Survivors' Club: The Escape Part 21

She knew something then with a terrible clarity. She knew she was not made for casual affairs. She had thought after the first numbness of loss following Matthew's death had pa.s.sed that all she wanted was to be free, to live. But all she really wanted to do, all she had ever wanted to do, was to love. And, if possible, to be loved.

Instead, she had begun an affair, something that by its very nature was temporary. Something that was purely carnal. Something that would leave her more bereft than she had ever felt before.

Unless there was a child.

Yet she must hope that there would not be, for she would not wish to bind him to her on such terms.

He squeezed her hand.

"I do not doubt," he said, "that there will be people to take note of the exact minute and hour at which I return to the inn. I would not be so late that it will be obvious I have done more here than dine with you and sit afterward over tea and conversation."

He leaned closer and kissed her on the lips, and then she swung her legs over the far side of the bed, got to her feet, and found her nightgown and dressing gown.

"I shall see you downstairs," she said and left him to get dressed.

She walked out to the barn with him fifteen minutes or so later in her slippers and dressing gown while Tramp galloped about the garden, delighted to have an outing he had not been expecting. She waited while Ben hitched up the horse to the gig.

He spread one arm to her before climbing in, and she stepped close to him and hugged him. He kissed her and smiled down at her in the moonlight.

"Thank you," he said.

"For?"

"For making me feel like a man again," he said.

"You always seem very much like one to me," she said, and she saw the flash of his smile in the darkness.

"Thank you," he said again, and he climbed slowly into the gig, settled his canes, gathered the ribbons in his hands, glanced at her once more, and gave the horse the signal to start.

"Good night, Samantha," he said.

"Good night, Ben."

She did shed tears after he had gone and after she could neither see nor hear the gig any longer. She could not help but think of the fact that in a week's time it would be goodbye, not just good night.

What had she done?

19.

The weather conspired in their favor. The sun shone from a cloudless sky for the next four days, and the air was unseasonably warm.

Samantha walked into the village one morning, and they borrowed the gig from the inn and drove across the bridge and along the narrow lane above the beach, stopping several times to look at the boats and breathe in the sea air. Ben chatted with a small group of fishermen while Samantha got out to take the dog for a short walk. They had luncheon together at the inn, Mrs. Price having been warned that her mistress would not be back at the cottage.

On the following morning an old friend of Miss Bevan's called at the cottage with her daughter to make Samantha's acquaintance. Ben heard all about the visit when he drove over later in the gig.

"They want me to go for tea one afternoon," she told him. "And you too, Ben, if you are still here. They were very kind. Mrs. Tudor told me so many stories about my great-aunt that I feel I almost knew her myself."

"You will go?" he asked.

"Of course," she said. "I will go as soon as-Well, as soon as I have a free afternoon."

As soon as he had gone, she had been about to say. But he was pleased for her. A few people in the village had nodded amiably to her and obviously knew who she was. The vicar and his wife had introduced themselves to her. Now an old friend of her great-aunt's and the woman's daughter had come calling and had invited her to return the visit. Yet she had been here only a few days. Soon enough she would belong here, as he gathered she had never had a chance to belong when she lived at Bramble Hall.

She would surely be happy here-though she had not yet met her grandfather, of course.

They swam each afternoon. It was almost like a drug to Ben. He was going to have to spend the rest of the summer after he left here close to the sea-perhaps at Brighton, though that was rather too fas.h.i.+onable a resort for his tastes. When he was swimming he could almost forget that his legs were half crippled.

In the water, he could even frolic to a certain degree. Sometimes they would race, and when he won-which was not every time-he would wait for her and then sweep her up into his arms and twirl with her, demanding kisses for a prize. Sometimes he would chase her and dive and come up beneath her and tumble her in the water until they both came up gasping and shaking water from their eyes and laughing.

He felt as if years had tumbled off him to be washed away by the tide. He felt almost like a normal man. He felt exuberant and full of energy. He felt alive. And he lived for the moment. There was no point in antic.i.p.ating his departure at the end of the week. He would deal with it when the time came.

And there was no point in worrying every time they made love about impregnating her. Either they were going to have an affair or they were not-and since they were, then they might as well simply enjoy it. If he left her with child, she would write and tell him so-she had promised that-and he would return and marry her. It was not what either of them wanted. At least ... No, it was not what either of them wanted, but somehow they would work it out for the sake of the child.

