Chapter Thirteen #2
Abigail shrugged. It was hard to define, and it sounded silly to say that sometimes one could just tell by smelling the air and watching the passing faces.
An air that pulsed through the town of excitement, of a better promised party…
few people in Lyme would see smuggling as a problem.
In fact, Abigail was sure most would think of it as their right.
“Well…I suppose some people have talked about it.”
“Which people?”
He wanted specifics. More names too. And all Abigail had was rumors, but it was always secondhand. Any time she tried to focus on something more concrete.
“I did hear at Miss Guthrie’s last year of an event. Or was it the Hamptons? But a farmer was killed. Drowned.” She shot him a look, but it was hard to judge whether he was impressed or interested.
“Drownings must be fairly common in the area.”
“Mr. Swift was a poor man. There was no reason he should be out at sea, past Lyme and out around Rousdon Cliffs. No reason, not unless there was a good motivation,” Abigail said.
“There was another man…Wells or Watt… Suchet is our local magistrate, and he ruled it an accident. Put it about the man was a drunk, but he wasn’t a drinker. ”
“What happened to Wells then?”
“He was found with a broken neck.”
“You think it was murder?”
“This is merely speculation.”
“That is all that rumors are.” Frustration ground through her, what did he expect from her? For her to be invited to the smuggling meetings?
“The Pinhayers cannot be very different from other smugglers. There must be a way of getting invited along to one of their meetings,” Robert said.
“I thought you wished to know for safety, not because you wished to join them?” asked Abigail.
“It is a delicate matter,” Robert said.
And then all of a sudden, Abigail felt certain he meant to know about the surroundings because he wished to marry her.
It was not an illogical idea, surely. And now she did not if she objected as much as she had originally to the idea of matrimony, as long as he wouldn’t help become a geologist first…
Everyone called it free trading in these parts, and Abigail had always paid it very little mind. But she doubted Robert wished to hear that.
They had reached her workshop, at the edge of town and she sped up toward the door.
All she wanted was to lift her head to the heavens and scream for clarity, but instead she cut away from him, making for the solitude it offered.
She needed the solitude of darkness. Away from all of the confusion, excitement and desires of this morning.
In her workshop, there would be the familiar tables, wooden and solid beneath her hands.
The sheer luxury of darkness, which Abigail could lose herself in.
There would be the start of cleaning and preparing the skull.
The comfort of her known finds surrounding her.
There, she would be able to calm herself.
“Why did you walk away from me?” Robert had caught up with her, his hand coming out to touch her shoulder. “You must believe me. Abigail, I will do everything in my power to protect you.”
The keys dropped down onto the sand. Abigail turned around, snatching at the air, before Robert stopped her.
“Tell me.” There was that cadence, thick, warm, and Irish to his words, which seemed to consume her as she stopped still in his arms. “Don’t cry, don’t shake.
Please. You’ll make me think I am a devil.
” He let out a low, self-deprecating chuckle.
“You don’t know what it does to me.” He pulled her hand up to rest above his heart. “It hurts here to see you distressed.”
“I—” she sucked in a breath, but it did nothing to help. “Workshop.” Her words lost their connective tissue. “Inside.”
Robert stared at her face for just a moment before he dropped to the ground, grabbed up the keys and shoved them into the lock, ushering her inside the safety of her workshop moments later.
Abigail walked forward, snatching onto the workshop table, grateful for the heaviness of the wood beneath her fingers.
She leaned forward and rested her face on the mottled texture of the oak.
She had not lost herself to the anxiety that sometimes occurred, when emotions, and her fears got the better of her.
Distantly, she heard Robert lowered the skull and her basket onto the nearby wooden work top, safely to one side.
Then his hands were on her back, stroking, strong on the material of her coat.
Distantly she could hear him speaking to her.
The words were soft, encouraging and sweet with that comforting burr.
Abigail eased herself upright, and turned around to look at him. “Sometimes everything—it is too much, and I cannot control—I fear what will happen when I cannot be on my own—” Lifting her hands, Abigail showed her shaking hands to him. “I am scared.”
Then his arms were around her, holding her.
For a second, Abigail thought he would kiss her, but he didn’t.
Instead, he stroked her back, holding her tight.
It was unbreakable. It contained her and every worrying fear she was experiencing.
They ratchetted and throbbed through her, but Robert did not let go.
A small shuddering breath issued out of Abigail’s mouth.
Why had no one ever tried this before? Since it seemed to be working beautifully, never before had she felt so safe, the blurring and fears at the edge of her consciousness was fading fast, easing out of her.
It was easy to lose track of the minutes as they stayed locked together, united until the overwhelming feelings slipped away from her, passing out of her body and leaving awareness in its wake.
She sucked in her breath, steadying her.
If they could stay locked together like this for eternity, Abigail would be happy.
He was her rock, her bulwark against the wilder excesses of both her own internal struggle, and the danger out beyond her workshop.
“Thank you,” she said. She felt a huge sense of her debt to him.
Felt there was some loyalty to him. Lucidity was flooding back in, and she wished to know how to explain her feelings toward him, how to justify her reaction.
There was a taste of embarrassment to her words, as she stepped back, hitting into the oak table behind her.
Robert was watching her closely, and he glanced down at the floor, before stepping nearer to her and smiling warmly. “Are you feeling…right in yourself? Do you still need me? Shall I go and fetch those hirings you wanted? It shouldn’t take me too long, and then we can go back to your discovery.”
The first was a harder thing than Abigail ever wanted to answer.
She knew they needed the workman, but all she wanted to consider, to dwell on was his initial question.
So, she threw herself forward, overcome with feelings, pulling him to her, embracing him tightly.
Anchoring his body firmly against hers. Her left hand crept up along his shoulders, and before lifting and digging into the feel of his curling hair.
She went on her tiptoes and pressed her mouth against his, the feel of him lush and all-consuming.
They had talked of good wine previously, a taste that was enthralling, earthly and delicious—but nothing could compare to the taste of his mouth on hers.