But now was not the time to consider his future.
Now was the time for now. Now was one of those rare and precious moments with which one was gifted from time to time. That was all it was. A moment. But it was one to be enjoyed to the full while it lasted and treasured for a lifetime after it was over.
“And it is not even over yet,” she said, echoing his thought.
“No.”
There was still dinner to be enjoyed at the cottage. And then …
He was not at all sure it would be wise. He could, if he chose, enumerate in his mind all the many reasons—and there were many, for both of them—why it would not be. But he was not going to think. He was going to hold on to the moment. The rest of the day would look after itself.
She had turned onto her front and had begun to swim slowly back toward the beach. He followed her.
“Stay here,” she said, when she was able to stand in the water. “I shall fetch your canes.”
The tide had ebbed a bit, he could see. It was a farther walk to the rock now than it had been when they came in.
He trod water and watched her return across the sand, his canes held in one of her hands. Her shift clung to her body, leaving virtually nothing to the imagination. Yet she seemed unself-conscious.
She was beautiful beyond belief. And desirable beyond words.
“Life is really not fair,” she cried, splashing back into the water. “It was freezing coming in, and now it is freezing getting out.” She held the canes high as she waded toward him.
“Whoever told you,” he asked her, “that life was fair?”
He took his canes from her. It was time to be earth-bound again.
The dog was prancing at the edge of the water, barking at them, impatient for them to emerge.
Ben leaned one shoulder against the rock when he had reached it and rubbed his towel over his upper body and his hair. He would change into the dry pantaloons he had brought with him if she would turn her back.
“I did not bring a dry shift,” she said, and his hand paused with the towel held to one side of his head. “I thought I would let it dry here in the sun.”
But she did not mean what he thought she meant, he realized when he saw her spread her towel on the sand. She was not about to strip it off.
“Shall we lie down and soak up some sunshine before going back to the cottage?” she suggested.
“Have you heard of a beached whale?” he asked her.
She looked at him, arrested.
“You would not be able to get up again, would you?” she said and then laughed. “I am so sorry. I did not think of that. How foolish of me.”
“Lie down,” he said. “I will sit here.”
She regarded the stone ledge on which they had sat yesterday.
“You can stretch out along it,” she said, “and relax better. You could get up from there, could you not?”
And so they lay side by side on their towels, though she was three feet below him on the beach. He shaded his eyes with one forearm.
“Are not ladies supposed to protect their complexions from the merest suggestion of sunlight?” he asked.
“I have the complexion of a Gypsy,” she said. “Even when I have not been in the sun people frown upon me because my face is not all porcelain and peaches and roses. Why bother depriving myself of feeling the heat and light of the sun on my face, then? You cannot know how irksome it was for almost four months to have to wear a black veil every time I set foot over the doorstep—when I did step outside, that was. Oh, Ben, there was not even any daylight in the house. Matilda insisted that the curtains be almost closed across every window. Sometimes, when she was not in the room with me, I used to stand in the band of daylight and breathe in gulps, as though I had been suffocating.”
“Those days are gone,” he said.
“Yes,” she agreed. “Thank God. And I am not blaspheming.”
They were probably both going to end up with some sunburn. He did not care.
“Am I horribly wicked—?”
“No,” he said, not giving her time to finish.
“Just over five months ago,” she said, “Matthew was alive.”
“And just over five months ago,” he said, “you were spending every moment of your time with him, tending him and comforting him as well as you were able.”
“It is difficult to keep the world at bay, is it not?” she said. “I swore that I would not think of a thing while we were down here except the sheer enjoyment of being here.”
Without thinking he stretched down a hand toward her, and she took it and held it.
“You can come here whenever you want for the rest of your life,” he reminded her.
“But not with you.”
He could think of no answer to that, and she did not seem to want to elaborate. They lay for a while, hand in hand. Then she got to her feet and stood looking down at him. The front of her shift had dried. It did not cling quite so provocatively.
“I shall wonder about you for the rest of my life,” she said. “I shall wonder what happened to you. I shall wonder if you found what you were looking for. I suppose I will never know.”
“Perhaps,” he said, “you will write to my sister at some time in the future, when you feel more secure here.”
“Ah, yes, of course,” she said. “She will tell me about you. And then perhaps you will learn something of me too. If you wish to do so, that is.”
He took one of her hands in his again and drew it to his lips.