“I would die before I would set a toe in sea water,” Miranda said. “It would quite shrivel up the skin, I daresay.”
Lily laughed. “It is just water, though not to be drunk, of course, because of the salt.” And without even thinking of what she did, she shook off her shoes and peeled off her stockings, carried them in one hand while lifting her skirt with the other, and waded into the water until it was halfway to her knees.
Miranda giggled and the young gentlemen hooted with glee.
“Itiscold,” Lily said, laughing even more gaily. “It is lovely. Oh, do try it.”
Richard came next and then Hal and then William. Finally even Miranda was persuaded to remove her shoes and stockings and step gingerly into the water almost up to her ankles. She laughed with fear and excitement.
“Oh, Lily,” she cried, “you are so muchfun.”
“Wilma is an old fuddy-duddy,” Richard remarked with marvelous lack of respect for his elders. “And Lauren and Gwen always have to remember that they are ladies.”
They all waded through the water, carrying their shoes and stockings, until they came to the great rock and Lily decided that a rock in just such a position and built in just such a way must have been placed there to be climbed. She scrambled to the top and sat up there, her arms clasped about her knees, her head tipped back. She could feel her hem heavy and wet from the sea water, but it would dry soon enough. It was quite impossible, she thought, to remain for long in low spirits when one could feel the sun and the air on one’s face and hear waves rolling their way to shore and gulls screaming overhead. She took off her bonnet and set it down beside her with her shoes and stockings. She felt even better.
The other four had climbed up after her and were seated together a little below her, talking and laughing among themselves. Lily forgot them and enjoyed the familiar feeling of being alone with the universe. She had always had the gift—necessary when there had been so little actual privacy in her life—of being able to shut herself off from crowds.
“Miranda!”
The voice, loud and shocked, made Lily jump and brought her back to her surroundings. Aunt Theodora had appeared at the base of the rock with Elizabeth and Aunt Mary. “Put your shoes and stockings and your bonnet and gloves back onthis instant. And get down from there! Gracious me, yourhemis wet. Have you beenwading? You shocking, vulgar, disobedient girl. Atrue ladywould never so much as dream of—” But she had looked upward and spied Lily, who was considerably more disheveled than her daughter.
Elizabeth clucked her tongue and laughed. “How provokingly clever of Lily and Miranda,” she said. “They are doing what all of us have been secretly longing to do and are enjoying the sunshine and the sea air—and even the sea.”
But her attempt to smooth over the awkwardness of the situation did not quite succeed. The whole party had come into view, Aunt Theodora had turned very red, and Miranda had burst into tears. Aunt Mary was assuring everyone in agitated accents that she dared say her sons were entirely to blame. They were such high-spirited lads. Hal was reminding her indignantly that at the age of one-and-twenty he no longer appreciated being referred to as a lad.
Lily quietly pulled on her stockings and shoes and tied the ribbons of her new bonnet beneath her chin and turned to descend carefully back to the beach. Wilma was loudly complaining about something and Gwendoline was telling her not to be tiresome. The marquess was asking in a deliberately languid voice if anyone had heard about storms in teacups and Pauline choked on a laugh. A pair of strong arms lifted Lily down when she was still carefully picking her footholds.
He turned her and smiled at her, his hands still at her waist. “I had such a vivid memory, seeing you up there,” he said, “of watching you sitting on an outcropping of rock, looking about at the hills of Portugal.” But his smile faded even before he had finished speaking. “I am sorry. It was just before your father died.”
And just hours before their wedding. How he must regret that any of it had ever happened. Howsheregretted it.
Everyone had begun walking back toward the valley and the path up to the house amid a general atmosphere of discontent and awkwardness. Lily and Neville fell into step a short distance behind.
“I am sorry,” she said.
“No,” he told her firmly. “No, you must not be, Lily. You must not always be sorry. You must live your life your way.”
“But I got Miranda into trouble,” she said. “I did not think.”
“I will have a word with Aunt Theodora,” he told her, chuckling. “It was no very great mischief, you know.”
“No,” she said, “Iwill have a word with her. You must not always be protecting me. I am not a child.”
“Lily,” he said softly. “This is not working well, is it? Let us take a little time for ourselves, shall we? Let me show you the cottage.”
“The one in the valley?” she asked him.
He nodded. “My private retreat. My haven of peace and tranquility. I’ll take you there.”
He took her hand in his and laced his fingers with hers. He did not care that someone ahead of them might look back. They were married, after all.
“The cottage is your own, then?” she asked him. “It is very pretty.”
“My grandmother was a painter,” he explained. “She liked to be on her own, painting. My grandfather had the cottage built for her on surely the loveliest spot of the whole estate. It is furnished, and it is cleaned and aired once a month. It is there for all of us to use and enjoy, though I believe it has come to be considered my own special place. I like to be alone and quiet too at times.”
She smiled at him. Obviously such antisocial needs were quite understandable to her.
“It was the one thing I found hard about military life,” he said. “The lack of privacy. You must have felt it too, Lily. And yet there was something about you…I used to notice, you know, that you often went off on your own, though never beyond your father’s sight. You used to sit or stand alone, doing nothing except gazing about you. I always used to imagine that you had discovered a world that was closed to me and to almost everyone else. Had you?”
