And so was his body, by Jove. Warm, that was. Warmer than warm.
“You are avoiding the issue,” she said.
“Which is?”
“The fact that we have needed an excuse to touch,” she said.
“I promised,” he reminded her, “that you would be safe from me.”
“Sometimes,” she said, turning her head to look out to sea, “safety seems a dull, unadventurous thing.”
And by God, she was right about that.
“After you have left here,” she asked him, “will you regret that you were the perfect gentleman the whole time we were together? Well, almost the whole time.”
“How could I regret behaving like a gentleman?” he asked her. “That is what I am.”
Wouldsheregret it?
They had stopped walking. He was feeling ruffled, even a bit annoyed. Being a gentleman was important to him. And yet…He would have let go of her, put some distance between them, but she still held his cane.
“It is just that freedom is a precious gift,” she said. “One ought to be able to use it to do whatever one most wants to do, provided one is hurting no one else in the process. We are almost never allowed to act freely, though, are we? There is always someone or some rule or convention that says, no, it is not at all the thing. And so we toe the line of propriety and deny the freedom that has been offered us and lose our chance for some happiness.”
What she was suggesting, he thought, was that they become lovers before he left. And it all made perfect sense when they were out here on the beach together like this. Why should theynotdo something…free? Something they both wanted to do. Except that this was not the world—this beach. And they could not live out here forever.
He would regret it. For he would surely be an inadequate lover and would disappoint both her and himself. He would regret waking the sleeping devil of his sexuality—except that it had already awakened, had it not? He would regret the end of the affair. He would regret having to leave her, for he could not stay and she would not want him to. Andshewould regret it if they had an affair, even if she was not disappointed in his performance. For no one had ever been constant in her life. Even her mother had died young. She needed more than a temporary lover.
There would be pain.
There was always pain.
She was gazing into his eyes, and he was the one now gazing out to sea.
“You are tired from all the walking,” she said. “I have had my eye on that large rock over there since we started along the water’s edge. Let us go and sit on it for a while.”
He did not argue. He really did need to take the weight off his legs. A lower ledge of the rock she had indicated was flat enough to sit on, and it was just wide enough and at just the right height for the two of them. The dog dashed off to chase some gulls that had landed at the water’s edge farther along the sands.
“Have I spoiled your first visit to a beach?” he asked her.
“By being tired and needing to sit down?” she said. “No, of course not.”
He took her hand in his and laced their fingers—probably very unwisely. She dipped her head to rest on his shoulder. The soft brim of her bonnet bent easily to accommodate her.
“It is lovely here,” she said. “I will always remember today. Oh, but look, your poor boots are caked with sand.”
“It is more poor Quinn than poor boots,” he said.
“I am going to swim here,” she said after they had sat in silence for a while. “Not now, but soon. I am going to get right under that water andswim. Do it with me, Ben. Youcanswim. You told me so.”
“That was when I was a boy and had two fully functioning legs,” he said.
“I do not suppose you have forgotten how.” She twisted her head so that she could look up at him. “You walk even though I daresay every physician you ever consulted warned you you never would.”
“I am not exactly proficient at it,” he protested.
“Youwalk,”she said, lifting her head and glaring fiercely at him. “Swimming would be easier, would it not? You would not have to put weight on your legs.”
“I would probably sink like a stone and never be heard from again.”
