Persuaded (28 page)

Hanna
couldn’t stop the indignant noise that escaped her. “No wonder I always got
your voicemail!”

By way
of apology, Derick kissed her again. What had she been upset about?

“I
almost called you from my first port in Africa, but I let my idiocy get the
best of me.”

Shaking
her head, Hanna sat up a little in his arms. “I was the reason you left like
that. When I think of the last ten years, of what we could’ve—” She broke off,
rising emotion choking off the sound.

“It’s
not your fault, Hanna. It’s not my fault either. I just don’t think the timing
was right.”

“You
really believe that?”

“I do.
You, at age eighteen, were emotionally, like, forty—whereas I, at age twenty,
was still an embryo in that department. It was a big age difference.”

Hanna
rolled her eyes.

“We
both acted rashly in different ways,” he went on, “but I really feel like
things worked out the way they were meant to at the time.”

Hanna
took that in. She thought of the initial sting of losing him, the unexpected
pain when the tender scar was reopened that first time she saw him on TV, the
smarting shock at running into him that morning on the beach, the undeniable
ache of watching him with Ella . . .

Would
she erase all that hurt if she could? Would she spare herself one ounce of the
suffering that had brought her to this moment? In a way, that misery had made
her who she was. Somehow, that awfulness had brought her full circle—back into
his arms again.

Having
waited so long to get back into those arms, she wasn’t keen on leaving them
anytime soon. Derick helped her to her feet and, retaining his grip on her
hand, towed her after him as he took cushions from the seating area and
arranged them on the bow of the
Asp
. Then he settled himself into a
half-reclining position and held his arms open wide in an invitation. Knowing
that her embarrassment was plain on her face and that there was nothing she
could do about it, Hanna fit herself to his side. She brushed her fingers over
his
hei matau
pendant, flushing with pleasure when his heart sped up at
her touch.

“Your
heart is pounding again,” she noted aloud, one part chagrin, two parts delight.

“You
think?”

She
beamed into his shirt. Had she ever been this happy before? She couldn’t say
for sure, but nothing came to mind.

The
wind was picking up now, sending white-capped sea swells crashing into the
hull. By unspoken consent, neither of them made a move toward their own cabins
below, and they drifted off to sleep in each other’s arms.

THIRTY-FIVE

THE
PARCEL

Because Mr.
Elliot’s manners had precisely pleased her . . . she had been too quick in
receiving them.

—Jane Austen,
Persuasion

Dawn
came sluggishly the next morning, a thick blanket of cloud cover effectively
blotting out the sun. Derick had been awake for a while, watching Hanna sleep
snuggled against him. The wind had not been kind to her hair during the night,
working it into a tangled mess. He smiled to himself as he wondered what
someone would think if they happened upon the two of them. At least from the
state of Hanna’s hair, they would assume that their “sleeping” had not been
accomplished fully clothed.

Reaching
out, Derick traced her knuckles with his fingertips, then let them slip into
the grooves between her fingers. After a moment her hand twitched and then
answered by tangling with his. When she opened her eyes and looked up at him, a
tidal wave of emotion swelled and broke over him.

“What’re
you smiling at?” she asked in a groggy voice.

“Your
hair.”

Horrified,
Hanna smoothed it down with her fingers. “Better?”

“Much.
You almost look respectable now,” he teased.

Sophie’s
voice preceded her up onto the deck. “So that’s why we have two empty cabins
below.”

Hanna
bolted upright as if she’d been tazed, putting several inches between Derick
and herself.

“Don’t
worry, sis, I was a perfect gentleman,” he said. “I can’t say the same for her
though . . .”

“I
should hope not, seeing as she’s a
girl
and all.”

Derick
paused, considering Hanna. “No . . . no. That’s not it.”

Fortunately
for Hanna, the appearance of Walter saved her from overflowing with shame. He
toddled over to his aunt, reaching his stubby arms out in supplication.

“Morning,
Walt,” Hanna said, drawing him in. Then she held out her open hand. “Binky,
please.”

Walter
considered her for a moment, then plunked it out of his mouth and dropped it in
her palm. “Bye-bye, EE-EE.”

“Where’s
CJ?” Hanna inquired. “He can’t still be asleep.”

“He
suckered Adam into a game of Go Fish,” Sophie answered.

“You
sure it’s Go Fish? I wouldn’t be surprised if Adam is teaching him how to play
Poker,” Derick warned.

“He
sucks at Poker,” Sophie pointed out.

“That’s
true.”

“Anyway,”
Sophie said to her brother, “I came up here to tell you that Adam says there’s
a storm coming in.”

“Does
he have undeveloped sailor senses I’m not aware of?”

“One
of the nifty contraptions below printed out a warning.”

Derick
descended the steps into the galley, followed by Sophie, Hanna, and Walter,
ripping the paper off the printer. Sure enough, a low-pressure system was
rolling in from Canada. “Not good,” Derick mumbled as he studied the weather
pattern. Suddenly aware of all the anxious eyes and ears behind him, he turned.
“But if we get underway now we’ll be able to avoid the worst of it.”

Adam
and Derick lost no time in rigging the
Asp
, while Hanna and Sophie made
sure everything below was secure. The return trip seemed to take twice as long.
The water was choppy and difficult the whole way home. Obviously Derick had
been in worse weather—the southern ocean, for starters—where the mountainous
waves were ruthless coming around the horn of South America. But for something
that could barely be considered ocean this close to land, the water was putting
up a good fight. He didn’t want anyone else to panic so he kept a level head.
They didn’t make it to Old Lyme Harbor until after seven, by which time the sea
was throwing a toddler-sized tantrum.

