Betina Krahn (39 page)

As she struggled for self-control, he took her by the shoulders.

“You were right, Celeste. About all of it.” He nodded toward the water. “There’s a huge world to explore out there. And science
is
about risking and discovering, about observing and experiencing. It was you and your dolphins that made me see it.” He drew his fingers down the side of her cheek. “That’s why I had to come, Celeste.”

She could barely see him for the tears collecting in her eyes.

“I want to help you get Prospero back.” He cradled her face in his hand and she felt her resistance slipping. “You need him. I need him.” He laughed ruefully. “Who knows, maybe the whole blessed world needs him.”

Her defenses crashed. Tears rolled down her face and he pulled her against him and held her securely as she cried. His warmth, his wool and starch smells, the strength of his arms around her … everything about him comforted her. In the midst of her cry, he managed to reach into his pocket and pull out a handkerchief for her. After a few moments she looked up, feeling raw and exposed … vulnerable to the need within her.

The night, the rhythm of the waves, and the moonlight conspired with memory. She looked at his lips. So near. So far.

“Thank you.” Her smile trembled. Her heart was pounding. His presence invaded her blood like a potent drug, heightening her senses. She could barely remember what she had meant to say. “F-for caring enough to come all the way
from London to tell me about Prospero. For understanding how much my dolphins mean to me.”

His head lowered toward hers. When he abruptly checked that motion and stiffened against her, she realized it had been an instinctive motion left over from another time, another set of feelings.

She forced herself to step back, feeling strangely warmed and chilled all at once. She had helped to change his thinking and his life. But that didn’t mean he belonged to her, any more than her dolphins did.

“We’ll get them back, Celeste, I promise you,” he said thickly. Then he reached for her hand and together they climbed the path up the cliff.

“P
ROSPERO IS A
little battered, but he’s alive,” Titus reported to the Atlanteans, who were gathered in the drawing room when he and Celeste reached the house. The group had sent Titus down to the beach to find Celeste, then had scurried up the tower stairs to watch their reunion. Even from such a distance they had observed the tension between their Woman of Sea and their Man of Earth. It was far from the joyous reunion they had hoped for.

“I didn’t see the other dolphin—Ariel—except at a distance,” Titus continued. “I got tossed out on my seat before I could get that far. I demanded to see Bentley, but he either wasn’t there or didn’t want to be seen.”

“Bounder,” the brigadier said. “Ought to be drawn and quartered.”

“Scheming, conniving heathen,” the reverend proclaimed.

“Bully,” came from the Bass brothers’ corner.

“I thought about it on the way down from London.” Titus’s hand slipped over Celeste’s on the chair arm between them. The Atlanteans looked at one another. They sat straighter and their eyes widened with pleasure. “Celeste, I’m afraid you’re the only chance those dolphins have. You
have to go to London … talk to Bentley … reclaim Prospero and Ariel as yours.”

Celeste looked anxiously from her grandmother to Titus. “But Peter Bentley would never listen to me. He came to visit two weeks ago and harangued and wheedled to get me to join him in a scheme to exhibit Prospero and the others to the public. He spoke of building a place to house and show them and of making a lot of money. When I turned him down, he—well, he was furious when he left.”

Titus frowned. “But you’re the one who discovered and trained and wrote about these dolphins. That has to give you a prior claim to them.”

He was right, she realized. There was no one else to intervene on their behalf … no one else with the claim or interest she had. The strength of his hand around hers gave her the encouragement she needed. For the first time in a month she didn’t feel as if she were alone.

“We have to try it,” she said, straightening, setting her resolve. “That means we’ll have to leave for London first thing in the morning.”

“I’ll come, too,” Nana said, her eyes shining.

“Might need an extra pair of hands. Count me in,” the brigadier declared, putting his arm awkwardly around Nana’s shoulders to give her a bracing pat.

“We need to get some rest. It will be a long day tomorrow,” Nana said, rising. “You can have your old room, Prof—Titus.” She gave him a smile that said his former attitude and behavior were forgiven. “Brigadier, you can stay the night, to save you the time of traveling back and forth.”

