She found herself giving voice to her most honest fear. "Are
we going to survive, do you think?"
He laughed. "Abso-dang-lutely."
"We were lucky to get the rabbit."
"Nah, I hit it accidentally. There's plenty out here. We
could live off the land till winter. Though we won't need to – given the width
of the moor, we could walk the whole thing in a day or two."
As if to reinforce what he said, be lifted the gin bottle,
toasting her with it, then upended it. He drank till the bottle glugged a
burble of air.
She liked that he could be sanguine about their predicament. He
wasn't worried. Of course. They were going to be perfectly all right. They'd go
to sleep. They'd probably have another rabbit in the morning for breakfast.
Then they'd walk south and get to the road. They'd stay on it till they either
met someone or came to civilization. They weren't in any real danger.
Though her arms were cold, and her back away from the fire felt
chilly. The wee hours promised uncomfortable temperatures. Unless of course two
people were huddled together. She looked at him.
He wasn't saying anything. He knew it, too. He was waiting for her
to come to the conclusion.
6
W
ithin a short time
Lydia
was
recognizably tipsy, but she didn't mind. She liked the feeling. The more gin
she drank, the more she felt … happy, almost cocky, with their adventure;
unhampered, spontaneous. She felt good. He was right. They were fine. And there
was nothing very wrong with her. Truly. Except, she thought drunkenly, that her
dinner menus didn't have rabbit and gin on them often enough.
Lydia kept up most of the conversation, telling the man across
from her about Rose's wedding, for no particular reason other than he seemed
quietly interested. "They had an accordion player for dancing, and
everyone, even her grandmother, danced. Sometimes they sang with the music,
too…"
Sam listened with only half an ear, gratified to see Liddy so
relaxed. He himself was exhausted, with a pretty strenuous day catching up with
him. In the not too distant future, he figured, he'd be overwhelmed by sleep,
but for now he fought it. For one, he was just cold enough to prefer drinking a
little more gin to sleeping. And, for two, he couldn't seem to get enough of
watching Lydia Brown laugh and gesture and talk, now that she had a little gin
under her belt.
They were going to lie down together, he knew that, and it was
another reason he avoided going officially to sleep for the night. He wasn't
certain how well he'd tolerate putting himself up against Liddy Brown here,
touching her to keep warm and not for anything else.
Her arms wide, Liddy demonstrated the width of some river at a
town called Swansdown, then with a movement of hand and wrist the wiggly way
the river narrowed then wound under a bridge. She was either showing him things
like this or else hunched over, her arms folded into her knees and skirts,
herself as near to their burning wood as she could be without being on top of
it. She was cold; she was talkative. He remembered an old, apt expression of
his pop's and smiled: She could speak ten words a second with gusts up to
fifty. Ha, Pop would've liked her. With a little gin in her, Liddy put Sam in
mind of Juliana, his pop's longtime Mexican mistress. Vivacious, friendly, open
about her feelings, vague about the facts of her life – and seemingly without
the first notion of unsavory motives in other human beings.
Liddy moved on to happily recapping their day, if he wasn't
mistaken, though he couldn't think why she'd be so happy about it, when,
sitting there, she reached absently up into her hair. She found the last
several hairpins and drew them out, tossing them on the ground to keep company
with the rest he'd dumped out earlier. He couldn't say he was sorry he'd
disposed of them. Her hair was as crazy, as wild and copious as honeysuckle
vines in June. She continued hunting through her hair, looking for any missing
pins.
With the last one, she let her hair down completely, and the sight
was even better than he'd expected. Her hair stood out in a curly cloud around
her face. It spiraled down her back to her hips. It corkscrewed onto her
shoulders. If he stuck his hand in it, he'd probably have had to disentangle
himself with his free hand; he couldn't have combed his fingers through it. Her
hair was that dense and curly.
When he finally horned in on the conversation, he found himself
saying, "You're not married."
She threw him a discombobulated frown. She was going to insist, he
thought, then surprised him by saying only, "You don't know that."
"You don't wear a ring."
"I lost it."