It was perhaps a careless, irresponsible att.i.tude to take, but Ben did not care. Sometimes one needed simply to surrender to happiness. Life offered little enough of it.

He was happy. He stayed at the cottage each day for dinner, which they always followed with tea and a leisurely conversation in the parlor. It somehow heightened the pleasure of their lovemaking, the fact that they did not tumble into bed at the earliest opportunity but first spent time enjoying each other's company.

They made love in darkness. He knew it disappointed her when he extinguished the lamp, but he really could not bear to have her see him as he was.

She came on top of him again on the second night. But after they had slept a short while, he turned with her and lay on her as he took her again. It was a little uncomfortable at first, and he did not know if it would be possible to continue without changing position, but pa.s.sion overcame pain, and he held her arms above her head, their fingers tightly laced, and loved her with slow thoroughness until they both shuddered into release. And his legs, aching and cramped as they were afterward, survived the ordeal.

She was beautiful and voluptuous, smooth-skinned and silky-haired and fragrant with that faint scent of gardenia always clinging about her. She was warm and pa.s.sionate and uninhibited in her pleasure. And he marveled over the fact that he could make love, and that he could give pleasure as well as receive it. He had been unnecessarily afraid that he could cause nothing but revulsion in any woman with whom he attempted intimacies. It had been foolish of him.

Except that she had not seen him.

He was always careful to return to the village and the inn well before midnight. He supposed there was some talk and speculation anyway. It must be common knowledge, after all, that neither of her two servants lived in, that she had no lady companion, that she was alone from early evening to sometime before breakfast. But he did not want that talk to turn into open scandal.

Soon he would be gone and all talk would cease.

But he would not think of that yet. He had promised a week. He had promised it to both her and himself.

On the fifth day the sun still shone, though puffs of white cloud dotting the blue of the sky caused the occasional patch of shade and accompanying coolness. Ben went to the cottage with the gig as usual after luncheon, a towel and a dry pair of pantaloons in their bag beside him on the seat. When he drove past the house, however, there was no sign of Samantha in the garden as there usually was. Even the dog was nowhere in sight. She had still not come outside after he had unhitched the horse and walked back to the house.

She was in the sitting room, dressed smartly in a striped blue and cream muslin dress. She usually wore her oldest dresses to go swimming. And her hair had been styled in a high knot with curled tendrils at her temples and along her neck. She looked as pale as a ghost, or as pale as someone of her complexion who had spent much of the past week out in the sun could look. There was no smile on her face when she greeted him.

"Samantha?" he said, moving into the room and stopping to pat the tail-wagging dog on the head.

"I was foolish," she said. "I ought to have said no. I did say no but not firmly enough. I want to go swimming with you. It is a nice day, and we have so little time left."

He stood still in the middle of the room, leaning on his canes.

"What has happened?" he asked.

"I am expecting a visitor," she said with some venom.

"Oh?" But he could somehow guess.

"He sent his secretary," she said, "to discover if I am who I say I am, I suppose, though he said he had come to see if I would be at home for a visit from his employer this afternoon."

"Your grandfather?"

"Mr. Bevan," she said. "Did he think to impress me by sending his secretary?"

He sat down and propped his canes beside his chair. "Perhaps," he said, "he wished to give you some choice about whether you see him or not, Samantha. If he had come this morning instead of his secretary, you would have had no choice. Perhaps he does not wish to force himself upon you."

"Well," she said, "I know he does not wish to do that. He never has."

"But he is coming," he said.

"So it would seem."

She stared stormily at him, but he did not think she was really seeing him.

"I informed his secretary," she said, "that I did not want to talk with him or know him or even see him. He told me that if I intended to continue living here it was almost inevitable that I see his employer from time to time unless I meant to be a hermit. He asked me if I intend going to church here."

"Bevan goes?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. "And so I said I would receive him. I will tell him what I think and send him on his way and then the matter is dealt with and done with. Whenever chance brings us within sight of each other after today, we will be able to nod politely and continue with our own lives, undisturbed by our connection."

She did not sound at all convinced.

"Shall I leave?" he asked her.

"No!" Her hands gripped the arms of her chair. "No, please. It is horribly cowardly of me not to want to face him alone. Perhaps I ought. And I daresay you are itching to get away before he puts in an appearance. Are you?"

