“I am not even going to venture an answer to that,” he said. “I am ever the gentleman.”
By the time the water reached her waist and then higher, Samantha thought the idea worse than just silly. His arm was a little less heavy about her shoulders, she noticed. And then it was gone altogether and he had ducked beneath the surface of the water. He came up, shaking his head so that she was showered with droplets, and spreading his arms along the water. And he was standing alone, she realized. His dark hair was plastered to his head. Water was beaded on his face and eyelashes.
He was all handsome, virile masculinity, and he was upright, unaided by either canes or her shoulders. Oh, how absolutely gorgeous he must once have been.
He grinned at her, and she grasped her nose between a thumb and forefinger and went under. She came up gasping and sputtering.
“Oh,” she said, “I see what you mean by buoyancy and taste. Here comes a swell.”
But they had come too far in for it to break over them in foam. Samantha lifted her feet and bobbed over it at the same time as Ben lay back on the water and floated. He was not, then, going to sink like a stone and drown.
She watched as he turned onto his front and began to swim in a slow crawl, his powerful arms doing most of the work, though his legs were moving too, propelling him along. She swam to catch up with him and realized that she had been right yesterday. She had not forgotten how. Neither had he. She would have whooped with delight if she had had the breath.
She drew level with him, and they swam side by side, stroke for stroke.
It seemed to Samantha that she had never been happier in her life. If only they could swim forever and never have to go back to shore.
Ben could have wept. Not only could he remember how to swim, but also he could swim. He could move his legs without pain.
He could move.
Without pain.
He was free.
He did not know how far he had swum before he became aware of Samantha alongside him. And that was strange since he had been aware of her with every fiber of his being ever since he set eyes upon her back at the cottage. And when she had stripped down to her shift … Well, it was difficult to find words. And then when he had stepped up beside her to set his arm about her shoulders …
Her very dark hair was plastered to her head and held in its tight knot at her neck. Two shapely bare arms came out of the water, one after the other in a steady, graceful rhythm, and slid back beneath the surface. He could see the outline of her body through the water, her shift like a second skin. Her legs, propelling her along, were long and sturdy and shapely and mostly bare. She was not slender, but she was beautifully, perfectly proportioned. She was every man’s dream of femininity.
She caught his eye and smiled. He smiled back.
She rolled onto her back and floated, her arms out to the sides. He floated beside her. There was not a cloud in the sky.
This, he thought, was one of those rare, perfect moments. He wanted to capture it and keep it and treasure it so that he could look at it from time to time and feel again what he felt now. But of course, he could do just that. It was called memory.
“You were swimming,” she said.
“So were you.”
“You were swimming, Ben.”
He turned his head to look at her. “You were right. I can swim.”
If he had been able to get down onto the beach at Penderris, perhaps he would have discovered it long ago. If he had been able to spend more time at Kenelston after leaving Penderris, perhaps he would have gone to the lake and made the discovery there. But it had never occurred to him that there was an element in which he would not be handicapped—or not completely so, anyway. So far he had tried only a very leisurely crawl. But perhaps he could build strength in the water by challenging himself to try more vigorous strokes. Perhaps he had not, after all, reached the limit of his physical capabilities.
She turned her head to look back at him. “I am right occasionally, you know.”
Their fingertips touched inadvertently as they bobbed on the water, and then they touched deliberately. He rested his hand on top of hers, and she turned it so that they were palm to palm.
“I am glad there has been this day,” she said.
“So am I.”
“Will you remember this when you have traveled far and wide and gathered enough material for ten books?” she asked him. “And become hugely famous?”
“I will remember,” he assured her. “And will you remember when you have an army of friends and admirers here and are busily involved in village and parish life? And when you have learned Welsh and have sung to help raise the roof off the church?”
She smiled. “I will remember.”
They floated for a while longer. The dog, he could see when he looked, was stretched out by the rock and the towels and their discarded clothes. The sun was warm.
There was nothing for her in England. There was nothing for him here. There was nothing there for him either unless he asserted himself at Kenelston or else set up house in London or Bath or somewhere else where he could establish some sort of routine and some sort of social life. He was not going to be a traveler. He could not bear the thought of doing it alone. And he never wanted to see a journal or a blank sheet of paper again. Perhaps he ought to try some sort of career. In business or commerce, perhaps, or the law? Or in the diplomatic service? He had never before given serious thought to actually working, except as a landowner on his own land. He did not need to work, after all, since he was in possession of a sizable fortune.