by Erin Satie
Wilsey smacked his lips, but John barreled on. “What’s worse is that by sending me after Kingston, you risked exactly the scandal you’ve been so lucky to avoid. Your anger is so deep, and so heedless, that you’ve put Amelia—your daughter—at risk of even greater humiliation. She deserves better.”
“How dare you—”
John cut him off with a slice of his hand. “I’m going. Good-bye, Wilsey. I’m sorry it ended this way.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Look closely,” said the cabin boy—Peter Enix, he’d told her, when she asked his name. He held a length of rope in his hands, identical to the one she gripped between her own. They leaned side by side on the rails of the quarterdeck, the ship quiet and the day’s work done. Overhead, the sky had begun to dim, taking the temperature down with it. “Make a little loop, like so?”
Lily watched him demonstrate, then copied the motion.
“Now take the end of the rope and slip it through the little loop.”
She did as instructed. Easy.
“This is the tricky part,” warned Peter. “Watch carefully. Take the end of the rope and bring it around the standing end—no, you have to loop it around—that’s right, now it goes right back through the little loop.”
The resulting knot, when tightened, looked like a tiny hangman’s noose.
“What do I do with it?” Lily asked. “Execute dolls?”
“No!” The boy shot her a look of pure horror, then corrected himself, “That is, no, my lady. Tie a bowline at the end of a rope and you can hook it up to a ring or a post. It’s a handy knot.”
“All right. Let me try it without help,” said Lily, unpicking the bowline. She mucked up twice—exactly where Peter had predicted she would—but managed a proper knot on the third try, and after that, she could repeat it.
“I think you’ve got the hang of it,” said Peter.
“If I ever have children who beg me for a dollhouse,” said Lily, “I’m going to buy them a miniature gallows and teach them this knot.”
Peter tried—but failed—to hide his disapproving reaction to this bit of nonsense. Lily burst out laughing, just as Ware stepped into view on the quay. She waved gaily, her laughter giving way to a smile. When he reached the quarterdeck, she tapped Peter on the elbow.
“Mr. Enix has entertained me all afternoon. He’d been teaching me to tie knots.”
“Oh?” Ware raised his eyebrows at the boy, but the rest of his face didn’t move—not his mouth, slack and downward-turning, and not his dull, tired eyes. “Which ones?”
Peter ticked them off on his fingers. “Bowline, anchor hitch, figure eight…”
“Good choices,” said Ware. “Off with you, now. You must have chores left undone.”
Lily waited until the boy was out of earshot before she tapped the rails beside her, inviting Ware to sit. “Did you speak to Clive?”
“Clive, Palmerston, and Lord Melbourne, as well,” he answered, stretching out his legs and crossing his feet at the ankles. “Melbourne has agreed to take charge of the Cabinet. We should have a treaty of four powers finalized and signed in a matter of days.”
“And what will it demand of Mehmet Ali?”
“Palmerston wants Mehmet Ali out of Syria entirely, but Melbourne has more moderate views. I believe the treaty will allow for Mehmet Ali to keep portions of southern Syria, so long as he abides by certain conditions.”
Lily wound the rope fragment around her fingers and closed her fist over it. The jute prickled her palm. “My father won’t be happy.”
“No,” Ware agreed, with a grimace. “I’ve been thinking about that. We should leave London, to be safe.”
“We?” Lily blinked. “But don’t you want to be here for the final negotiations—and to prepare for Buenos Aires?”
“Would you rather that I remain in London?” he asked.
“No. Not at all.”
“Then I have nowhere better to be.”
Lily smiled. “And I couldn’t ask for better company.”
He laughed softly. A little bit of the stiffness eased out of his shoulders.
“I know just the place to go,” she added. “Someplace discreet, unexpected, not too far from town.”
“Where’s that?”
“My father has a property on the coast. Small, very beautiful. A house, no staff to speak of, and the grounds go on and on. Acres of forest and a lake, a proper one, with streams running into it.”
