Page 55 of In Want of a Wife
Her grandmother had once told her tales of the selkies — magical creatures of the sea that transformed from seals tohumans. She had never believed those stories until now as she strongly believed in science, not legend.
She wrapped her arms around herself tighter, afraid she might confess something she shouldn’t.
“I needed to see the moon,” she said instead. Lily snickered to herself, realizing only afterward how foolish that sounded. Her room had a bay of windows with a great view of the sky.
He nodded, dipping back down under a wave before shooting up through the surface. “I needed a swim.”
She inched closer to the water until it finally licked the tips of her toes. Lily had wished it for years, but she’d never had the chance to visit the ocean before. She swam now and again with Charlotte at the pond at Stonehurst, but that was nothing to the roaring water crashing against the beach now.
“Would you like to join me?”
Yes, how she wished to join Rafe in the ocean for a midnight swim. It wouldn’t be the most scandalous thing the pair had done on this trip, yet something about it felt as if they should consider it wrong. Surely anyone in thetonwould be jumping at the opportunity of catching such a secret rendezvous. Perhaps if he were a duke, some marriage-minded debutante would be willing to risk her reputation to secure a husband.
But Lily didn’t have much of a reputation any longer, other than being a twice-jilted bride and a bluestocking. And Rafe was a naval officer who now fetched his brother’s bride and took midnight swims and danced in the kitchen while baking scones with middle-aged women who pinched his bottom for fun.
What did she have to lose exactly?
She glanced over her shoulder, thankful that their corner of the beach was private with the cliffs high above. There wasn’t a house for some ways, and Mrs. Davies and Mari had both retired for the evening.
Lily nodded, reaching down to take off her slippers. The sand beneath her bare feet felt like heaven.
“No peeking now, Mr. Davies.” She waved her finger in his direction.Even from where she stood, she was struck by that charming, crooked smile of his.
“I’m a gentleman, aren’t I?”
“So I was led to believe, but I’m not convinced.”
“Fair.”
Once he turned and faced the horizon, she shook out her hands. They wouldn’t stop trembling even as she slipped off her dress and let the fabric pool around her ankles. She tilted her head back toward the sky, watching the stars as the waves washed over her. For a moment, there was nothing but the roaring of the waves crashing against the shore that filled her ears.
“Can I turn around now?”
She dove under the surface, kicking her legs against the pull of the tide until it rose up to her chest. She came up beside Rafe.
“Hi,” he said at last.
She wiped the salt water away from her eyes. “Hi.”
They bobbed along to the ebb and flow of the changing tide for a moment, never breaking their stare.
“You’re mad at me,” he said at last.
She nodded. “You left me to handle that all alone today, and I?—”
“I apologize. I shouldn’t have.” He licked his lips.
Lily kicked her feet against the sandy bottom when a wave picked her up, and she collided with Rafe.
They didn’t break apart.
“I was a coward today. I thought… I thought if you knew the truth you wouldn’t…”
She reached her hand out and grabbed his shoulder to tether her before she was dragged out farther by the current.
Lie.
Perhaps it was more that she needed to touch him because she felt as if she would crumble if he didn’t say the right thing now.
