Betina Krahn (27 page)

He looked up from nibbling her throat … her words and her dewy, passion-warmed face focusing in his mind at the same moment. He began to chuckle, his body went slack, and he slid over onto the blanket beside her. “You watched them mating and pairing for years, and wondered how it compared to—”

“ ‘Human mating rituals’ I believe you called it.” She retreated into her scientist persona, refusing to give in to her embarrassment. “Until now, I haven’t had anyone to help me investigate them. It takes two, you know.”

“Yes, it does.” He grinned and leaned closer with a wicked glint in his eye. “I’ve had a modest bit of experience in the field. What say we”—he waggled his eyebrows—
“collaborate.”

“Collaborate.” She smiled. “Yes. Let’s.” The glint in his eye migrated into hers. “But only if we share any and all important discoveries.”

“Done,” he said, hooking a hand around the back of her neck and moving closer to her. “And to show good faith: I must announce that I have already made one major discovery.”

“Oh?” She caught the hint of mischief in his broadening grin.

“Humans are better kissers than dolphins.”

As he leaned closer to provide proof, she raised her eyebrows.

“You think so?”

Her response halted him just long enough for her to surprise him with a laugh and a playful shove that sent him toppling. While he scrambled to recover, she jumped up, laughing, grabbed the blanket and pulled it from under him, sending him rolling onto the sand. In a heartbeat he was on his feet and chasing her toward the steps of the cliff.

O
N THE ROOF
of the old tower, high above the beach, Lady Sophia and her Atlantean sisters stood in the dying rays of the sun, watching with wistful pleasure as the Man of Earth and their Woman of Sea embraced their passion for each other, far below.

“Luv-ley bit of man, that,” Anabelle declared, with a wistful sigh. “Alwus said so.”

“A match made in Heaven itself,” Miss Penelope said, fumbling in her cuff for a handkerchief and dabbing at her eyes. She sniffed and glanced at Lady Sophia, whose eyes were filled with mist and hopes for the future of the union being begun on the beach below. “What do you think, Sophie?”

“I think,” her grandmother said in a voice filled with equal parts joy and wistfulness, “it is time to begin preparing our dolphin ceremony.”

“
COLLABORATION
”
WAS A
pale term for the compelling attraction that drew Titus and Celeste together in a haze of sensation and discovery. Each evening they dined with her grandmother and occasional members of the Atlantean Society, exchanging glances that fairly crackled across the dinner table. But their passions were no less evident when they rushed down to the cove each morning, eager to swim and study Celeste’s dolphins, or when they pored over her logs and journals, discussing at length her interpretations of the various behaviors both now had witnessed.

“I don’t see how their clicks and screeches and vocalizations can be seen as anything other than a sort of language,” she insisted. And when he looked doubtful, she rubbed the furrows of doubt from his forehead with her fingers.

“Communication, certainly … but a language?” Titus kissed each and every one of her fingertips, almost losing his thoughts in the process. “Language implies discrete units with agreed-upon meanings. Do the dolphins always make the same sounds in the same situation? More importantly, do they attach a specific meaning to a given sound they make?”

She propped her chin in her hand and gave him a suggestive smile. “Do you?”

“Of course I do.” The heat stirring between them was suddenly palpable.

“Ummm. Then what do you mean when you make that growling noise, deep in your throat, when we’re kissing?”

“Interesting question,” he said, moving to sit close to her and nuzzle her hair aside. “And which noise would that be? This one?” He produced a light, playful rumble as he dropped a kiss on the nape of her neck, then a deep, hungry growl when he consumed her throat with a ravenous kiss. “Or that one?”

“Interesting,” she said, dragging her scattered wits back together. “Two different sounds. But I could swear they meant the same thing.”

He looked up, his eyes darkening. “Tricky thing, language.”

“Ummm. Perhaps you’d better try that last one again. I believe I need more data …”

Thus, Titus’s discovery of dolphin society and the world beneath the water’s surface blended inseparably with his sensual discovery of Celeste and her discovery of him. They would charge into the water, splashing and chasing, and end up at the side or bottom of the cove, observing the dolphins and interacting with them. Then later, as they lay on the blanket in each other’s arms, a sensation would stimulate a thought and between experimental kisses they would discuss and analyze her ideas about the dolphins’ clicks, or plan an experiment to test the dolphins’ ability to distinguish shapes or colors.

He could feel the change it was working in him, but had no need or means to examine it, until the afternoon they saw Prospero and Thunder separate one of the females from the group and take turns rolling her onto her back in what he recognized as the traditional mating posture. Soon after, the pair of males did the same with another female. Then, before the humans’ gazes, the other dolphins began to do the same things … taking turns rolling each other over, as if parodying the mating taking place nearby.

Titus’s shock was profound when they surfaced for breath. “Were they all doing what I think they were doing?” When she nodded, he shook his head. “It’s a regular orgy … the beasts will mate with anything in flukes. And Prospero is the worst of the lot!” There he paused as if listening to and hearing for the first time his all-too-human moralizing, and he looked a bit unsettled. “Or, I suppose, from a dolphin’s standpoint … perhaps the best of the lot.”

By the time they swam to the dock and climbed out for a rest, the arguments and explanations she had prepared were largely unnecessary. He collapsed beside her on his back, and declared with great insight: “There has to be a good reason for such frequent and enthusiastic sexual activity …”

“There is.” She raised onto an elbow and looked down at him with an Eve-like smile. “It’s fun.” She took the fact that he didn’t dismiss her suggestion as a positive sign and leaned over to lavish a passionate kiss on him. “Isn’t it?”