“Most people would never dare to hide from a powerful man on his own property. But you’re not most people, and your father might expect it.”
Lily shrugged. “If either of us comes up with a better idea, we’ll move on.”
They gave the captain their destination and retired below deck. By the time Lily woke the next morning, sat up and glanced out the cabin’s windows, they’d already left the city behind. The schooner sailed past rolling pastures dotted with woolly sheep and lowing cows, trees trailing their leaves into the current, and fallen branches choking the muddy banks. Sometimes, between the hills, they’d spy a village or a field of golden wheat.
Ware brought her a bit of bread and butter to eat, a lidded mug filled with hot tea, and they sat side by side in the cool of the morning, watching the scenery change. It felt good to be moving, better to see Ware’s mood improve throughout the day.
The Thames emptied them out into the Channel, and from there they proceeded south along the coast a short ways, until Lily spotted a landmark she recognized: an old stone cottage—she’d thought it ancient as a child, older than England, though for all she knew it had been built the year she was born. It had no roof, and two irregularly shaped windows that faced the sea, one about half the size of the other. The entrance, a narrow stone arch long since divested of its door, lay on the other side.
The crew weighed anchor and young Peter manned the oars in the small longboat, ferrying them toward land.
“Papa’s seat lies deeper in Sussex,” Lily explained. “Hours away from the ocean. But sometimes we’d drive to London along the coast instead of taking the main roads. He has properties scattered throughout the southeast, and makes a point of visiting every one at least once a year. Adam and I thought he was taking us on holiday. We found so much to explore at every new destination, we were never ready to leave by the time Papa said it was time to go.”
They reached the shore and left Peter to row back alone. Ware picked a path up the steep embankment to the plateau beyond, seagulls wheeling and cawing above. Lily had to hold her skirts up with one hand, balance with the other, but she managed without asking for help and, after a single attempt, Ware didn’t offer again.
The ground around them was rocky, with small tufts of grass clinging to islands of thin soil. Craters peppered the gray stone, collecting rain and, with it, moss and lichen. But a breeze coming off the sea kept the air fresh, clean and briny.
About a mile distant, the forest began—an explosion of dense underbrush and leafy canopy, wild and summer green.
“That way,” said Lily, pointing toward the trees.
“Are we looking for something in particular?” Ware asked, keeping pace beside her.
“A favorite place of mine,” said Lily. “I want to show you.”
“What sort of place?”
“I think you’ll guess before we arrive,” Lily teased. “At least, if I still know the way.”
They skirted the edge of the forest. Pretty as it was, she knew what lay within: an uneven ground crisscrossed by roots to trip on, thorny bushes for her clothes to catch on, branches to duck. She’d ruin her dress if she tried forcing her way through. She needed a path. Though no man had cut a trail through the woods, Mother Nature had.
A dull roaring reached her ears, vague and faraway as the sound of an ocean inside a seashell. She followed the noise, pressing on as it grew louder and louder. Finally they reached a wide stream, the swift current crashing over rocks as it flowed.
“I’ll carry you,” sho
uted Ware, bending to lift her.
Lily skipped away. “We’re not crossing!”
She reached down to untie her sturdy boots. Loosened the laces, pulled them off, and her stockings after. Then she gestured for Ware to do the same.
“We’re swimming?”
“Not yet!”
He rolled his trousers up to his knees while she tucked her skirts up around her waist. They both laced their shoes together and slung them over their shoulders.
She led the way into the stream, bracing herself against the rushing water. She stepped on rocks whenever she could and let her feet sink into the soft, deep mud when she couldn’t. Birdsong filtered down from the trees, every hoot and whistle amplified by the canopy of leaves. Fish darted out of reach, silver scales flashing.
She reached out for Ware’s hand and laced their fingers together, holding on for balance when she lost her footing, steadying him in turn. Before long, they couldn’t see the wide-open spaces behind them, just a slice of sky at the end of a long green tunnel, and then the river turned and even that was gone.