"Samantha," he said, "he is not my grandfather. And I daresay he is not a monster. If he is, I will be able to pose as your knight protector and fight him off with one of my canes. Either way, I will be happy to stay. I have a curiosity to see him."

And to witness their first meeting.

She tilted her head to the side suddenly, and the dog scrambled to his feet and barked once. Through the open window came the unmistakable sounds of an approaching carriage.

She wished she had gone to Leyland Abbey. Better the devil you know ... But, no, nothing could be worse than life lived under the unyielding gaze of the Earl of Heathmoor.

Besides, this was her cottage. She had the power to admit or exclude whomever she wished. She had chosen to allow her grandfather to call on her-for this occasion only. Soon he would be gone again and she would be free.

But that did not seem to help much at this precise moment. She stayed where she was and Ben stayed where he was as the carriage drew up outside the garden gate and the sound of voices came through the window. The only one who did not stay where he was was Tramp. He stood at the sitting room door, his nose almost pressed against its outer edge, eagerness in every line of his ungainly body, his tail waving like a flag in a breeze.

There was a knock on the outer door, and it opened almost immediately-Mrs. Price had obviously heard the arrival of the carriage too. There were a few moments of almost unbearable tension, and then there was a tap on the sitting room door. Mrs. Price opened it, and Tramp backed up a foot.

"Mr. Bevan, ma'am," Mrs. Price said, saucer-eyed, though she had known he was coming.

He was not a very tall man, but he was solid-looking and had presence. He carried himself with confidence. He was silver-haired, though there was still some darkness mixed with the silver. He had a pleasant, good-humored face. He must have been a handsome man in his younger years. Indeed, he still was distinguished looking. He was expensively, fas.h.i.+onably dressed.

Samantha was on her feet without having been aware of rising.

He looked at her and then down at Tramp, who was barking and prancing and generally behaving in an undisciplined manner.

"A gentleman does not make himself deliberately conspicuous in company," Mr. Bevan said with a lovely soft Welsh accent. "Sit."

And Tramp, the traitor, sat and gazed up at his new friend with intelligent eyes and lolling tongue and lightly thumping tail.

"Mrs. McKay?" Mr. Bevan said. "Samantha?"

He fixed his eyes upon her and advanced across the room with confident strides, his right hand extended. He was almost of a height with her, she realized.

She had no choice, short of being deliberately ill-mannered, but to set her hand in his. He held it in a warm clasp and set his other hand on top of it, all the while gazing at her face.

"You are not very like your mother," he said, "except in coloring. But, oh, girl, you do look like your grandmother."

He raised her hand to his lips before relinquis.h.i.+ng it.

"Mr. Bevan," she said. "May I present Major Sir Benedict Harper?"

Ben had also got to his feet.

"Sir." He inclined his head. "I am pleased to make your acquaintance."

Mr. Bevan's eyes swept over him. "Wounded in the wars, were you, Major?" he asked.

"Yes," Ben said.

"And a friend of the late Captain McKay's, I have heard," Mr. Bevan said. "There is not much local news and gossip that does not reach my ears at Cartref, you know. I could muzzle my servants, I suppose, but why should I? I like a bit of gossip."

He was looking keenly at Ben as he said it, and Samantha felt anger well inside her. To what gossip in particular was he referring? And what business was it of his?

"I never had the privilege of knowing Captain McKay," Ben said, and Samantha's eyes flew to his. "My acquaintance with his widow began after his death. When she decided to come here, goaded to it by circ.u.mstances she found intolerable, she had no one to accompany her. I offered my services. It was a less than satisfactory arrangement, sir, but it was the best that could be done."

Was he apologizing to her grandfather? Samantha raised her chin and glared at them both.

"I did not need the protection of any man," she said, "but Sir Benedict insisted."

They both looked at her, Ben a little sheepishly, her grandfather with a smile that revealed a fan of attractive lines at the outer corners of both eyes. He must smile frequently.

"That is my girl," he said, further incensing her.

"Oh, do have a seat," she said ungraciously. "Both of you."

But of course, they both waited for her to be seated first. They were being perfect gentlemen.

"I have neglected you for the last six or seven years, Samantha," Mr. Bevan said. He was smoothing one hand over Tramp's head while the dog's eyes closed in ecstasy.