The Sea Between (5 page)

She gave a short laugh. ‘I wish my father shared your opinion. He thinks I was just reckless. He’s banned me from riding alone for a month, as a punishment.’

‘Is that why you jumped at the chance to come riding with me today?’

‘No, of course not,’ she said. ‘I came because…well, because you invited me.’ And because Aunt Isobel had been driving her absolutely mad.

‘How far to Shelf Rock?’ Richard asked with a smile.

Fifteen minutes later they were standing on top of it.

Jutting out of the hillside, Shelf Rock was quite spectacular in its own right. It was a huge pancake-shaped rock, measuring about thirty feet across, russet brown in colour, almost red in some lights. But it was the view, not the rock, that made it worth the long ride. On a clear day like this, you could see a long way.

Shading her eyes from the sun, Charlotte gazed down the valley, beyond which were more valleys, their sides a mass of deep undulations, magnificently cast in light and shade. The Malvern Hills were lovely at this time of year. ‘Well, was it worth the ride?’ she asked. ‘Isn’t it a beautiful view?’

‘Very beautiful,’ Richard agreed.

Pleased that it met with his approval, she turned towards him and smiled.

‘Very beautiful,’ he said again, but it wasn’t the view that he was looking at—it was her.

Leaning forward, Richard kissed her on the lips then straightened again and waited, his eyes fixed on hers. He was waiting to see what she would do, waiting to see if she would move away, signalling that he had too much wind in his sails, or stay and run with the tide. She
didn’t move away, but smiled and stayed right where she was. Well, Charlotte mused as Richard drew her into his arms, this is certainly better than spending the day holed up with Isobel and two young nephews. As for what Isobel would say if she could see the two of them kissing like this when they barely knew each other…Circumstances were a mite unusual, though. Richard didn’t live locally; he was a ship’s captain home on a brief shore leave, which was why he was wasting no time in letting her see that he liked her and why she was reciprocating in kind.

Putting Isobel out of her mind, she placed her hands lightly on Richard’s shoulders and closed her eyes as he pressed his lips firmly against hers and pulled her closer. No casual kiss, this. No tentative, uncertain novice kiss either. Well, Richard
was
almost thirty. She was hardly likely to be the first woman he had held in his arms. By the same token, he wasn’t the first man who had ever kissed her. Relaxing in his arms, she slid her right hand from his shoulder to the back of his neck, then slipped her fingers through his hair like a comb. His hair was as thick and soft as a fox-fur wrap. She ran her fingers through it, slowly, back and forth, enjoying the feel of it, enjoying the feel of Richard’s body next to hers, the feel of his hands on her back, his fingers splayed wide, pressing her close, the feel of his lips moving against hers…

It was late in the afternoon when they got back to the farm. The sun was sinking behind the hills in a deep amber glow and the air was becoming noticeably crisper. As she led her horse into the stable, Richard walked in beside her, watching her in silence as she deftly unstrapped the saddle before shutting the mare in her stall for the night.

‘Will you ride with me again tomorrow?’ he asked as she walked over to him.

‘Yes, if the weather holds fine,’ she replied, then laughed as his left arm snaked around her waist, pulling her close to him.

‘Richard, I think you’ve had more than enough kisses today,’ she teased, craning her neck back in an attempt to put her lips out of reach. They’d kissed for quite a long time, both before and after the picnic lunch that Letitia had packed, and her lips were feeling quite tender.

Cupping the back of her head with his free hand, Richard tilted her head forward again. As their lips touched, he said softly, ‘Had we but world enough, and time, this coyness, Lady, were no crime…’

Winding her arms around his neck, she closed her eyes, trying to remember the name of the poem that the lines came from. It came to her eventually—it was Andrew Marvell’s ‘To His Coy Mistress’, and the words Richard had quoted were absolutely right: they didn’t have a world of time. They had little more than a week, and then Richard would be leaving for Lyttelton again. They would have to make the most of the short time they did have, and enjoy each other’s company while they could.

Their current enjoyment, however, was destined to be short-lived, as it was brought to a sudden halt by the sound of the back door opening, followed by footsteps crossing the yard.

‘That’ll be my father,’ Charlotte whispered, glancing hastily over her shoulder. She stepped back, putting several yards between the two of them, and prayed that the failing light had failed enough to hide her reddening cheeks.

‘Ah, you’re back!’ John said, as he walked into the stable. ‘Well, the weather held fine for you. What did you think of the view from Shelf Rock, Captain Steele? Was it worth the ride?’

‘Oh, well worth it!’ Richard said enthusiastically. Arms folded across his chest, he rocked smugly on his heels.

W
ill Richard be calling by to say goodbye to you?’ Sarah asked as she reached for another pin. She was sitting at the kitchen table, patching a tear in Arthur’s trousers.

Veiled in steam, Charlotte looked up from the stone sink where she was scrubbing the breakfast pans. ‘He said he probably would,’ she returned over her shoulder. Richard was due to leave for Lyttelton later that morning, to rejoin his ship.

