Chapter Five
After the meal, they had cappuccinos and gelato on the deck, and lingered until the setting sun turned the woods to fire.
As the garden and deck lights twinkled on, Trey stretched out his long legs.
“Nice night. Nice spot to spend some of it.”
“One of my favorites, but I still want that seating out front.”
“Working on it,” Owen muttered.
“You shouldn’t be so talented.” Cleo shook back her hair. “We’re due for some rain tomorrow, but Sunday looks to be perfect. Perfect for a sail, and I think it’s time we had one on The Horizon.”
“We could do that.” He glanced over. “You’re bringing the cat, aren’t you?”
Since Pye currently curled on Owen’s lap, Cleo just lifted her eyebrows. “She’s proven seaworthy.”
“How about we take them all, an afternoon sail?” Trey suggested. “Then we drop them at my parents’, take you out to dinner.”
“That sounds wonderful.” Completely content, Sonya closed her eyes. “Really wonderful. Almost as good as this, right here and now.”
They lingered longer, with the stars bright diamonds overhead, with conversation quiet and lazy and the sea a rhythmic murmur to the east.
When they went upstairs, Sonya opened the balcony doors.
“It’s warm enough, isn’t it?”
“Sure.”
“I love the sound of it. I didn’t know how much I loved the sound of it until I heard it, night after night. Now I wonder how I could ever sleep without it.”
With the evening air streaming in, the stars sparkling, they looked out to sea.
Then she turned to him in the open doorway, slid her arms around him.
“It feels good. Cool air, warm body. I’m glad we have the weekend. I’m glad you’re here.”
“It’s where I want to be.”
She tipped her head up to welcome the kiss.
Warm lips meeting, sliding, parting.
She rose on her toes, and her hands took his face, then glided up into his hair.
It all aroused her, the warmth and taste of his lips, the texture of his skin, his hair, the feel of his body pressed to hers as the night air danced around them.
Her fingers got busy on the buttons of his shirt.
And the pounding, like slamming pistons, clanged from the third floor.
With a mix of longing and defiance, Sonya pulled him closer. “No, don’t listen. It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t matter right now. She doesn’t exist right now.”
“Just you and me.”
“Yes.” Spreading his shirt open, she ran her hands over his chest. “Just you and me.” Her lips curved before they met his again. “And a couple of dogs snoring on the floor.”
“Just how I like it.” He drew her shirt over her head. “And here you are, with me, in the moonlight.”
Ignoring the insistent banging from overhead, he held her close, felt her heart skip a beat or two against his.
Just how he liked it.
And when he ran his hands over her, that heartbeat increased, as did his. Outside, the waves rose and fell, their rhythm steady and strong as he changed the angle of the kiss and deepened it. The air seemed to sing as it wafted over the sea and shimmered into the room.
He’d thought he’d known how much he’d wanted her, almost from the first moment, but it was nothing to what he felt when she was with him.
He barely noticed when the pounding stopped, and only thought: Dobbs can’t win against this, not against what’s real. Not against love.
He picked her up to carry her to the bed, and she smiled, laid a hand on his cheek.
“Just you and me,” she repeated.
They undressed each other, taking their time, taking that time for lips to meet again, and again, for hands to stroke, to linger. For trembles to turn to sighs.
With the sea air came the wash of moonlight and that beat, that steady beat of water against rock.
His eyes were like the night sea, deep and dark. No man, she realized, looked at her exactly as he did. No man, she felt certain, seemed to understand the whole of her as he did.
And with him, as with no other, she could let herself give all she had, let herself take, all she wanted.
His hands, so strong, so sure, thrilled her. Kisses, long, slow, deep, set her blood to simmer. The bed groaned as they moved together, reaching, taking, so quiet murmurs and sighs grew breathless.
As urgency climbed, as hands and lips became more insistent, she welcomed the ache of need.
In the moonlight, with the music of the restless sea surrounding them, she opened for him.
When they were joined, when they were locked together, the world spun away. Like the waves, she rose and fell. She let herself give, let herself take, until there was nothing else.
In the morning, Sonya dressed for the work at hand in sweat shorts, a tank, and her oldest sneakers. She wound her hair, clipped it up.
She armed herself with packs of sticky notes.
With Owen and Trey she began a systematic search, going through dressers, bureaus, armoires, drawers in occasional tables and stands.
For the most part, those drawers proved empty. But here and there they found a stray pen, notepaper, the occasional photograph.
In one she found an old tea tin.
“Pretty sure this is Russian. Ah…” She attempted to pronounce the name on the hinged red tin. “Zvetouchny. Probably butchered that. But there’s English, too. ‘Packed by the Consolidated Tea Company in New York.’”