"There's no mark of a ring." He went on, "And
there's something about you. You're—" He hesitated. "You know nothing
of a man." He took a slow drink of gin before he said, "You're just a
sweet girl, Liddy Brown. A sweet, unmarried young woman with a little bit of
temper, a big, generous heart" – he laughed – "and a dangerous bent
for adventure now that you've had a taste of it and survived it." He shook
his head at her, smiling. "No more wild coach rides for you. It's making
you into a regular thrill-seeker." He smiled at her, joking, but feeling
admiration, too, and letting her see it.
Such a winning smile he had,
Lydia
thought, even
if it came off crooked, using only half his face. His smile altered his words,
bringing with them all the confusing, pleasant embarrassment of a pretty
compliment. She felt a warm, flattered pleasure spread through her – though she
couldn't think where exactly the compliment lay. A thrill-seeker? No, that
wasn't her. She was too careful to value thrills for their own sake.
Nonetheless, she felt emboldened: satisfied with herself for having survived
the day and her own fear and worry, happy in the knowledge that she'd be less
likely to be as frightened tomorrow.
She got up all at once, remembering something in her satchel.
"Gonna iron some clothes?" he called. He'd twisted
around to watch her.
"What?"
"Nothing." He chuckled.
She bent over, dug into the bag, then stood up, shaking out
petticoats and a shawl. "Blankets."
He laughed harder when she dropped one of her petticoats around
his shoulders. "How sweet," he said. "And I'm sure it makes me
look real debonaire." He nodded, though, smiling up at her; it no doubt
improved the chill in the air. She sat again, wrapping herself up in the
frillier petticoat, then her soft, fringy shawl. Swaddled and more comfortable,
she picked up her brush again.
She used a silver brush – which made her, Sam noticed, the richest
lady's maid he'd ever met, even if it was plate.
She grew quieter – tireder, he thought – as she tried to get a
brush through her twining, winding hair. At one point, she stopped and
stretched, yawning up out of her wrapping of frills and fringe. Just as she
reached her slender arms up, a piece of moon came from between clouds with
perfect timing to give small back light to her silhouette. It made her woolly
mane into a nimbus of ringlets about her face and shoulders. A damn fine sight.
"Look!" she said suddenly and pointed over their fire
toward the dark sky.
Distinct, black silhouettes crossed the glow overhead. It was a
small flock of long-necked birds. They glided across the sliver of moon for a
single stroke of wings, then were swallowed up again by the black sky.
"The Queen's swans," she said.
"Swans?"
"Yes. Queen
Victoria
owns all of
the swans in
England
. The royal
birds. Once a year, she counts them. Swan upping, it's called."
"Swan upping," he repeated. He looked at her.
"Isn't there a fairy tale about a black swan?"
She thought a moment, huddling into her shawl and petticoat. She
looked like a mound of clothes with a head on top. "Not that I know
of."
He studied her, watching the way the firelight flickered over her
face and hair. "You remind me of that somehow. I can't think which legend.
But a dark swan." He laughed. "A dark horse."
"I'm not sure I'm flattered."
"I mean it flatteringly; I do. The black swan was
enchanting." He frowned. "Or enchanted, I'm not sure which." He
clarified, "Beautiful." Then wished he'd shut up.
She fixed a look on him, one that tried to measure intent. Then
she pulled her legs up, wrapped her arms, shawl and all, around them, and set
her chin on her knees, hugging herself tight. As she stared into the fire, she
said, "The gin is getting to you."
He nodded, dropping his gaze. Something was sure getting to him.
Enchanting
.
Beautiful
. And, not to forget,
underpleasured
. Gin was as good a
name for it as anything. Where was that bottle, anyway?
He asked, "You tired?"
She nodded.
"You ready to sleep then?"
She nodded again.
He voiced the big question. "You want me to bed down over
here or you want me to come over there where we can keep each other warm?"
She rocked back, then bent her head and rocked forward, her mouth
to her knees. She became just eyes and wild hair as she stared straight at the
glowing ashes.
Right. He thought about telling her how she'd be safe, but then
didn't. She liked to think the worst of him; let her. "Suit
yourself," he said.