An amused laugh sounded, unmistakably Isobel. ‘I’ll lay a pound to a penny that Captain Steele will call before he leaves. There’s hardly a day gone by that he’s not seen Charlotte.’

‘Has he asked you to write to him?’ Sarah quizzed.

‘No,’ Charlotte replied, but she was expecting him to.

‘If he does, say no,’ Isobel advised definitely as she put away the last of the breakfast dishes in the crockery cupboard.

Sarah interrupted her pinning to toss her an impatient look. ‘I can’t think why Charlotte would want to say no, Isobel. Richard would be an ideal match for her.’

‘Ideal match?’ Isobel made a scoffing sound in the back of her throat. ‘Marry a man who’d always be away at sea? That doesn’t strike me as being particularly ideal. What’s the point in her marrying a man she’d never see from one month to the next? She might as well stay a spinster and not have the bother of children.’

Sarah tightened her mouth and reached for another pin. ‘Some
people look upon children as a blessing.’

‘I’ll remind you of that when you’re in labour,’ Isobel said. Plucking a tea towel from the airing rack, she walked over to Charlotte, picked up one of the pans lying on the wooden drainer, and began to dry it. ‘Where is Captain Steele bound this time?’

Charlotte continued scrubbing. ‘England.’

‘When will he be visiting again?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘D’you have strong feelings for him?’

‘I barely know him, Aunt.’ She carried on scrubbing.

Isobel shook her head. ‘Find yourself a man who’ll cherish you. I’m devilled if I can see how a man can promise to cherish a woman then spend the best part of the year away from her.’

Charlotte made no comment. She’d already made her mind up what she was going to do if Richard did ask her to write to him, and as it happened she’d reached the same conclusion as her aunt. She liked Richard very much, but the trouble was there was no future with him. Isobel was right: Richard was always at sea.

‘John’s calling you, Isobel,’ Sarah said. ‘He must be ready to leave.’

Charlotte breathed a quiet sigh of relief as Isobel, in a rustle of black silk, hurried off to put on her bonnet and coat. John had agreed to take her to the Drews’ farm, which lay about fifteen miles to the south. Mrs Drew was a supporter of the ‘cause for women’ and Isobel wanted to pass on to her the latest correspondence. Charlotte shuddered to think what Mr Drew would say if he ever found out that his quiet wife, who’d raised ten children and never said boo to a goose, secretly held such radical views. John wouldn’t be very pleased either, if it ever came out what was really in the parcels, neatly done up with brown paper and string, that he periodically delivered to Mrs Drew. He was under the impression they contained books, which
was in part true, but that wasn’t all they contained.

‘I hope Arthur and Matthew behave themselves,’ Sarah said dubiously. Setting down her mending, she pushed herself to her feet and walked over to the kitchen window, rubbing the small of her back with her knuckles. Pulling the curtain aside, she tapped on the glass and waved to them.

‘It was thoughtful of Father to suggest they should go along too,’ Charlotte remarked.

‘It was,’ Sarah agreed. Smiling, she let the curtain fall back, returned to the table, and picked up her mending again. ‘Charlotte,’ she said after a moment.

‘Yes,’ Charlotte said, reaching for the tea towel.

‘If Richard asks you to write to him, I think you ought to.’

‘Why? What point is there?’ Charlotte asked.

Sarah looked up from her mending and frowned. ‘You’re surely not going to take Isobel’s silly advice? I thought you liked Richard. Lorisd knows, you’ve spent enough time with him since he’s been here.’

‘I do like him,’ she said. ‘I like him very much. But I don’t want to marry him so there’s no point in my writing to him. I don’t want, and I won’t have, a husband who’s at sea for eleven months out of twelve. I want a husband who’s at home, like Edwin. I know some women don’t mind having a husband who’s away for long periods, but I
would
mind. Isobel’s right. There’s no point in marrying a man who’s never at home.’

Sarah slowly raised her brows, the way she did when she strongly disagreed with something. ‘Well it’s your decision, but I think you’re overlooking something. Two things in fact. First, ships don’t necessarily have to go on long voyages. Some ships trade solely up and down the coastline. You seem to be assuming that just because Richard is away for long periods at present he always will be. What you’re forgetting is that he’s had no reason to spend much time ashore.’

Charlotte’s hazel eyes narrowed thoughtfully. That was something that she hadn’t considered—the possibility that the
Nina
could carry local cargoes. Coastal trips would still take Richard away from home, but it would be for days rather than months. She could live with that. But would Richard be agreeable?

‘He might not want to deal only in local trade,’ she said.

‘And then again, he might,’ Sarah returned. ‘If he wants to marry you and if you won’t marry him unless he changes his shipping routes, he may have to consider it.’

‘And the second thing?’ Charlotte prompted.

Sarah gave an amused laugh. ‘I’d have thought that was obvious. Your feelings for him.’

‘I like him, Sarah, nothing more,’ she said.

