It was human nature, he had realized long ago, always to want the one thing one could not have, even if one had been gifted with a superabundance of other blessings. He had always longed and longed to be able to go down onto the beach at Penderris. Hugo had once offered to carry him down, but he had declined so firmly that the offer had never been renewed. Not that Hugo could not have done it. He was as strong as any ox. But Ben would have been humiliated. He had consoled himself with the thought that there was nothing down there except sand to get in his hair and his mouth.
“I was hoping you would come early,” she said, falling into step beside him, her hands clasped at her back, while Tramp went loping ahead of them. “I have been longing to go down there myself, but I wanted you with me the first time. I want to be able to remember that.”
That? The fact that he had been with her this first time?
“I have a confession to make,” she said. “I have never, ever been on a beach. Is that not strange when my mother grew up here?”
He turned his head to look at her. Her exertions in the garden and the sea breeze had whipped a healthy color into her cheeks. Her eyes were bright.
“May I suggest,” he said, “that you remove your shoes and stockings before going out onto the sand? Otherwise you will have your shoes full of grit before you have walked any distance, and you will spend the rest of the day shaking sand out of everything and fighting blisters.”
She laughed. “And you too?”
“I am wearing boots,” he said. Besides, he was not about to expose any part of his legs in her presence.
“It sounds like a very improper suggestion, sir,” she said, “but a very sensible one nonetheless.”
She looked about and chose a flat-topped rock at the bottom of the slope on which to seat herself. She removed her shoes and stockings while he watched. Too late it occurred to him that it would have been far more gentlemanly to turn his back. She had slim legs, trim ankles, narrow, pretty feet—which he had seen before at the inn above the Wye Valley. She rolled her stockings neatly and placed them inside her shoes, and then she stood and set her shoes on the rock.
“Oh,” she said, wriggling her toes in the mixture of grass and sand on which they stood, “that feels lovely. But it does feel sinful to be unshod outdoors.”
They walked through the gap onto a wide, flat beach. Sand stretched to right and left until it met outcroppings of rock that enclosed the area into a private beach. Rocks rose behind them on either side of the gap to provide further privacy. The tide was low, though the breakers along the edge of the water indicated that it was coming in. The breeze was fresher here, though at the same time the sun was warmer. Seagulls cried overhead.
Ben’s canes sank into the sand, but he found walking here somewhat easier than on hard ground. Samantha ran ahead of him a little way and then stopped and turned, her arms stretched out to the sides.
“Freedom!” she cried, just like an exuberant child. “Oh, tell me this is no illusion, Ben.”
The dog pranced about her, barking.
“This is freedom,” Ben said obediently, grinning at her, and she tipped back her head to look at the sky and twirled about in three complete circles while he laughed. Her dress billowed to the sides, and her bonnet brim flopped about her face.
Was this the austere, black-clad lady he had first met in County Durham?
“There are such moments, are there not?” she said. “Oh, I had forgotten. It has been so long. But there are moments of pure, unalloyed happiness, and this is one of them. I am so glad I waited for you to come, for such moments need to be shared. Tell me you feel it too—the freedom, the happiness.” She stopped spinning to direct a look at him, and he read sudden uncertainty there.
But he did feel it too. As if for this moment the world had stopped and they had stepped off and nothing would ever matter again except this stopping place.
“I am glad you waited for me,” he said.
Her arms fell to her sides and she gazed at him, her face alight.
“Which way shall we go?” he asked. “East? West? South?”
“Oh.” She spun about to consider each direction. “South. To the water’s edge. Will you be comfortable walking that far?”
The dog had already made off in that direction.
“I am on a beach at last,” he said. “Let me at least dip the tip of a cane in the water.”
The tide was farther out than it had looked. But walking on the sand really was relatively easy, and he would ignore any discomfort anyway for the pleasure of doing what he was doing. This was food for the future. It was her first walk on a beach. It was his first in years. And they were doing it together.
The dog was running along the edge of the water, kicking up a spray as he went.
“Dare I?” Samantha said. It was not really a question. “I suppose the water is dreadfully cold.”
She was gathering up the sides of her dress even as she spoke, and she stepped into the shallow water, which barely wet the sand, and then over the nearest ripple of the incoming tide until she was ankle deep.
“Oh, it is cold,” she said on a deep inward gasp. “And my feet are sinking into the sand. Oh, this is lovely, Ben.” She lifted her head to look at him, her eyes sparkling. “Come in too.”
He really ought not. If her feet were sinking into the sand, what would his canes do? And his boots would be white with brine after they dried, and Quinn would look reproachful and long-suffering. What if he lost his balance and fell in? How the devil would he get up again?