Page 37 of To Swoon and to Spar
He said these last words very quietly, though in the silence of the room, they were perfectly audible. It was a simple enough sentence, so why did Jane feel like she’d been granted a glimpse of something important?
In response to her silence, Penvale offered a rueful laugh, as though embarrassed to have shared so much. “I’m sorry, I’m blathering,” he said.
“You’re not,” Jane said quickly—too quickly, probably, but she was desperate for him not to think that he’d burdened her with this confession. It occurred to her that she was not the only one who had sacrificed something in this marriage; after all, he had given up any hope of a love match, of having someone he might trust with his thoughts. She could not make their marriage a love match—at the moment, she couldn’t think of the right way to describe their marriage at all—but she could… listen.
“I don’t mind listening to you,” she said, feeling stupid as thewords left her mouth. “I mean to say—I know I’m not a very good conversationalist—but I like talking… to you.”
Something in his face softened as he gazed at her from his side of the bed. “I suppose all I meant to say is, I’ve felt very far away from my own father for a long time,” he said. “And it always struck me as sad that Audley’s father is living, and they barely speak.”
“You and your father were close, then?” Jane asked tentatively, fearful that any word she spoke would land wrong, as her words so often did, and would break whatever spell had crafted this fragile peace between them.
“I’m sure, had he lived longer, we would have butted heads as I got older, but as a boy, I idolized him. He inherited the title just after I was born, and the estate was in bad financial shape—he was making improvements, but that’s the reason that the death duties were such a blow when he died, and we had to sell. But I remember how much he loved this place.” He shook his head ruefully. “I suppose, in some way, the promise of this house has always been that it would…” He trailed off.
“What is it?” Jane asked.
His gaze flicked to hers and held it for a moment, almost as if he were asking her some sort of unspoken question. Whatever answer her eyes gave was enough for him to sigh, rub a hand across his face, and say, “I suppose I always thought that Trethwick Abbey would give me a place to go where my memories would feel more… alive. Where I’d feel less at risk of losing them as time passed.”
Silence fell in the wake of this confession; in the soft candlelight of the room, his expression was starker, more open, than usual.
She reached out a hand and placed it gently on the bed between them, close to where his was resting, but not quite touching. “That’s an awful lot to expect of one house,” she said softly.
She said nothing else, and neither did he. Then, so slowly and gently that it was almost possible to believe she was imagining it, he nudged his hand toward hers and allowed their little fingers to brush.
“It is,” he agreed just as softly.
And the thought struck her that, for all this man had been surrounded by friends, by a sister who clearly loved him, loneliness was just as familiar to him as it was to her.
And then the clock chimed the hour, the brush of his finger was gone, and the spell was broken. Penvale shook his head as if to clear it and said in his normal tone of voice, “In any case, Audley gave his house back to his father, meaning I’ve one less country lake to swim in, but Jeremy’s house in Wiltshire has a spectacular one which I took advantage of for a few weeks this summer. One morning I discovered him and Diana out there—I think they’d sneaked away for some sort of open-air tryst” —at this, his voice was tinged with mild horror—“and we came perilously close to running into each other when we wereallunclothed, which would have been an experience so traumatizing I expect I’d have drowned myself in the lake and you’d never have even met me.”
“And what a loss that would have been,” Jane murmured, pleased that her voice came out sounding normal, despite her pulse still pounding an erratic beat in her throat. Her hand tingled where it had brushed against his. She wasn’t certain whether she meant to be sarcastic; her tone evidently conveyed it, because Penvale gave her one of those sideways grins that she found herself, despite her better judgment, growing oddly attached to.
“All this is to say, that’s why my skin is not quite as pasty as that of the average Englishman,” he concluded. “Do you swim, then?”
Jane blinked at him. “Did you miss the bit where I informed you how cold the ocean is here?”
“Surely in the summer it’s not so bad,” he pressed. “On a sunny day, I’d imagine it would feel like something of a relief.”
“I have dipped my toes in on days like the one you describe, and I think they were numb within fifteen seconds.”
“Only your toes?” he asked, and there was some note in his voice, some dark undercurrent, that made Jane’s breath catch in her throat. “Jane, we’ll go swimming this summer. We’ll have a picnic on the beach in the cove, and after we’ve been sitting in the sun for long enough to thoroughly ruin that lovely complexion of yours, we’ll be so hot that we’ll plunge in.”
Jane was momentarily distracted by the fact that he had just called her complexion lovely, but soon enough she realized that, at some point, she would have to admit something, so she may as well do it now.
“There’s just one problem,” she informed him. “I don’t know how to swim.”
“But,” Penvale said, and then paused, considering, “you live by thesea.”
“I’m aware,” Jane said coolly, inclining her head toward the windows, which, during the daylight hours, did offer a rather spectacular view of that very sea.
“But,” he said again,“how?”
Jane sighed, irritated. She’d known this would be his reaction, but since she didn’t wish to spend the entire summer coming up with excuses to avoid swimming with him, it had seemed easiest to come out with it. Although, if all went according to plan, he would no longer be here this summer, meaning she might have just avoided telling him altogether.
Odd how the prospect of his absence—the very thing she was spending a considerable amount of time and energy trying toachieve—had been lately in the pesky habit of fleeing from her mind after only a few minutes in his company.
“I never had anyone to teach me,” she said crossly. That crease appeared in his forehead again, deepening the faint lines there, but he didn’t say anything. She was aware all at once how pathetic that must sound to a man who had just spent several minutes describing his friends.
“No one?” he asked, surprise evident in his voice. “I think Diana and her friends knew how to swim by the time they were wearing long skirts.”