H
E APPARENTLY THOUGHT
about it a good bit, for that night, as they were spiraling into a haze of sensual pleasure under the pristine night sky, he raised his head and said, “It’s a big ocean out there. And there isn’t exactly an eligible dolphin on every corner. Maybe they have to be ready and willing to mate with whatever dolphin they can find, at every opportunity they have. So nature has bred a bit of excess in them to make sure the deed gets done and more dolphins get born.”

She stared at him in bewilderment, before she caught the flow of his words, recognized the topic, and the revolution it represented in his thinking. “Titus Thorne, if you could hear yourself talk …”

“I would be scandalized?”

“No.” She gave him a look that left no doubt of her sincerity. “Proud.”

•        •        •

T
WO … THREE … FOUR
… they lost track of the passing days. A midsummer haze descended, and in the closeness, the nightly ocean sounds were joined by the chirping of crickets and the rustle of tall grass in the nearby fields. But inland, where the weather was not tempered by the sea, those affluent and idle enough began to flee toward the water. And as they came to the southern coast and the fashionable resorts of Brighton, they brought with them small blue-green books with dolphins embossed on the cover, and a vague recollection that the Lady Mermaid was reported to live somewhere along that coast.

When Stephan opened the door one afternoon, he was surprised to find a pair of well-dressed gentlemen standing on the step, a hint of dust on the brims of their hats and on the shoulders of their nattily striped summer coats. Behind them in the gravel yard were two fine black coaches, covered with the dust and mud spatters that spoke of miles traveled.

“Is this the house where Miss Celeste Ashton lives?” they asked. When answered in the affirmative, they glanced at the sagging house with dubious expressions, then headed back to their coaches and began to unpack their wives, children, and nannies.

C
ELESTE AND
T
ITUS
had spent all morning in the water and enjoyed a picnic lunch on the dock. They were preparing to build a new set of cork floats for the dolphins to play with, when they heard a jumble of voices coming from the top of the cliff and looked up to find a stream of brightly clothed humans starting down the stepped path. They looked at each other in surprise, then back at the striped coats, frilly parasols, and flock of children in smocks and short pants that were descending on them.

Celeste quickly snatched her long smock together and tidied her braided hair; Titus hastily finished buttoning his shirt and rolled down his trouser legs. They reached the
center of the beach just as the first of the children were spilling onto the sand and running to and fro.

“Ho, there!” one of the men in striped coats called from above. “Miss Ashton, we presume! We’ve come to see the dolphins!”

Shortly Celeste and Titus were inundated by fashionable Londoners and their rambunctious offspring. The gentlemen tipped their hats and marched by them to the edge of the water while the ladies collapsed on nearby rocks, fanning themselves, the nannies stood together out of the way, and the children ripped off their shoes and stockings—or didn’t bother—and went charging into the water.

“Please, children—come out of there!” Celeste jerked up the hem of her smock and waded out to shoo the children back up onto the dry sand.

“Why?” One boy of about seven years refused to comply without a reason. “Do the fish bite?”

“You mean they might harm the children?” One of the mothers was instantly on her feet again and charging down to the water, her parasol bobbing. She gave her husband a dark look on her way past him. “I thought you said these fish were tame. Ce-cil,” she shouted to the boy, “come out of there this minute!”

“They’re not vicious,” Celeste told the nearest man, feeling roundly put upon. “But they are large animals, and unused to children.”

“Well.” One of the men glowered at the water, searching for some sign of the dolphins. “I promised the children a look at the trained dolphins and—by thunder—I intend to deliver!”

“Please, miss, we’ve traveled for hours,” the other fellow explained, stepping forward. He dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief and resettled his hat as he approached. “Took us quite a while to find you. The children have had their hearts set on seeing the dolphins—been drawing the beasties on their slates since we left London. It would mean a great deal if you could help them have a bit of a look-see.”

She looked at Titus, who stood with his legs spread and his arms crossed, scowling at the children jumping and jiggling and pleading for a “look-see.” It was up to her, she realized, gazing into those upturned faces filled with excitement and hope. In their eyes she glimpsed the curiosity she herself had felt as a child and the interest and appreciation she hoped to stir in people for the things that live in the sea.

“It seems your audience has found you,” Titus said, strolling to her side. “They’ve read your book and you’ve got them interested.”

Her own reluctance left her a bit baffled. This was indeed what she had said she wanted: a chance to introduce others to the joys and wonders of the sea.

“Very well. I’ll help the children see the dolphins.” Then she looked down into seven pairs of widened eyes. “You’ll have to do just as I say … no adventuring on your own.”

Before long, she had gathered parents, nannies, and children into a group and was explaining a few facts about dolphins to them. Then she introduced Titus as a visiting professor and, while she went to get the boat and bring it near the shallows, he related parts of his experience with meeting dolphins.

The children squealed when they saw the first dolphin’s head sticking out of the water. The adults joined in the gasps and exclamations when Prospero made a few leaps out of the water. From the boat, Celeste got Prospero to jump through a hoop and to retrieve a float. Then in a spectacular finish, she got him to rise mostly out of the water and “walk” on his tail flukes.

The children crowded the edge of the water waving and begging to come out in the boat with her, to see them up close. Titus had to roll up his trouser legs and retrieve one or two intrepid youngsters who couldn’t seem to stay out of the water. By the time Celeste returned to the beach, it was clear she had only succeeded in whetting their appetite for dolphins. They begged, bargained, and finally demanded to see one up close.

Celeste relented. She gave a whistle and Prospero soon appeared. She waded out into the water, smock and all, to direct him into the shallows. The fathers had to carry the little ones in their arms, ruining their trousers in the process. With Celeste’s tutelage and coaxing, they all petted Prospero and got to touch his flukes and “shake flippers” with him. When he opened his mouth to make a series of cawing sounds, the fathers spotted his teeth and drew the children back. Other dolphins soon arrived and looked over the little humans as eagerly as the little humans stared at them.