“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 fashionable 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 anticipating 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 theywere, 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 wasnotwhat either of them wanted, but somehow they would work it out for the sake of the child.
It was perhaps a careless, irresponsible attitude to take, but Ben did not care. Sometimes one needed simply to surrender to happiness. Life offered little enough of it.
Hewashappy. 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 passion 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 passionate and uninhibited in her pleasure. And he marveled over the fact that hecouldmake 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.
