To Have and to Hold (35 page)

"Rachel." He felt confused, disappointed. "I would do anything not to hurt you."

"But you haven't."

"Then what is it?"

"Nothing." She turned, reaching for him. "Nothing."

He closed his eyes, needing her to touch him. He felt her lips brush his cheek, the warm fan of her breath. "Tell me you're happy."

"I am." She lifted her arms and slipped them around his neck.

"Tell me ..."
Tell me you love me,
he thought, but he didn't say that. Too many lovers had said it to him, at this precise moment. He knew how cheap it was, and how easy the answer. "I wish you could talk to me," he said instead. "I know why it's hard for you, but I wish you could. It's something we shall have to work on."

Her straight, sweet mouth softened at the corners. "Will we work on it?"

"Yes," he said positively. "We will."

She touched his shoulder, the hollow of his throat. "I wonder for how long," he thought she murmured. Before he could answer, she drew him down, embracing him. "I would like to tell you what that felt like—what you did to me. But I don't have any words. I don't think anyone could describe it."

"Many have tried," he said, smiling determinedly.

"No—hopeless—there aren't any words. But I could show you. I'd like to show you."

An inkling of the cause of her wistfiilness glimmered at the corners of his consciousness, but when he tried, he couldn't catch it; like a faint, faraway star, he couldn't see it when he looked at it directly. Her warm lips were enticing him, her hands stroking him to life. She kissed her own tears from his lips, and his mind began to shred at the edges. He would think about it later, he told himself, turning and turning with her in the sweet-smelling grass.

17

Plymouth Sound was alive with boats, so many that the dark blue water served as a mere backdrop, a recessive frame for the colorful tapestry of white sails, black masts, and bright red chimney stacks. Rachel and Sebastian were peering at the ships through side-by-side telescopes mounted on a stone wall at the end of the Hoe, a popular promenade on a headland overlooking the bay.

"Look at that one," Sebastian told her, pointing. "Beautiful, isn't it?"

"Which?"

"Just behind the second blue buoy, almost—"

"The barkentine?"

"Barkentine? Is that what it is?"

"The one with three masts? Yes, I think so. If it had two, it would be a brigantine." Straightening, she glanced at him. He was staring at her as if she'd just said something remarkable, like the names of all the constellations in alphabetical order. She smiled, shrugged. "I read an encyclopedia once. Abridged," she added when he looked amazed. "It's left me with a peculiar expertise in any number of obscure subjects."

"Has it?"

"Yes, it has." She didn't say so, but as a matter of fact she
could
name the constellations, although not in alphabetical order.

A burst of the bracing wind pushed at her, stinging her cheeks and making her eyes water; she grabbed her hat to keep it from blowing off. Gulls swooped, screaming, for the bits of bread an elderly couple nearby was tossing over the low stone wall. Beyond the ships, beyond the green slopes of Mt. Edgcumbe, a cloudless sky met the endless blue line of the Channel at the knife-edge of the horizon. It was a perfect day, the kind Rachel had often dreamt of in prison, a day so achingly beautiful it gave her a hurtful, too-full feeling in the chest, and had her more than once on the brink of tears.

Sebastian turned back toward the Sound, shading his eyes with his hand. The sea breeze blew his hair straight back from his forehead and whipped the two ends of his wine-colored necktie over his shoulder. His profile against the stark azure sky was sharp, hard, and indescribably handsome. She loved the haughty angle of his aristocratic nose, the clean line of his jaw, the way his voluptuous mouth could curve in a smile of unbearable sweetness just for her. He turned his head and looked at her then, and for the instant their gazes held, she saw softness in his sea-colored eyes, then awareness, then a flare of pure sensual anticipation.

She looked away first, flushing. He slipped his hand under her arm and pressed her to his side, oblivious to bystanders. She felt the back of his hand against her breast for a half second before he let her go. "Shall we find a place to have lunch?" he asked lightly. In a softer voice he added, "Or shall we go back to the Octagon?"

