Everyone else had proceeded to make plans of their own. The marchioness was to go visiting and informed Constance that she would accompany her-with the Reverend Calvin Moore. Chastity was to take everyone else down onto the beach. Morgan was going to take canvas and paints with her. Eve had made it clear that no one was even to think of going swimming.
Freyja turned her head and was surprised to find that it would still move on her neck. She could see them all there now on the sand, tiny figures looking enviably safe, some of them running, a few walking more sedately. Three of them, on the edge of the water, were waving. Prue and the children? Freyja lifted one hand and waved back.
She was suffocatingly aware that there were two blankets folded in the bottom of the boat. She had noticed them as soon as Josh and the fisherman whose boat this was had handed her in. She had stepped on them, in fact. If she were to ask what their purpose was, he would tell her that they were there to be wrapped about them if the wind should feel too chilly, but his eyes would laugh at her as he said it.
She did not ask.
"If you wish, sweetheart," Joshua said, "we can turn back right now."
She regarded him haughtily. "I am not afraid," she told him. "Not of anything. Are you?"
But he merely smiled his slow smile at her.
She noticed how the muscles of his arms and thighs flexed as he rowed. If the boat should tip over, she thought, she would simply swim. So would he. He would not let her drown. And she would not let him drown. She felt herself relaxing as she always did when she had once confronted any fear that threatened to daunt her.
At the same time her breath quickened and the blood hummed through her veins. What would happen on the island? Would she let it happen? Cause it to happen? Prevent its happening? Or would the question not even arise? Would they simply enjoy an hour of walking about and admiring the views and then return to the safety of the mainland?
For a while she thought they were not going to be able to land at all. The cliffs seemed too high, the shore too rocky, the sea too rough. But Joshua rowed around to a narrow, sandy beach in a small inlet, and he jumped out and pulled the boat up out of the water. He leaned over the side and slung the blankets over one shoulder.
Well, that answered one question at least, she thought, watching him.
"We may want to sit down for a while," he said, grinning at her. "Unless you plan to sit here all afternoon."
She ignored his outstretched hand and climbed rather inelegantly over the side to the sand. He hauled the boat even higher before leading the way up over sand and loose pebbles and rough rocks to the land above. She scrambled after him.
The island was larger than she had thought. It stretched ahead in undulating dunes and depressions, a mixture of green, coarse grass, yellow sand, bare rocks, yellow gorse, and pink thrift. Seagulls were screaming overhead and from their perches on rocks and dunes. The air was crisp and salty. The sea was visible all around.
Joshua took her hand in his as they stood on a small promontory drinking in the elemental beauty of it all.
"It is strange," he said. "I had forgotten that there is much I loved about Cornwall."
"In such a place," she said, lifting her face to the breeze, "it is easy to believe in God and eternity without the interference of any religion."
"You had better not let the Reverend Calvin Moore hear you say that," he said. But there was a warmth in his voice, a tenderness that caught at her breathing again and alarmed her.
"Did I give you permission to hold my hand?" she asked.
He chuckled softly and raised their clasped hands to bring the back of hers against his lips.
"Too late for that, sweetheart," he said. "You invited me here, remember? Just the two of us? There is another cove on the eastern side. It will be more sheltered from the wind than the rest of the island. Shall we go and sit there for a while?"
"Of course," she said, her knees feeling decidedly wobbly. What were they doing? After this business with Garnett was cleared up and presumably once the ball was over, they were to leave Penhallow and go their separate ways. They would never see each other again. Was she quite sure she wanted this memory? But she realized even as she asked herself the question that really she had no choice now. Whatever happened-or did not happen-this afternoon would be forever seared on her memory.
Would she find Josh as difficult-or as easy-to get over as she had found Kit? She had never lain with Kit.
She stood gazing out at the endless expanse of blue-and-green water as he spread one blanket over the coarse grass above the little cove of a beach to which he had led her. It was indeed more sheltered here. One could almost imagine that it was summer again-a cool summer's day. He set down the other blanket, still folded. Presumably they would cover themselves with it if they were chilly.
Afterward.
She drew a slow breath. It was not too late. He would not force her.
The last time it had been easy. There had been no decision to make. She had been in the throes of an urgent, blind passion occasioned by the pain of the christening party and something he had said to anger her-she could no longer remember what. Today there was too much time for thought.
But one thought pulsed with the beat of her blood. She wanted him. She wanted the memory to take with her into the future. She could no longer think of protecting herself from the sort of pain she had known before with Kit. It was already too late.
She had no wisdom at all, it seemed, in her choice of men to love.
She sat down on the blanket, drew up her knees, and clasped her arms about them, all without looking at him. He came down beside her, sprawled on his side, his head propped on one hand.
"So, sweetheart," he said softly, "why are we here?"
She shrugged her shoulders and kept them hunched. "To see the island?" she said. "To spend some time together?"
"For what end?" he asked her. "Because we are betrothed?"
"But we are not," she said.
"No." He was silent for a while. "Why are we here, Free?"
He was going to make her spell it out, was he? Well, that was fair enough. She had asked to be brought here. She had asked that they come alone. Was she now to act like a wilting violet and expect the man to take charge of the situation? She turned her head to look at him. His eyes were smiling back at her but without either the mockery or the wicked laughter she had expected to see there.
"To make love," she said.
They gazed at each other while the air fairly crackled between them.
"Ah, yes," he said, his voice low. "To make love. We will do it properly, will we, sweetheart, without frenzy, without any haste at all? So that we will both have happy memories of our brief weeks together?"
He sat up and pulled off his Hessian boots and his stockings. He shrugged out of his coat and unbuttoned his waistcoat. Freyja lifted her arms and drew the pins out of her hair. By the time she shook it free, he was pulling his shirt off over his head.
She had hardly had a chance to look at him in the gamekeeper's hut at Alvesley. But his beauty, she discovered now, was not confined to his face. His shoulders, his chest, his arms-all were strongly muscled, beautifully proportioned male perfection. She set one hand on his back and spread her fingers. He was warm and inviting.
"I have wanted this," she admitted, "ever since the last time."
"Can you not do better than that?" he asked her, turning to her, smiling. "I have wanted this since before the last time. I believe it all started in a certain inn room when you were barefoot and wild-haired and furious." He moved his head closer until his lips brushed hers. "You must be by far the most desirable woman I have ever known, Freyja Bedwyn." His tongue stroked lightly back and forth across her lips, causing her to sizzle with sensation from her lips down to her toes.