“Yes. I remember it clearly,” she replied. “You were face down in the tide.”
“I was not face down.”
“You were considerably face down.”
He chuckled, which was a concession.
“I came down that morning to escape a conversation about a suitor, which Beatrice had been navigating toward for three days and which I intended to redirect indefinitely.” She looked along the water. “I walked farther than I meant to.” She paused. “And then there was a shape in the sand that was wrong.”
“For one moment, I thought that you might be dead.” She laughed. “I remember it very clearly, the water coming in and going out, and I thought,He might be dead. Then I pressed two fingers to your throat, and you weren’t, and I felt…” She looked at him. “I felt the most extraordinary relief. For a complete stranger. I have thought about that ever since. What that relief meant.”
He was watching her with an open expression.
“Then you said, ‘You’re real. That’s fortunate.’” She raised an eyebrow. “You had been knocked unconscious, and you make an observation about my existence.”
“I maintain that was a reasonable priority.”
“You were dreadful,” she said fondly. “You were charming and injured and dreadful. I walked back to Edward’s house andthought,This is a man I am going to have to be very careful with.”
“And were you?” he asked. “Careful?”
She looked at the water. “For approximately six weeks. Then you held Eleanor in a corridor on Granger Street and looked at her like she was the most important thing in the building, and I was entirely done being careful.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then he said gently, “Come here.”
She turned. He was holding out his arm, and she went into his side.
“I never expected to be saved,” he murmured.
“From the tide?”
“From all of it.” His arm was steady around her. “From the version of myself that had organized everything correctly and decided that was sufficient. From the house full of careful quiet.” He looked out at the sea. “In more ways than one.”
She looked at the ring on her left hand. She had been carrying a secret for nine days. She had almost blurted it at breakfast on Thursday, when he had looked up and smiled at her.
She had almost revealed it in the nursery last Tuesday, when Eleanor had fallen asleep on his shoulder, and he had stood very still so as not to wake her, one hand on her back, and looked over at Cecily with an expression so full it had no room for anything else.
There was no better moment than this one.
She took his hand. Turned it in her gloved ones. Then placed it flat on her stomach, warm through layers of winter wool.
She watched his face.
She watched understanding dawn on him. The stillness that moved through him, from the top of his head to the tips of his toes.
“Cecily.” His voice was strained.
“Yes,” she said. “We are having a baby.”
He did not move his hand. He looked at it. Then at her face. Then at his hand again, as though he needed to verify the accuracy of what he was seeing.
His other hand came up to her face.
“A baby,” he breathed.
“Our baby.” She looked at him steadily. “Are you all right?”
“No,” he said. “Yes.” He exhaled. “I don’t know. Both.” He looked at her face. “I love you.”
