As soon as he had gone, she had been about to say. But he was pleased for her. A few people in the village had nodded amiably to her and obviously knew who she was. The vicar and his wife had introduced themselves to her. Now an old friend of her great-aunt’s and the woman’s daughter had come calling and had invited her to return the visit. Yet she had been here only a few days. Soon enough she would belong here, as he gathered she had never had a chance to belong when she lived at Bramble Hall.
She would surely be happy here—though she had not yet met her grandfather, of course.
They swam each afternoon. It was almost like a drug to Ben. He was going to have to spend the rest of the summer after he left here close to the sea—perhaps at Brighton, though that was rather too fashionable a resort for his tastes. When he was swimming he could almost forget that his legs were half crippled.
In the water, he could even frolic to a certain degree. Sometimes they would race, and when he won—which was not every time—he would wait for her and then sweep her up into his arms and twirl with her, demanding kisses for a prize. Sometimes he would chase her and dive and come up beneath her and tumble her in the water until they both came up gasping and shaking water from their eyes and laughing.
He felt as if years had tumbled off him to be washed away by the tide. He felt almost like a normal man. He felt exuberant and full of energy. He felt alive. And he lived for the moment. There was no point in anticipating his departure at the end of the week. He would deal with it when the time came.
And there was no point in worrying every time they made love about impregnating her. Either they were going to have an affair or they were not—and since they were, then they might as well simply enjoy it. If he left her with child, she would write and tell him so—she had promised that—and he would return and marry her. It was not what either of them wanted. At least … No, it was not what either of them wanted, but somehow they would work it out for the sake of the child.
It was perhaps a careless, irresponsible attitude to take, but Ben did not care. Sometimes one needed simply to surrender to happiness. Life offered little enough of it.
He was happy. He stayed at the cottage each day for dinner, which they always followed with tea and a leisurely conversation in the parlor. It somehow heightened the pleasure of their lovemaking, the fact that they did not tumble into bed at the earliest opportunity but first spent time enjoying each other’s company.
They made love in darkness. He knew it disappointed her when he extinguished the lamp, but he really could not bear to have her see him as he was.
She came on top of him again on the second night. But after they had slept a short while, he turned with her and lay on her as he took her again. It was a little uncomfortable at first, and he did not know if it would be possible to continue without changing position, but passion overcame pain, and he held her arms above her head, their fingers tightly laced, and loved her with slow thoroughness until they both shuddered into release. And his legs, aching and cramped as they were afterward, survived the ordeal.
She was beautiful and voluptuous, smooth-skinned and silky-haired and fragrant with that faint scent of gardenia always clinging about her. She was warm and passionate and uninhibited in her pleasure. And he marveled over the fact that he could make love, and that he could give pleasure as well as receive it. He had been unnecessarily afraid that he could cause nothing but revulsion in any woman with whom he attempted intimacies. It had been foolish of him.
Except that she had not seen him.
He was always careful to return to the village and the inn well before midnight. He supposed there was some talk and speculation anyway. It must be common knowledge, after all, that neither of her two servants lived in, that she had no lady companion, that she was alone from early evening to sometime before breakfast. But he did not want that talk to turn into open scandal.
Soon he would be gone and all talk would cease.
But he would not think of that yet. He had promised a week. He had promised it to both her and himself.
On the fifth day the sun still shone, though puffs of white cloud dotting the blue of the sky caused the occasional patch of shade and accompanying coolness. Ben went to the cottage with the gig as usual after luncheon, a towel and a dry pair of pantaloons in their bag beside him on the seat. When he drove past the house, however, there was no sign of Samantha in the garden as there usually was. Even the dog was nowhere in sight. She had still not come outside after he had unhitched the horse and walked back to the house.
She was in the sitting room, dressed smartly in a striped blue and cream muslin dress. She usually wore her oldest dresses to go swimming. And her hair had been styled in a high knot with curled tendrils at her temples and along her neck. She looked as pale as a ghost, or as pale as someone of her complexion who had spent much of the past week out in the sun could look. There was no smile on her face when she greeted him.
“Samantha?” he said, moving into the room and stopping to pat the tail-wagging dog on the head.
“I was foolish,” she said. “I ought to have said no. I did say no but not firmly enough. I want to go swimming with you. It is a nice day, and we have so little time left.”
He stood still in the middle of the room, leaning on his canes.
“What has happened?” he asked.
“I am expecting a visitor,” she said with some venom.
“Oh?” But he could somehow guess.
“He sent his secretary,” she said, “to discover if I am who I say I am, I suppose, though he said he had come to see if I would be at home for a visit from his employer this afternoon.”