“It was unlikely, of course,” she continued. “I always knew that it was most unlikely. If ever I managed to get away from my uncle, I would need to work for a living, and nobody pays a woman much for anything. I’d have to scrimp to save for a rainy day, and count myself fortunate if I could someday spare the coin for a train ticket to Brighton.” Her fingers traced his cheekbone. “But Capri made it possible to go on. It was my flame in the dark, my escape when there was no escape.”
He tightened his arm about her—he hadn’t even realized he had his arm about her.
“I know everything there is to know about Capri. Or at least everything people thought worth writing down in travelogues: its history, its topography, the etymology of its name. I know what grows in its interior and what swims in its waters. I know the winds that come with each season.”
Her hand rubbed his back as she spoke. Her words were quiet, almost hypnotic. She might have successfully lulled him back to sleep were it not for the fact that her body was directly pressed into his.
“So tell me,” he said.
She must have felt it, the physiological change on his part. But she did not pull away. If anything, she fitted herself more snugly to him.
“It is probably quite overrun these days. One book mentioned that there is a colony of writers and artists from England, France, and Germany.”
He could not stop himself anymore. He kissed her throat, his fingers unhooking her nightdress. Her skin, the smoothness of it, made his heart lose its beat.
“Of course,” she went on, her voice increasingly unsteady, “I ignore their presence entirely so I may preserve my illusion of a sparsely populated paradise, empty except for the sea and the sky and me.”
“Of course,” he said.
He peeled her nightdress from her, pulled his own nightshirt over his head, and turned them so that she was on top of him.
“What do you think about when you wake up from nightmares?” she asked, her words barely audible.
He tugged off the ribbon at the end of her plait and loosened her hair. It fell, like a cloud, about his face and shoulders.
“This,” he said. “This is what I think about.”
Not the sexual act per se, but the presence of another. A closeness that would cocoon and shield him.
He had thought of her the last time he had the nightmare, at Highgate Court. As she ignored the presence of foreigners crowding the rugged shores of Capri, he had selectively forgotten her antagonism toward him—and his resentment toward her—and remembered only her sweetest smiles.
One did what one must to get through the night.
But now she was pliant and willing above him. Now she not only permitted, but conspired for him to penetrate deep inside her. Now she whimpered and sighed with pleasure, her lips against his ear, her breaths invoking waves of almost violent desire.
And when his release came, it was heat, fury, and a powerful, almost rapturous, oblivion.
Her breaths fluttered his hair. Her heart beat against his chest. Her hands sought his in the dark and laced their fingers.
A closeness that cocooned and shielded him.
Yet perfect peace eluded him in that drowsy warmth. Something was wrong. Perhaps everything was wrong. He did not want to think.
Night was now his refuge. Beyond dawn, chaos reigned. But in the dark there was only her embrace.
He murmured a thank-you, and let sleep overtake him.
It dawned like any other morning in the country: birdsong, the lowing of dairy cows in the pasture behind the house, the snipping shears of his gardeners, already at work.
Even the sounds he himself made were peaceful and domestic. Water falling and splashing in a washbasin, drawers opening and closing softly, curtains pulling back, and shutters released for the day.
She was still comfortably ensconced in his bed. Her breaths were slow and even. Her hair, the color of sunrise, fanned out on the pillow. One of her arms was outside the bedspread; it was slung across the bed, as if reaching for him.
In her sleep she seemed entirely harmless, almost angelic, the kind of woman who inspired uncomplicated devotion. He lifted her exposed arm and tucked it back under the cover. She snuggled deeper into the bedding, her lips curving in contentment.
He turned away.
With his back to her, he snapped his braces into place over his shoulders and donned his waistcoat. He rummaged in the tray atop his chest of drawers and selected a pair of cuff links. Then, abruptly, he was aware that she was awake and that she was watching him.
“Good morning,” he said, without turning around, his fingers busy with the fastening of his cuff links.
“Morning,” she mumbled, her voice still thick with sleep.
He said nothing else for a while, but continued to dress. Behind him the bed shifted and creaked: She must be getting into her nightdress, which he’d found under his person this morning, along with her hair ribbon—a slender pastel reminder of what had transpired in the night.
“I’m going for a walk,” he said, shrugging into a tweed coat—still without looking at her. “You are welcome to join me if you’d like.”
What he was about to say to her he wanted said far from his home.
“Yes, of course,” she answered. “I’d be delighted.”
The barely suppressed excitement in her voice was a whiplash across his conscience. “I’ll wait for you below.”
“I won’t be long,” she promised. “I just need to dress and have a word with the nurse.”
He paused at the door and glanced at her at last. After today, he would not see her again thus, glad and hopeful.
“Take your time,” he said.
Elissande dressed in record speed, looked in on her still sleeping aunt, and spoke to Mrs. Green, the nurse she’d hired on Mrs. Dilwyn’s recommendation after coming to Devon. Mrs. Green assured her that she would see to Mrs. Douglas’s breakfast and bath, and then have her take a turn in the garden for exercise and fresh air.
Mrs. Green was a very kind woman, but firmer than Elissande. Under her supervision, Aunt Rachel could already walk a short distance unsupported, a feat that was nothing less than miraculous.
Now, to complete Elissande’s happiness, her husband had made love to her. And he’d invited her to come with him on his walk.
They didn’t speak. But they did not need to. His company was enough. That she was by his side was enough. This was their new beginning.
They crossed the River Dart at the market town of Totnes, where they had tea and a quick breakfast, then continued north, walking along country lanes that were entirely new to her, past rolling fields and several tiny hamlets, into a dense copse, and emerged from the trees onto the grounds of a ruined castle.
It must have been a good five miles. She would have thought herself exhausted, but she was only exultant.
“Do you ever talk?” she asked finally, panting a little from the climb up to the castle.
“I believe the general consensus is that I talk and talk and talk.”
She took off her hat and fanned herself. “I mean, when you are not playing your role.”
He didn’t answer, but looked east toward the sea—the castle was situated on a sharp rise of land that gave a panoramic view. She again wondered why he led this double life. But she’d had her reasons, and she assumed his reasons must be equally strong and compelling.
“Tell me something,” he said.
She was terribly flattered. He so seldom asked her anything. “What would you like to know?”
“You inquired into Capri when you met Mrs. Canaletto. You mentioned Capri again when you wanted all of us to leave England and hide somewhere. And from what you said last night”—he thrust one hand into his pocket—“obviously you’ve thought a great deal about Capri your entire life.”