‘From what I can see, you like him quite a lot,’ Sarah said. ‘You say you want a husband who’ll be at home with you every night, a husband like Edwin. Well, it won’t be difficult to find such a man, but will you feel for him what you feel for Richard? It’s one thing to have a husband who lies beside you in bed every night, Charlotte, but if you don’t have the right sort of feelings for him you might wish he were at sea.’

An hour later, when Richard arrived, Sarah’s words were still tumbling around inside Charlotte’s head. She felt all at sixes and sevens, not sure what to do any more. Inside the parlour she could hear Richard talking to Sarah; at any moment he’d be coming into the garden to talk to her. She’d gone there deliberately to wait for him, so they could talk in private. ‘What shall I do?’ she murmured, absently plucking a shiny orange rosehip from its lanky stem. She rolled it between her palms, trying to sort out her thoughts. The question was: if she spurned Richard, would she meet someone else to whom she felt equally attracted? Or would she not? The answer was: she couldn’t be sure. Just as she couldn’t be sure that Richard
would agree to shorten his voyages. The latter she could find out, of course, simply by asking him. However, Sarah had been adamant that on no account must she do that. Her advice had been ‘write to him, let his feelings for you grow, and leave any mention of altering his shipping transactions until such time as he proposes marriage to you’. Much as Charlotte could see Sarah’s reasoning, she couldn’t help feeling there was something very underhand about waiting until Richard proposed before she spoke out. She had voiced as much to Sarah, saying she thought she ought to tell Richard where she stood straight away. But as Sarah had rightly pointed out, Richard hadn’t actually asked her to marry him yet, so she could hardly tell him she wouldn’t marry him unless he agreed to this and that.

When Richard emerged from the house a minute or two later, Charlotte was still undecided about what to do. She blew out a low sigh. Well, what have I to lose by writing to him for a while? she thought. Nothing at all. And perhaps everything to gain.

Tossing away the rosehip, she went to meet him.

‘All ready to leave, I see,’ she said, smiling as they came to a halt in front of each other.

He smiled back, that slightly crooked wry smile that always made her want to laugh. ‘I was ready to leave an hour ago, but as usual at the last minute my mother insisted on packing half of the pantry into my saddlebags.’

She laughed again and fell into step with him as he started to walk across the grass towards the fence marking the perimeter of the garden. ‘Are you looking forward to being back at sea?’ she enquired casually.

‘In some ways I am,’ he replied, then with a smile added, ‘but in other ways, I’d much sooner stay here. What will you be doing over the next few months, while I’m at sea? How do you normally occupy yourself during the springtime?’ Reaching the fence, he turned around
and leaned against the fence post, so that he was facing her.

She gave an indifferent shrug. ‘I’ll go out riding whenever I can find the time, and when Sarah gives birth to her next child I’ll help to look after Matthew and Arthur. And I’ll probably visit George and Ann for a few days when the weather is more settled.’

‘In between riding, looking after your young nephews and visiting, would you have time to pen a letter to me?’

‘I think I could probably fit one in,’ she said.

The next thing she knew he was handing her a piece of paper. ‘This is where to address it to—care of the shipping office. They’ll hold it for me and I’ll collect it when we call into port.’

She slipped it into the pocket of her dress. ‘Where will you spend Christmas?’ she asked, aware that he wouldn’t be spending it in New Zealand.

‘At sea, probably,’ he replied.

‘Is that where you usually spend Christmas?’

‘Sometimes. Last year I spent Christmas in Southampton.’

‘How often do you spend Christmas with your family?’ she quizzed. Not often by the sound of it.

His reply confirmed her suspicions. ‘In the last ten years, I’ve sat down to Christmas dinner with my parents twice. My parents would prefer it to be more often, of course, but they understand.’

Well, if you want a wife who understands, you’d better look elsewhere, Charlotte thought. She wasn’t prepared to eat cold turkey on her own eight Christmases out of ten.

She tugged her thoughts back to the present. ‘You’ve a long ride ahead of you. Will your cargo be loaded and your ship ready to leave when you reach Lyttelton?’

‘I hope so,’ he said with feeling. Twisting his head, he looked down the valley in the direction of Christchurch and the port of Lyttelton, then with a sigh pulled his fob watch out of his pocket. The sun was
shining on his face, catching his eyes. They were the same deep blue as the cornflowers that would soon be adding a splash of colour to Sarah’s garden.

‘Time to go?’ she asked quietly.

He nodded and dropped the watch back into his pocket. ‘I’m afraid so. I’ve a lot of ground to cover.’ Smiling, he took her in his arms.

She glanced over his shoulder towards the house. The garden wasn’t the most private place. If someone was standing beside the window in the parlour, they would have a bird’s-eye view of the two of them.

‘Does it matter if someone sees us?’ Richard asked, reading her mind. Evidently he didn’t think so, and leaned forward to kiss her. ‘I’ll miss you, Charlotte,’ he said softly.

I hope you do, she thought. She was hoping he would miss her a great deal.

‘I’ll miss you, too,’ she returned honestly and, slipping her arms around his neck, made the most of their last kiss, well aware that it would be more than six months before Richard kissed her again.