"Lunch," she answered, but not very forcefully. Returning to their hotel room at one o'clock in the afternoon would be for only one purpose. Tempting as it was, she couldn't get past a notion that she ought to be opposed to such daytime dalliances. She was a fallen woman with that most onerous of burdens, at least according to her lover: a middle-class conscience.

"Lunch," he said, with mock wistfulness, and they began to amble up the grassy hill, away from the sea. The Hoe was Plymouth's finest amenity, a spacious promontory overlooking the Sound, with flower-lined walks and delightful gardens, and views of the estuary reaching from Mill Bay to Sutton Pool. To see the sky and the ocean like this, great gulps of the wide world in vistas that stretched literally for miles—it was almost too much. It was another of Sebastian's gifts, this clandestine three-day escape from Lynton and everyone who knew them, but sometimes Rachel felt she needed his hand to anchor her to the ground. The opportunity to stare at dozens,
hundreds
of people was wonderful, too, but even more dizzying. She'd been doing it for the better part of two days, and the novelty hadn't worn off. Children in particular fascinated her; for nearly an hour this morning she'd watched, engrossed, while a ragtag group of boys sailed toy boats and played fox-and-geese around a fish pond in the Hoe. What Sebastian thought of her preoccupation she couldn't tell, but he'd indulged her in it without impatience or complaint. A most generous gift.

They found a pretty eating house in Alfred Street, from whose second-story window they could see the people on the promenade and smell the sea. Sebastian Ordered prawns and mussels with lemon and butter, a creamy chowder made with clams and succulent oysters, two salads, one with tomatoes and the other with watercress and endive, a whole loaf of bread and a crock of Devon butter, fresh blueberry tarts still hot from the oven, a platter of cut melons and fruit with a dish of whipped cream in the center—

"Stop!" Rachel protested. "There's no more room on the table." Much less in her stomach.

Unperturbed, Sebastian refilled her glass from a bottle of Bordeaux wine and clinked glasses in a silent toast. "We might be hungry again later. We're not in a hurry, are we? Unless you want to go now—there's a band concert in the Esplanade at three o'clock; we could go and hear it if you like.''

"I might have said yes half an hour ago, but now I can't move. Anyway, this is lovely, isn't it?" She gestured toward their open window, and the dim, cool, nearly empty restaurant at their backs. "I think I could sit here all day."

"Then that's what we'll do."

"No, they close at two-thirty," she reminded him.

He sent her a bland look. "We won't worry about that."

"Oh." He must have given money to the proprietor. It was something she'd expect of Lord D'Aubrey, but for the last two days he'd been Mr. James Hammond, and she was Mrs. Hammond. "Why Hammond?" she'd whispered when he'd registered at the Octagon. Because his name was Sebastian James Ostley Selborne-Hammond Verlaine. Did she like any of those better? Hammond was fine, she'd said from the corner of her mouth, and he'd smiled back conspiratorially.

But privately, the need to lie distressed her, even though she knew the subterfuge was for her protection, not his. And although it was foolish, she couldn't help wondering how many times, in how many other hotels, he'd signed the registry for "Mr. and Mrs. Hammond."

"Would you like to go on a picnic tomorrow?" he asked, interrupting her reverie. "There's a beach at Storehouse Pool. Or we could take the ferry to Crem-ill. We might even go for a swim if it's fair."

"But we have no bathing costumes."

"We'll buy them."

"Not on Sunday."

"Ah, Sunday. Well, then, we'll go tonight. In the nude."

She laughed at him—although she considered it highly likely that he wasn't joking. "I've never swum in the sea before. Once when I was a child my family went to Lyme on a holiday, but it rained every day and we never bathed. It was a bitter disappointment." He touched her hand in sympathy. "Tell me about your travels," she urged, gazing out at the ships in the bay. "I've been to London once, but I was twelve and my memories are very childish. Have you been everywhere?"

