manage. “I have been on my own for so long now, I can hardly imagine what it would have been like to have them alongside me.”
“Sounds lonely.”
“Well, it is not,” she said sharply, pulling away from the man who seemed so eager to tell her what her life had been.
It was not possible. Somehow, Samuel was far stronger than he looked—though now that Rose came to think about it, the sharp angles of the muscles underneath her palm might have had something to do with it.
“You have been on your own for a long time.”
Rose glared up at the man. How did this Samuel Chance manage to say so much with so little—how did he ask questions without that questioning lilt in his voice?
It was most aggravating.
“Yes, I have,” she said shortly. That was it, confirm the basics and give no additional details. “I have traveled across Europe on my own. I am accustomed to my own company. It will be strange indeed, being married.”
“Oh, you won’t have to spend that much time with me if you do not wish to,” came Samuel’s calm and yet somehow teasing reply. Was that a glint of mischief in his eyes? “After all, you will be the Marchioness of Aylesbury. You won’t do anything you do not wish to.”
It was a darned good thing that Rose was entirely encircled by Samuel’s strong arms, for in that moment, a strong wave roared past them and her knees wobbled.
It was the wave, she told herself firmly, and not the idea of being the Marchioness of Aylesbury that had caused the momentary lapse in concentration. And calm. And strength in her knees.
Dear Lord… The Marchioness of Aylesbury…
“I am sorry that you have had such a hard time.”
Rose’s expression sharpened. “What do you mean—what have you heard?”
Oh, it was all too much to hope the man would not have found out about her past, wasn’t it? And she had worked so hard to keep the truth from those around her, never given her birth name, never allowed herself to truly befriend anyone…
She had escaped, all those years ago, and now—
“I just meant—well, you have no family. You are an out-of-work actress,” said Samuel, a crease appearing between his brows. “Being an actress at all, it seems a rather precarious life. Without constant work, I am sure it has been a challenge.”
Slowly, slowly, Rose allowed her shoulder blades to relax. “Yes. Yes, being an actress is a challenge. But there isn’t anything else I would like to do.”
Now wasn’t that the truth.
“You have dedicated your life to it,” Samuel said quietly.
“I have sacrificed everything for it,” Rose returned, speaking the absolute and complete truth for perhaps the first time that day. For the first time in their admittedly brief acquaintance. “Everything.”
She would not think of the home she had left behind. She would not think of her mother, the gardens where she grew up, the sound of the wind through the rustling trees.
“And I would make the same choice again, if it were presented to me,” Rose continued, half for her own benefit. When she glanced up, it was to see that there was a knowing smile upon Samuel’s lips. “What?”
“What?” he rejoined gently.
“You are smiling.”
“You make me smile,” Samuel said with a shrug of his broad shoulders. “It is not anyone who could take me out of a nice, warm hotel room, out into the streets and into the freezing ocean.”
Rose scrunched her toes in the salty silt, the sensation grounding her as nothing else ever did. “Well. I am to be your wife tomorrow.”
“Today, I think.”
The very thought made her pulse skip a beat. Today. “Truly?”
“And I suppose we should not linger out here too long, or you shall arrive at the church with a red nose and a sniff,” said Samuel with a laugh.
Somehow, his arms were not around her. Rose only realized how much she was enjoying them when they had disappeared.
“Back to the hotel, then,” Samuel said brusquely, striding toward the shore. He had not quite reached it before he called over his shoulder, “Come on, wife.”
Rose wanted to bristle. She wanted to correct him. She wanted so many things, and yet…
Wife.
Rose snorted as she strode through the waves. “Ridiculous man.”
And yet she was the one who in a few short hours would be marrying him.