"Might I say," Aidan said as Prue skipped off to join the children in their play, "that your handling of that ridiculous situation at breakfast this morning quite won my admiration, Joshua? Bringing the whole thing out into the open as you did was clearly the very best thing to do."
"I learned early," Joshua said, "not to play my aunt's games her way."
"But what if that man-Garnett, is it?-should bring along more witnesses?" Eve asked. "Today is all so lovely and so peaceful that I keep having to remind myself that someone is trying to frame you for murder."
"I have no worries about it." Joshua smiled. "It is just a nuisance of a matter that needs to be cleared up once and for all. Where is Freyja?"
"She found a hollow back there to sit in," Aidan said, indicating the cliffs behind him with his thumb. "I do believe she is awestruck."
Joshua knew just the place she must have found. It was like a scoop of land hollowed out with a giant cup, its floor grassy, its three sides a mixture of rock and firm earth. On the fourth side the cliffs fell away beyond a grassy lip almost sheer to the beach and sea beneath. It was a place that was sheltered from most winds unless they were coming directly from the south.
She was sitting in the middle of the hollow, her legs stretched out before her, her arms braced on the grass behind her taking her weight. She had changed out of the smart riding habit and hat she had worn this morning. Now she was wearing a muslin dress and a warm-looking cloak. Her hair, predictably, was loose down her back.
"This was my childhood fortress," he said, standing on the rim of the hollow above her, "and my ship's mast and my eagle's aerie and my haven for all sorts of dreams."
She lifted her face to the sun as he came down to stand and then sit beside her.
"I have never been fond of the sea," she said. "It has always seemed too vast to me, too mysterious, too . . . powerful. One could never control the sea, could one?"
"And you like to feel in control of everything?" he asked her.
"I am a woman," she said. "Women have very little control over anything in their lives. We are not even persons by right, but the property of some man. We have to fight for every bit of control we can wield over our own destinies. I have four powerful brothers. I have had to fight harder than most. But I could not fight the sea."
"Neither could I, if it is any comfort," he said. "The sea is there to remind us all how little and how powerless we really are. That is not necessarily a bad thing. We do dreadful things with the power we do have. But you sounded when you first spoke as if perhaps you have forgiven the sea."
"It is exalting too," she said. "All that freedom and energy. I feel as if I am gazing into eternity. The beach below is private, is it not? It belongs to Penhallow."
"It does," he said. "I'll take you there one day. It is wide and golden when the tide is out and nonexistent when the tide is in. It can be dangerous. The tide comes in fast at the end and one can be cut off from the valley if one is not careful to be back there in time."
"And if one is not?" she asked. "One drowns?"
"Or one climbs the cliff," he said. "I used to do it sometimes just for the thrill of it, even when the tide was out. It looks sheer, but of course there are numerous foot- and handholds. It's dangerous, though. One slip and I would have been dashed to pieces on my way down and you would never have met me."
"I would have climbed too if I had lived here with you," she said, her teeth bared, the reckless light of a challenge in her eyes. "And I would have raced you to the top."
He chuckled. "We will never know, will we?" he said.
She pointed ahead, out into the sea. "What is that island?" she asked him. "Is it inhabited?"
"It was a smuggling haunt a long time ago," he said. "But no longer, as far as I know. It is wild and deserted."
"Have you ever been there?" she asked.
"I used to row over there once in a while," he told her. "Sometimes with friends, more often alone. I liked the solitude, the chance to think and dream without interruption."
"It must be difficult to get to," she said. "The water looks choppy about it, and there are steep cliffs rising straight from the sea."
"There are a few harbors," he said. "Are you afraid of the sea?"
"I am not afraid of anything," she said, lifting her chin into the air in that characteristically arrogant gesture of hers.
"Liar," he said. "You are afraid."
"Nonsense!" she said while he kept a wary eye on her hands. But she kept them propped behind her. "Take me there. One day-tomorrow. Just you and me. Just the two of us."
He had not been on water in any small craft since that night. He had not even realized until this moment that he was reluctant to go back out. He gazed down at the sea where he and Albert had sat and argued until Albert had dived overboard and then refused to get back in. He turned his head and gazed at the point beyond the river where Albert had been standing chest-deep in water when he, Joshua, had deemed him safe and gone off around the next headland to clear his head and decide what his next move must be.
He closed his eyes, wishing that the memories would go away. All of them.
"I believe," Freyja said, "that you are the one who is afraid, Josh."
He turned his head to grin at her.
"Tomorrow?" he said. "Just the two of us? Are you willing to face such danger? And I am not referring to the boat ride."
She turned and looked at him, her eyebrows arched. She stared at him for long moments before answering, and he felt a distinct tightening in his groin.
"I am willing," she said at last. "But I do wish, Josh, that I could still see you now as I saw you when we were in Bath-as just a charming, shallow rake."
He grinned at her.
"But I am exactly those things, sweetheart," he said. "I just happen to have had an interesting childhood and to have got myself hopelessly entangled in a pile of nonsense before I left here. It has caught up to me now, it seems, and must be dealt with once and for all. But this is a minor hiccup in my frivolous life."
"I wish I could believe you," she said, sitting up and hugging her knees.
And he wished Prue had not suggested to him that Freyja was lonely. He wanted to think of her as strong and independent and contemptuous of all lesser mortals. Yet she had lost the man she had grown up to marry, and she had lost the man she had loved passionately. No, he had not really wanted to get to know Freyja Bedwyn any more than she had wanted to know him.
Their light flirtation in Bath had been so very enjoyable.
He grinned at her, and she continued to look haughtily back at him. But the usual light, flirtatious antagonism was no longer there between them. Something subtle had changed. He thought desperately of a way to lighten the atmosphere. But she foiled him by lifting one hand and setting her fingertips feather-light against his cheek. For a moment he had the absurd feeling that there was not enough air in the hollow to be drawn into his lungs. He lifted his hand to take hers, and turned his head to kiss her palm.
"Are you sure you do not want me to invite anyone else to join us on this island excursion?" he asked her.
"I am sure," she said. "No one else."
Lord! He was fit to explode. Much more of this and he would dive off the cliff to cool himself in the sea-except that the tide was out.
The devil of it was, Joshua thought as she leaned forward and set her lips against his, that he could no longer remember why their betrothal was fake, why they were going to have to end it sooner or later. There was a reason, was there not? Something about his not being ready to settle down? Something about her loving someone else?