It was an effort to move. A struggle to stay upright, to lift her feet one by one without getting carried away by the current. But soon a break in the trees opened up before them, a wedge of blue sky and bright sunshine. A little farther on, the lake came into view.
The surface of the lake mirrored the trees and flowers along the verge, gentle ripples distorting the reflections. On the other side of the lake, flowering lily pads clustered away from the turbulent stream. Not far from where they stood lay the rotted remains of a raft—the logs sodden, decomposing, but still recognizable. Someone had had the job of making it, cutting and stripping the logs, lashing them together, carrying the raft all this way—so she and Adam could play for a few days, and then abandon it.
“You came here as a child?” Ware asked.
“Several times,” answered Lily, climbing onto dry ground at last. Despite all her efforts, she’d soaked her skirts. She gained some distance from the noisy stream, set down her shoes and turned her back to Ware. “Will you help me with the buttons?”
“Now we’re swimming?”
She glanced over her shoulder. “You don’t like to swim? You should have said something before we got into the stream.”
He rolled his eyes and set to work on her gown. The back split from the top as he slipped the buttons loose. When he reached her waist, she stepped out of the dress, folded it neatly on a patch of dry grass, and set to work on her front-fastening corset.
“Are you just going to stand there and watch?” she asked.
He smiled, lopsided and cocky. “I might.”
She narrowed her eyes, got the laces to her corset loose enough to push it down over her hips, dropped it on top of her dress. She added her petticoats to the pile and then—still wearing her chemise—ran into the lake, kicking her legs up to leap ahead in great bounds. She squealed as the cold water rose to her knees, and then her thighs, trailing great splashes behind. When she’d submerged all the way to her hips, she dove. Took two long strokes and then turned, flipping her hair out of the way as she found her footing and lifted her head above the surface.
Ware still stood on the bank, though he’d stuffed his neckcloth inside his shoes and taken off his coat. “Why don’t you stand up all the way?” he called out.
She looked down. The thin cotton of her chemise, transparent in the water, hid nothing. Below the surface, her breasts floated free of gravity, perfectly round. She looked up again. “Come a little closer, and I will.”
He covered a laugh with his hand, shaking his head at her, and didn’t budge.
She ducked beneath the water, pulled off her chemise, and rose up again—just a little higher. Enough for him to see her the upper slope of her breasts, beaded with droplets of water. “The water’s lovely. My toes are cold, but it’s warm near the surface. Come see.”
Ware took a step back, reaching for the waistband of his trousers, so she rose up a few more inches. Her nipples, tight and hard, crested the surface. He froze, momentarily mesmerized, and before he came to his senses she threw her soaking-wet chemise at him.
He caught it easily, but it was wet enough to splatter water all over his front. He swore while she fell back into the water with a laugh and began stroking away from shore. She watched him hang the chemise over a branch and dispose of his own clothing, tossing it in a clumsy heap before he strode naked into the water.
Heavens, but John Tacitus Ware was a handsome man.
She reached the middle of the lake while he’d just begun to swim, so she treaded water and admired the way the muscles of his arms bunched and flattened as he cut through the water, how sunlight skated across his wet hair when he came up for a breath.
When he reached her, he snaked one arm around her waist and brought her close, to slide full-length against the hard planes of his body.
“That was childish,” he accused, gently biting her neck.
She squeaked and pinched her head and shoulder together. “Only fitting. I was a child the last time I came here. Isn’t it beautiful?”
He swept his free arm out, swinging it in a gentle arc, and turned them both around. The wind rustled through the trees, a muted roar that sounded much like the ocean crashing against the shore, or the rush of blood through her head when she ducked under the water.
And she glimpsed, briefly, the vastness of it all. Saw herself as a tiny speck in a universe whose size she could not fathom.