He pitched another rock or two from his spot, making it as unlumpy
as possible, then slid his hat down over his eyes, folded his arms behind his
head, and stretched out. He guessed they'd both just get cold then.
He was dozing when he felt something fall over him. A woman's
lightweight shawl. It was soft – cashmere or camelhair, something really nice –
and inundated with the smell of Liddy Brown, ginger, lemons, flowers, water
lilies … the particular scent and oils from the skin of her arms, shoulders,
hands, wherever the shawl had touched.
Her pale, delicately boned hand came across him, arranging the
cover over his chest and shoulder. Then she turned over and slid under the
shawl herself, up against his back.
*
It
was a long night.
Lydia
began it
curled on her side, her back against Sam's arm and hip. She lay rigid, not sure
how to behave: unsettled, cold, and faintly tipsy. While Sam seemed to go right
to sleep.
At some point, she must have dozed, because she awakened with a
start to the strange realization that someone was shifting his position beside
her. In the next instant, she felt his hand – the backs of his fingers as he
rearranged their shawl covering – inadvertently brush her hip. Without intent
or volition, she arched in response, her buttocks finding the side of his
thigh. The movement was unplanned; it meant nothing, just a … an odd reaction.
After a second, though, he lifted the leg she pressed against – he
lay on his back – planting that foot on the ground, his knee in the air. This
left a kind of ghost sensation on her backside; she could have traced the place
where his thigh had been. What a feeling.
She dropped back to sleep, turning the moment over in her mind.
Glutting on it. The feel of his thigh. The strange warmth in her own belly. The
shape of his round, hard leg; warm, muscular, strong. Her mind slid over these
impressions into sleep, relived them, multiplied them, stretched them out. Her
backside on his thigh seemed endlessly fascinating.
She slept fitfully, awakening several times more – she found no
quick adjustment to sleeping next to another human being. Every time Sam moved,
she came to consciousness. Sometimes she was aware that he was awake, too.
Other times, she could hear his even breathing. She listened for it after a
while, the sound of his deeply drawn breath while he slept. Sometimes he snored
lightly. Interesting. She worried she made noise when she slept, some
indelicate sound she had never listened to or thought to control.
The worst part of the night was just before dawn, when the
temperature dropped enough that
Lydia
kept breaking
into shivers. She found herself both exhausted and alertly awake, too
uncomfortably cold that sleep was even a possibility.
Her back was once more pressed along Mr. Cody's ribs and hip – she
lay inevitably on her side. He was in and out of wakefulness, she could tell.
His knee up, she could feel the side of his boot at her backside, the swaying
movement in his hip as gravity pulled his leg into a drop each time he dozed.
She fought shuddering as a chilly draft swept over them, funneled down the side
of their rock protection. Wiggling, she got more of her back up against him,
pressing till she could discern the feel of his individual ribs, his hipbone.
It occurred to her: This wasn't the warmest arrangement they could
come up with.
She wished he might roll over and put the front of himself against
her back, wrap his arms, himself around her; then she'd be snug. Or she could
do the same, though he was so much larger. And would he mind? Could she simply
curl herself around him? Oh, the idea of her cold skin finding his warmth
sounded so good it made her head light.
She raised herself up on her forearm to look at him. Indeed, he
was awake. He jerked when she moved, then his head turned as he seemed to focus
on her.
"I'm cold," she said.
He tipped his hat up as if better to see her.
When he didn't say anything, she asked, "Aren't you?"
He nodded. "Yup."
She waited for the solution to occur to him.
Hold me.
He didn't say or do anything for a long minute. Then he rolled
himself away from her and up onto his feet. He left. Out of sight.
Lydia
felt a
plummet, deflated: rejected, abandoned.
Her unhappy feelings, though, were mitigated when be returned five
minutes later and dropped an armload of wood beside their cold campfire. More
matches, more stoking. He piled the old ashes with new twigs and branches,
stooping on one knee. Their fire crackled to life again, sending out a faint,
smoky smell while its welcome heat wafted out along the ground. He stayed with
the fire for a few minutes, till the flames burned steadily, then he came back
and settled once more lengthwise behind her.