She gave it a light shake. “Something’s in it that’s definitely not tea.”
When she pried up the lid, she found the tin filled with marbles.
“They look old.” Owen poked a finger in to roll them around. “The tin and the marbles.”
When he glanced over at Trey, Trey just lifted his shoulders. “Don’t look at me. I don’t know anything about marbles, less about old Russian tea.”
“Well, the tin’s very cool, and the marbles are pretty.”
Sonya started to close the lid again when Cleo wandered in.
“And here she comes, practically an early bird.”
“All y’all were buzzing my subconscious. I might as well have set an alarm.”
Cleo had also dressed for the task in little denim shorts, a pink tee, and pink sneakers.
“Whatcha got there? Oh, look at those!”
“Know anything about marbles?” Trey asked her.
“Not so much, but I know rocks and crystals, and some of these are agate, some aventurine, carnelian. There’s some with mica flakes—see how they glitter? Oh, look here! This one’s got a lion inside, and here’s one with a bear in it.
“I’ll take these down,” Cleo decided. “See if I can look them up. We should put them in a glass jar. They’re too pretty, too full of energy—I swear, it’s popping off them—to stay closed away. And the tin’s a little treasure in itself.”
“All yours,” Sonya told her. “I’ve got a few things in that box going down. We haven’t found much yet. We’re doing this area first, then I figured—”
“Do it all organized? How about I bring the chaos, and maybe the luck?” Head angled, Cleo circled a finger in the air, then pointed. “I’m going that way.”
After setting the tin of marbles in the box, Cleo wove through and picked her spot.
Well used to Cleo’s methods, Sonya continued on. She hunted through the drawers of a small dresser she thought must belong in a nursery or toddler’s room, and thought she might use it when she had children.
“These must be diaper pins.” She held up a pair of large safety pins. “And some sort of a…” She shook the tiny silver dumbbell. “Baby rattle.”
Clover joined in with Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.
“‘Ooo Baby Baby.’” Grinning, Trey took the rattle and gave it a shake of his own. “In the box, right?”
“Absolutely.”
“While y’all are playing, I think I brought that luck. Unless you hate this desk, Son.”
Straightening up, Sonya worked her way over to Cleo. “I do not hate this desk.”
“Tulipwood,” Owen supplied. “Art Deco-y, I’d say. You got a nice tooled leather top.”
“Sturdy, but not chunky.” Sonya ran a hand over it. “We wouldn’t want chunky. It’ll fit, won’t it? It’s big enough but not overwhelming. We’ll find a chair and use this as the core piece of the guest office.”
Trey moved in, tested by lifting one end. “Easier on the back than a lot of the others, so I love it.”
“Cleo and I can take the drawers to make it even lighter.” Sonya gave the middle drawer a tug. “This one’s locked.”
Cleo opened the drawer on one side, and Owen the other. Both were empty.
Trey sat on the floor, managed to angle himself under the desk.
“I’ve got it. Key taped to the bottom of the drawer.”
He brought it out, a small gold key on a thin gold chain. Then slid it into the lock, turned.
Inside they found a book with a red leather cover. The engraving on the center gold plaque read:
Marianne Louise Poole
“It’s Marianne’s—a diary.” With care, Sonya lifted it out.
“And pressed flowers. From her bouquet, I bet.” Cleo set them on the top of the desk.
Sonya opened the book and read.
“‘I begin this diary, given to me by my dear mama, on the morning of my wedding. In a few hours I will be Mrs. Hugh Poole. Marianne Louise Poole, the wife of the man I love. Today marks the beginning of my new life.
“‘In the days to come, I will write here my thoughts, my life, my joys, and though I cannot imagine any on this glorious day, my sorrows.
“‘I will keep my diary, and the ones that follow, in the desk in the pretty sitting room, my pretty sitting room as mistress of Poole Manor. As I vow to be a good and loving wife to my husband, I also promise to be a good and caring mistress of the home that will become mine.’”
Sonya carefully turned the page, and continued.
“‘Others have lived in the manor, have tended to it before me.
I sometimes think I can hear them, or sense them as I walk through to learn my duties here.
I feel a welcome from them, except … I think my nerves over the great responsibility make me foolish, as I do feel something that does not welcome.
“‘I will not dwell on that, or on the war that rages through the country. Today I become a bride. Here I vow with all my heart to be loyal and loving, to be kind. To remember, always, this happy day when my love, always my love, becomes my husband.
“‘I will pack this book in my trousseau, and the next I write in it, I write as a wife.’”