'' Not everywhere.''

"To Europe, though."

"Yes."

"Tell me about it."

"I'll take you there."

She only smiled.

He leaned back in his chair, holding his wineglass to the light and squinting at it, and began to speak of the places he'd been and the sights he'd seen. As he talked, she had the sense that he was answering just to please her, not because the subject held any interest for him at this moment. And when, after a few minutes, he tapered off and stared rather distractedly out at the gulls wheeling in the blue over the headland, she didn't prompt him with more questions. She let the silence lengthen until he noticed it, sent her a wry look, and began to speak of what they would do tonight.

Last night they'd gone to the Royal Theater to see a play called
Petticoats,
a silly, mildly risqué revue, very tame for him but deliciously shocking to her. She'd never dreamed women were allowed to appear in public with so little on—outside Paris, that is, or possibly Bora Bora. Which showed what she knew, and how provincial she truly was for all her encyclopedic knowledge.

When Sebastian trailed off again and frowned down abstractedly at a spoon he was turning over and over on the tablecloth, she had to ask, "Is something wrong?"

"No."

"Would you like to go home today instead of tomorrow? This is the day they're delivering your new horse," she remembered suddenly. "If you want to—"

"No, I don't want to go home. Do you?" She shook her head. "I wasn't thinking about the mare."

"What, then?"

He looked at her speculatively. She began to think he wouldn't answer when he said, "I'm thirty years old, Rachel. As of yesterday."

"Yesterday was your birthday? I didn't know—I'm sorry. Happy birthday, Sebastian." She touched his sleeve, trying to gauge his mood; he patted her hand absently. "I wish I'd known."

"It doesn't matter."

"Does it make you sad?"

"No, not sad. Thoughtful. It's a time to be thoughtful, don't you think? Especially if one hasn't been particularly reflective before. Some would say thirty's a little late to begin, but better late than never, I suppose." He sipped his wine. "Needless to say, I haven't come to any conclusions yet about my life. Except that I'm not very proud of it—but that's hardly a new insight."

She stared at his stern profile, feeling close to him and shut out at the same time. "I believe self-discovery is a process," she said slowly. "It has no end."

"Yes." He looked up. "But I think you're a bit ahead of me in the process."

"It's possible. Certainly I've had more opportunities." She knew they were both thinking that being locked up alone in a small room left opportunities for little else. "Do you know, it's not as painful for me to think about prison as it used to be. Or even to speak of it. At least to you.''

"I'm glad." He sat back in his chair, taking her hand and lacing their fingers together.

"You've helped me to heal. Thank you," she said simply. It seemed strange that she'd never said it to him before.

He gave a quick, dismissive shake of his head. "But you're still sad sometimes. I can see it in your eyes."

"Oh, no. I'm not, truly, I'm happy, I promise you." To the extent that it was true, it was because of him. Freedom, employment, friends—of course they had all contributed to her metamorphosis from the wan, speechless ghost behind the prisoner's bar, but the primary agent of the change was Sebastian. She'd stopped asking herself if he could have been any man, if she'd been so needy and helpless that
anyone
who held her future in his hands could have made her love him. It wasn't true. She loved him, Sebastian Verlaine, because there was a softness in him he couldn't even see himself, and a decency, and a clean, hard-edged integrity that was no less real for being, until lately, somewhat . . . underutilized. He was on a journey of his own, his life riddled with questions and dilemmas he'd never faced before. It was himself he was testing, his philosophy he was trying to understand when he pushed against the boundaries of convention and morality. She loved his energy and tirelessness, his constancy. How different they were: her answer to the catastrophe that had wrecked her life had been to withdraw from life; to die, in effect, in every way she could while her heart still beat and her blood still circulated. Their plights were nothing alike, although something had scarred him, too—the coldness of his family, the absolute lovelessness of his childhood— but he'd confronted his handicap by
embracing
life in all its uncouth, sensuous, too-human varieties.