They received advice and wishes of “Godspeed” from the other Atlanteans, who departed for their respective homes. Then Nana showed the brigadier upstairs, directing him to one of the little-used guest rooms. Celeste and Titus remained in the drawing room tidying up and dousing the lamps for old Stephan. They climbed the stairs in a silence that grew more intense with each step.

As they reached the upstairs hallway and parted, Titus
seized Celeste’s hand and held it, looking down at her for a long moment. Her pulse fluttered. Her skin came alive with heightened sensitivity … instantly yearning, hungry for the pleasure of his touch. Was the light flickering in the depths of his eyes truly desire? Or just the reflection of the lamp he held?

Abruptly, he pulled her into his free arm and lowered his mouth to hers.

It was electric. Her entire body was suddenly charged, tingling, drawn to that promise of sensual lightning. That deep, penetrating kiss went on and on, like a “falling dream” in which the dreamer never hits bottom.

Their bodies pressed hard together—his knee finding the space between hers, her breasts molding against his ribs, her hands clutching the sides of his coat. Rising heat reached the flashpoint.

Then, without warning, it was over, stopped just short of conflagration.

He staggered back and she turned and wobbled toward her room, steadying herself against the wall. When she finally closed the door behind her, she sank back against it and felt her kiss-swollen lips through a haze of wonder. Steam and fire and liquid sensation … her whole body seemed to be melting into one huge, hot puddle of need.

She smiled. He still wanted her. Every bit as much as she wanted him.

There was hope.

A
T SUNRISE THE
next morning, Nana rapped on Celeste’s door. Celeste knocked on Titus’s shortly thereafter, asking if he wanted to come down to the cove with her to say goodbye to her dolphins. She wouldn’t leave them ever again, she told him, without telling them good-bye and making provisions for them in her absence.

As they climbed down the cliff, Celeste told him about Bentley’s visit, about the dolphins’ reaction to him, and their
week-long disappearance just afterward. When they reached the beach, she started to remove her smock, but paused and looked out to sea, holding her garment together over her heart.

“That must be when he caught them,” she said quietly. “Prospero and the others were out in the bay for a long time. It’s strange … I always worried that they were too friendly with boats.” She took a deep breath, fighting the despair settling over her shoulders. “I should have worried more about land-based perils … like human treachery. I was so pleased by the interest Bentley took in them. I thought he really cared.”

He reached for her shoulders and turned her to him. “You can’t be expected to know what is in the depths of a man’s heart, Celeste. You’re not responsible for Prospero’s plight.”

“I wish I could believe that,” she said. “Prospero is special. I’ve worked more with him, and he’s the leader of the group.” She looked up at Titus’s strong, serious face and sea-green eyes and wished she could tell him about hearing Prospero speak … if indeed she really had heard it. But she didn’t dare go that far. The thought that Prospero might be one of only a few special dolphins who could perform such a feat sent her spirits lower still. “I talked about him constantly to Bentley. I can’t help feeling that it wasn’t entirely a coincidence that Prospero was the one taken.”

“And Ariel,” he reminded her.

“And Ariel. She always spends so much time with Prospero, it was probably inevitable that they’d be together when—”

“Blaming yourself won’t help them, Celeste,” he said. For once his dispassionate logic proved to be the compassionate response. When he smiled as if hoping to coax her to do the same, she gave him a rueful nod.

“Come on. Let’s go see your dolphins.” He began to shed his shirt and trousers as if he intended to climb into the
water, too. When she had shed her smock, he held out his hand, and together they walked into the surf.

Celeste whistled several times and began to smack the water to attract their attention. They approached warily at first, but let down their guard as they recognized her. She stroked them and talked to them as they swam past, assuring them that Maria and Stephan and Ned Caldwell would be seeing them daily in her absence.

Titus noticed their wariness and watched Celeste’s mood becoming more somber. Bentley’s treachery had already driven a wedge between Celeste and her dolphins. He would have liked nothing more, at that moment, than to plant a fist in the wretch’s face. He began to search the fins and bodies in the shallow waters, looking for one special dolphin.