She lived in a world of infinite complexity—of people, relationships, wants and needs, goals and consequences. But so did the flowers nodding by the water, the squirrels scampering along the branches. Their world, too, had its dangers and its hierarchies. The insects feared the frogs, the frogs feared the snakes, the snakes feared the foxes.
And not one of them—not the insects, not the frogs, not the snakes or foxes—cared one whit about her. Their worlds fit together like Russian nesting dolls, each part of the whole but largely unconcerned with the other.
Really, this one little lake had as much life in it as London did. And she had once, years ago, walked from sunrise to sundown, day after day, until the soles of her feet turned to leather. But when she looked at the journey she’d made on a globe, it was such a tiny line.
Kicking to bring herself level with the surface of the water, she closed her eyes against the sun and floated. She took slow deep breaths, wiggled her feet to feel water swish through her toes. After a pause, Ware followed suit.
They floated, fingers linked, like two pieces of driftwood. The water bearing her up remained cool; the skin exposed to air dried and warmed. The clouds dissolved and reformed, drifting slowly past. Fish snapped at insects that landed on the surface of the lake.
“What should I have done differently?”
“What do you mean?”
“Sometimes I look back and I think: if I hadn’t been there, everything would have been fine,” said Lily. “I know it’s not true. My father and Adam were angry at one another before I arrived. Alfie made a wreck of his life without me. But now it’s all so much worse.”
“I’d have missed the opportunity to meet you,” Ware said. “My life would be the poorer for it.”
Lily smiled. “It’s been a dream come true, for me.”
“Don’t tease.”
“Who says I’m teasing? Though I used to imagine we’d cross paths somewhere far away. In a desert oasis perhaps. I’d buy the last dates from a shopkeeper just before you arrived, weary and famished, and offer to share…”
“Unlikely.”
“Or we’d be thrown together on a ferry, crossing a dangerous river thick with rapids, and I’d fall in…”
“You would die.”
“You would rescue me…”
“We would both die.”
“You were much more optimistic in my imagination.”
Ware snorted derisively—and then began to splutter.
“Oh no!” Lily righted herself
and began to tread water. “Is this a demonstration? I should never count on you for an aquatic rescue?”
Still coughing, Ware slapped the surface of the lake and sent a spray of water her way.
“Why, Mr. Ware, I believe I’ve wounded your pride.”
He darted toward her. She twisted to the side, dodging, so that they spun around one another, arms outflung like a ballroom dance.
“Who taught you to swim?” he demanded.
Lily began to laugh, and this time, when Ware reached for her, he hooked an arm around her waist. He pulled her close, treading water strongly enough to keep both their heads above the surface, and slanted his mouth over hers. Their lips touched and parted and it was not enough. Not even close.
“Race you to the shore,” she breathed into his ear, before pushing away and kicking hard to gain some speed.
He grabbed her by the foot and, when she turned on him with a squeak, he stroked away. He gained a fair lead, then rolled onto his back and taunted her with an exaggerated wink.
She dove, skimming along beneath the surface, and yanked at one of Ware’s feet while he spun in circles. By the time she breached the surface, she had the lead.
They reached the shore almost at the same moment, and tumbled to the ground in a breathless tangle. In a moment he was inside her, and her back was sinking into the cool mud as he thrust. She panted, whimpered; he stretched her arms out to either side and twined their fingers, giving her the weight of his body.
Rutting out in the open on all fours ought to have been degrading. It wasn’t. She felt like an animal, yes. Simple, reduced to her essence. Purified.
It was like making love to the earth itself. She drew strength from it, just as she did from the man inside her; between the two of them, she’d never felt more gloriously alive.
“Next time,” he growled into her ear. “Will be all for you. I promise.”
“But this…”
His chest hiccupped against hers, a small, silent laugh.
“God, you make me feel good,” he groaned.
Lily rolled onto her back and drowsed for a bit, though the mud drying on her skin itched and her hair had snarled into clumps and the ground was lumpy, with a root digging into the small of her back in a way that promised to leave her sore for hours.