☼

Derick
had sent Sophie with Hanna to help get the boys and all their stuff home while
the men returned the
Asp
to the rental place. Fat raindrops pummeled the
sand all the way back to Uppercross as the wind wailed under the coal-colored
sky. Hanna wondered how the weather could have turned so nasty in so little
time. Didn’t modern technology and Doppler radar guard against such things? By
the time Sophie, Hanna, and the boys came through the back door, all four of
them were drenched.

“Thank
goodness!” came Mary’s stressed voice as she bustled up to them and took Walter
from his aunt. “I’ve been texting you for hours! Where have you been?!”

Hanna
hadn’t bothered to tell Mary where they were going, and she assumed that they
would beat her and Charles back home. “We went to one of the local islands for
a couple nights,” said Hanna as Charles joined them. “When did you guys get
back?”

Mary
ignored the question, her eyes bugging out of her head. “Are you telling me
that you had my kids out on a boat in this weather?”

“The
boys were inside with Sophie and me the whole time, Mary. They weren’t in any
danger.”

“You
could have let me know! The next time—”

Mary’s
rant broke off abruptly when Charles put a calming hand on her back. She
glanced at her husband, closed her mouth, and inhaled a breath through her
nose.

Did
that just happen? Hanna took advantage of her silence. “I’m sorry, Mare—I
forgot to take my charger. I tried calling from Derick’s phone but the
reception wasn’t good enough in the storm. I didn’t mean for you to worry.”

After
taking a moment to compose herself, Mary hugged Hanna. “I was worried about you
too. I’m just glad you guys are okay.”

Hanna
had just begun to feel as if she was in an episode of
The
Twilight
Zone
, when Mary handed Walter to his dad and knelt in front of CJ. “You
look frozen! Let’s get you in the tub.”

“You
got some mail while you were gone,” Charles informed Hanna, pointing at a
manila envelope on the kitchen table. She scowled. Her mail had been put on
hold for the summer back in Harbor. Hanna was derailed from the mystery parcel
when Charles didn’t plop in front of the TV and leave Mary to deal with bath
time alone, as usual. Instead he followed his wife upstairs, presumably to
help. Their getaway had apparently been long overdue.

“Wow,”
Sophie commented once the Musgroves were upstairs.

“Yeah,”
Hanna agreed. “Maybe this storm is a wormhole and we’re in another dimension or
something.”

Sophie
gave a tired laugh. “I’m heading home—a hot bath sounds pretty sweet right
now.”

“See
you later, Sophie. Thanks for all your help with the boys.”

“Anytime,”
Sophie pledged with a wink, and then she slipped back outside. Hanna went
upstairs to change into some dry clothes, stopping off at Mary’s room on her
way back down to apologize again for making her worry. She tapped softly but
there was no response, so she cracked the door open a sliver.

CJ,
waiting for his turn in the tub, was regaling his mother with tales of Block
Island as she peeled his wet clothes off. She was actually listening—not
herding him off to bed, not plugging him into the TV—just listening.

Hanna’s
apology could wait.

Downstairs,
Hanna set her phone to charge, then picked up the envelope that was addressed
to her:

HANNA
ELLIOT

Uppercross
House

Old
Lyme Beach

There
was no return address, no postmark, no clue as to where it had come from. With
her curiosity piqued, Hanna broke the seal and upended it on the table.

On
first glance, she was totally confused as to what she was looking at. It could
have been fatigue, or some self-preservation instinct kicking in, blocking her
brain from processing what she was seeing.

It was
the picture in the top-left corner of
Star
magazine that she recognized
first, only because she’d memorized the image herself: Ella and Derick’s heads
together against a backdrop of fireworks. As she took in the rest of the cover,
adrenaline surged in her veins.

There
were a couple more of Derick and Ella, moments Hanna hadn’t witnessed due to
her avoidance of the whole situation. The other photos were moments she’d lived
herself, precious little snatches of time she’d tucked away inside herself for
safekeeping: the day she and Derick had taken the boys for ice cream at the
marina, the two of them side-by-side at the breakwater as he told her Maori
legends . . .

Bile
rose in Hanna’s throat as she read the headline:

 
WENTWORTH
TAKES ALL!

America’s
Cup Not Enough for This Sailor

If the
cover was horrific, the inside was ten times worse. Hanna knew that she
shouldn’t open it, shouldn’t look on pages 36 through 39 for the full story,
but it was a bit like passing the wreckage of a morbid car crash—she was
inexplicably drawn in.

More
pictures of Ella and Derick. More pictures of Derick and other girls she’d
never seen before. Hanna immediately knew that those pictures couldn’t possibly
have been taken this summer, because he’d either been with her or Ella the
entire time. By far the worst thing on the pages was the collage of shots taken
of Derick and Hanna with the boys. Having thoroughly sickened herself with the
photos, Hanna went ahead and read the article.

It was
the most sordid thing she’d ever laid eyes on, and nothing she could have ever
thought up herself. Not only did they accuse Derick of being a notorious
womanizer, but he had abandoned his team in favor of his preferred
sport—putting notches on his bedpost. And it didn’t stop there. The children he
had been seen with were his illegitimate offspring.

Who
had done this? Hanna groped inside the envelope for any clue, to no avail. Then
she flipped to the credit section at the end of the article, and there it was:

Photos
courtesy of Eli Williams

Eli?
Eli had taken all these pictures and turned every one of her special moments
into something ugly?

No, it
couldn’t be. It simply wasn’t possible. There was no way Eli could have gotten
some of these shots—like the one of Derick and Ella during fireworks. But then
Hanna remembered him beside her, clicking away at the sparks in the sky.