“Where is Titan? I haven’t seen him yet.” When she looked up with a worried expression, he braced for bad news.

“Titus, he’s not doing very well,” she said gently. “He’s taking Ariel’s absence hard. Echo has been letting him nurse, but he doesn’t seem to eat well without his mother.”

“I—I hadn’t thought of—-” He looked frantically around for the little dolphin. “Where is he?”

Celeste ducked under the water and swam through the dolphins to the edge of the group, where Titan usually could be found. She grasped his flipper and dorsal fin and directed him into the shallows.

“Here he is!” she called. “He’s all right.”

“Thank God.” Titus went loping through the water to meet them and ran his hands over the little dolphin. “So, there you are.” Titan’s skin felt oddly slack; not as firm and plump as before.

“I thought of you a thousand times,” Titus said to him. “You have to eat better, little fellow. You have to keep up your strength, so when your mother comes home …” He looked into the dolphin’s eyes and was transfixed by what he saw there. He dropped to his knees and cradled the little dolphin’s head in his hands, putting his face close to it.

“I know what it’s like, growing up without a mother. I know it’s hard, but you’ll have to be strong for a little while longer.” His voice thickened with feeling. “I’ll bring her back to you—I swear it.”

Celeste watched him stroking Titan until the sight of them blurred. She turned back to the beach, leaving them together for a moment longer.

They were quiet as they climbed the cliff steps together. At the top, she paused and looked out over the cove, feeling a quiver of fear that she might never return to it. It was silly, she told herself.

“We’ll get them back,” Titus said with quiet fierceness. “Don’t worry, we’ll get them back.”

When they had washed and dressed for travel, they found Nana, the brigadier, and a hearty breakfast waiting in the dining room. A sober mood descended as they finished eating and assembled their luggage by the front door to wait for Ned Caldwell and his cart. Instead, two hired coaches pulled up before the house. When they went out to investigate, they discovered the reverend and the Bass brothers already inside.

“What on earth?” Titus looked at Celeste, who looked just as surprised.

“We’re going, too,” the reverend said, tipping his hat. “Can’t have our sacred dolphins in danger and not do something about it.”

“But surely—” Celeste began.

“Surely,” Nana said, taking their side, “you need all the help you can get.”

“An’ it’s
our
job t’help ye,” Hiram Bass put in, while Bernard nodded.

Titus looked helplessly at Celeste, whose moist-eyed smile would have melted granite. As he helped her up into the coach, he leaned by her ear and muttered: “Well, at least they’re not wearing togas.”

•        •        •

T
HE TRIP TO
B
RIGHTON
by coach, then on to London by train, took the entire day. Twice they made unplanned stops and had to wait for something to clear the tracks. Here and there, Titus pointed out landmarks to take Celeste’s mind off what the delays might mean to Prospero’s and Ariel’s welfare. Across the car, the Atlanteans nodded off for their customary afternoon naps.

It was evening when they arrived at Paddington Station, and it fell to Titus to secure cabs for the lot of them. He made certain everyone’s bags were loaded and directions were given to the drivers. By the time he led them into the Bolton Arms Hotel and negotiated rooms for them, he had a feeling that now he knew what the nannies he had so frequently disdained were up against.

The Bass brothers were awed by the comparative elegance of the hotel and kept wandering off, the reverend objected to having to sleep with the brigadier on account of a shortage of rooms, and Nana pestered Titus and the desk clerk about whether it was still possible to get cucumber sandwiches and tea.

Celeste watched Titus struggling with the arrangements and with his temper, and tried to help. But inside she was growing steadily more desperate and anxious. By the time they had found their rooms and deposited their bags, it was dark out and the exhibit, Titus told her in some frustration, was closed. She would have to wait until tomorrow morning to see her dolphins.

She nodded, holding back tears of tension and worry, and Titus smiled tiredly and gave her cheek a caress. “It will be all right, Celeste.”

What followed seemed to be the longest night of her life. She tossed and turned beside Nana; not truly sleeping, but not quite fully awake. In her mind she kept imagining that she heard dolphin cries and kept seeing the confused and dispirited little Titan swimming aimlessly around the cove.