Chapter 12
We are lost.
We stand before twisting roads with rows of sloping thatched roofs casting long shadows. Chilly nights give me that eerie, oddly hollow and vulnerable feeling. I grip AJ’s arm, probably too hard.
“Let’s make a list,” he says amiably, “of all the things we do have.”
“Such as?”
He points to my sandy carpet bag. “Dry clothes. A few, at least.”
We changed out of our wet things in a cave, one at a time, and my heart thumped at the scandal of it until the simple frock covered my undergarments completely.
“Your turn.”
I clench my teeth. “A view that is unrestricted by troublesome things like walls and roofs.”
“That’s the spirit! An entire wedding trip yet before us. Adventures, new memories…and hopefully old ones too. What else do we have?”
“Questions. I have questions, AJ. Such as…where will we sleep tonight?”
“I’ve secured a lovely tower room in ye castle yonder.” He waves toward a modest stone inn crouched high up on the hill above.
“Paid, I hope?”
“Credit is a marvel of the age. It isn’t as if we’ll be poor forever—just until the inheritance comes in.”
“AJ, we can’t put off our notes that long. They’ll never allow it.”
But he seems not to hear me. We make our way up the steep walk to the cozy rooming house, whose “tower room” turns out to be a shared attic space, which is wonderfully prudent of him. But we’re turned away the moment AJ admits we cannot pay yet.
“I need charity meself!” huffs the woman. “I can’t be goin’ and givin’ it out now, can I?”
So AJ hustles me on to the next option where we haven’t a reservation, and we’re met with the same answer. Back out in the spreading darkness, AJ brightens with a brilliant idea. It must be brilliant, since it’ll take a miracle to find us a roof for the night.
“I’d give you the moon if I could, and the stars for diamonds in your hair.”
I bite my lip.
“What’s the grandest place in all the town?” He inhales deeply and leads me through the streets, past several respectable rooming houses, toward a great white pillared affair called the Hotel Montpellier, perched alone on a great cliff overlooking a steep drop down to the water…then right past it.
“Where are you taking me?”
He takes my hand and we feel our way down the rocky cliffside, natural stone steps that wind right down to the beach, then turns toward the cliff.
“I give you…a night beneath the stars.” His smile glows, even in the dimness.
Rocks sitting at a severe angle part to show a pitch-black hole between them.
I bite the inside of my cheek. “A cave. A cave?”
“And you thought you’d be the one supplying all the excitement in this marriage.”
I drop his hand so I won’t break bones by squeezing it.
I force myself to go in, heart pounding.
But when the darkness swallows me, I’m enveloped in a thick calm.
The wind is dulled here, the waves muffled, and the glow of gaslights in town blocked.
“It’s perfect,” I say, voice echoing around the cavern.
I hold out my hand but cannot see it in the darkness. “No one will even spot us down here.”
“Except the pirates, of course.”
“Pirates!” I shoot up and bump my head.
I feel my cheek cradled, then his lips brushing that delicate spot on my jaw. The birthmark—he knows how to find it, even in the dark. “Don’t worry, luv. Just keep close to me.”
Close. How close? Suddenly his solid, masculine presence fills this cave, takes up all the emptiness that we’ll be sharing tonight. “This isn’t the best idea, AJ.”
He pats my arm as if seeing me by feel, then wraps his arms around me, holding me close. I melt into him instinctively. “How shall we sleep?”
“With our eyes closed.”
And near to each other. Beside him.
After fumbling about and laying out anything soft we can find, we both stretch out in the pitch-black and stare at the ceiling.
He bumps me as he shifts, and I tense. He doesn’t move closer.
His breath is audible beside me as he relaxes, soft and pillowy.
“You all right, luv?” His hand slides over mine.
Warmth bursts in my chest. “Well enough.” I close my eyes, though it hardly matters in this dark.
“So. Any memories yet?”
“No,” I say without missing a beat, yet the air here is teeming with my past. I don’t want it just now—not with AJ so near, his deep voice echoing about the cavern.
I don’t want to know more about the man on the beach with the gentle eyes.
I roll away, closing off my mind. “Can’t I merely invent some memories? Pretend I’m cured?”
“If you were dishonest, which you’re not.”
I suck in a deep breath anyway and let out a sigh. The aroma mingles with images in my brain—safe ones. Mama, pass it here! says my childhood self. “That smell. What is it?”
“Tea,” he says with authority. “These are the tea caverns.”
“You’re making that up.”
“I’m not. Hundreds of years ago, pirates used to—”
“Liar.”
“Storyteller. Very well, not pirates. Local men smuggled tea here so they could avoid paying the exorbitant import taxes.”
“Rather a shame it isn’t true.”
“Some stories are true, my lady.” His voice is laden with meaning, but I cannot guess what he’s trying to tell me.
“How do you know about smuggling, anyway?”
“Got an earful in town when I stopped for fish and chips.”
I take another deep breath, imagining piles of tea chests against the rocks. “The scent is so rich. Nothing like the weak, ordinary-tasting tea Lady St. Laurent took.”
He shifts again, the scraping sound echoing. “Life’s slightly different for you now, isn’t it? Do you regret it very much?”
I close my eyes, appreciating the raw citrus scents, the florals, the trace of peppermint I’m certain is lingering.
Do I regret marrying AJ? “I think I was…lonely,” I say softly.
“Before.” The aching stretch of unfulfilled longing takes up its familiar place.
“Living with most of your story missing…your mind not working properly…it’s isolating.
” I lived for three years on the edge of belonging.
Silently trying to prove my worth to this family, yet knowing I never truly could.
I have been defined, for all this time, by the cracks along my surface.
“Sometimes it seems everyone else in the world is whole, and I don’t belong there. ”
I almost wish to swallow the words up again, to take them back. But silence falls upon the cave, opening the opportunity for him to tell me about himself. To be raw, as I have.
Instead, he says, “Only until you met your very best friend.”
“You’ve a lot of—”
“Ahhh yes, dear Sabine.”
I smack him playfully, bracing against the trickle of disappointment that he hasn’t shared anything.
I give in to the swell of his good humor and ride the wave toward the shallows.
His mind is like a bird, flitting here and there, and it isn’t his fault, any more than losing my memories is mine.
Only, it would be nice if he didn’t flit past all the deeper things in life.
“At least I’m safe tonight. She wouldn’t dream of looking for me in such a place.
” I give an exaggerated sigh and AJ chuckles.
I fall asleep to the sound of waves and long, low breezes that swell like the voice of a man—a tall, dark-haired man with thoughtful eyes and gentle presence.
Wrapped in satiny warmth, I glide along the beach among rows of trees.
No—they’re people, and they’re staring at me.
I take a long, slow inhale of sea air and feel soft fabric at my arms. The tulle veil brushing my cheek on the breeze.
Oh, I’m getting married. How lovely.
My forever…you are my forever…
But that cannot be. It isn’t AJ at the end and I’m not in St. Peter’s Church.
The dress is all wrong, with billowy material that hugs no curves, and not a shred of lace.
But I’m compelled down the beach toward the man in brown tweed who waits for me with a glow that rivals the sun.
I’m drawn down that path. Toward this man, the same one who gave me the necklace. The one who asked me not to leave.
Name. What’s his name?
I open my mouth as I near him, but I cannot speak. I can hardly breathe, in fact, and the world is tipping side to side. I scramble to grab something, but there’s only wet sea air and blowing sand.
I study his face. Who are you? The world goes out of focus and back in. An odd tingling sensation, then I wake in unfamiliar dimness.