What Happens in Scotland (30 page)

“I never told anyone, you know,” she murmured.

“That you used to swim?”

“That you could not.” She swallowed nervously. “I never told anyone about that day, not even my sister Penelope.”

He inclined his head, a physical acknowledgement of the courtesy she had shown. “That is a long time to keep a promise. I would not have faulted you if circumstances had compelled you to share such a secret.”

“I think someone’s word is the most important part of their character,” she told him. “A promise is something you must keep.”

His mouth flattened into a thin line. “An admirable sentiment. I wish I could claim to keep my promises half so well.”

For a moment, fear knocked the base of her spine. “You mean you told someone about me?”

He shook his head. “No. I was referring to another promise I made once. A long time ago.”

When he made no move to explain further, Caroline wiped her damp palms on her skirt. The sun mocked the awkward silence. It was always this way, next to the white chalk cliffs, an unexpected blast of blinding color and energy. As a result of this peculiar convergence of sun and wind, she was tanned in places a proper lady should not be, simply from her daily swim. She could feel her nose burning now.

“I must go,” she said, already turning toward the footpath that would carry her back. “Mama will expect me home for tea.”

“Will I see you here tomorrow?” David called after her, breaking the silence that had engulfed him since his last peculiar statement.

Caroline hesitated. While his unexpected appearance today had gladdened her heart and stirred her hopes, it had interrupted today’s opportunity to swim. As long as she could remember she had come to this hidden cove with her father, first to collect shells, and then, in the years before he had died, to learn to swim.

And despite his easy smile, despite the fact he had already seen it, she did not want to share it with anyone else.

Not even David Cameron.

“I don’t come here every day,” she hedged, chewing on her lower lip. “But you can call on me in town, if you prefer, and we can walk along the Marine Parade, or along the Steine. My house is the large Georgian with red shutters, the first one you encounter on the footpath back.”

He grinned, whatever melancholy that had gripped him momentarily tucked away for another time. “I shall do that.”

For a maddening moment, a moment she could not regret, but which she wished she could control, her stomach churned its agreement. Did he mean to court her, then? Eleven years of yearning, secret dreams stretching from childish fancy to adult curiosity, rose up in hope.

And then he ruined it. Took her swelling hope in his hands and pressed it flat, as if her dreams were a whimsical castle made of sand and he was the inevitable tide.

“After all,” he said, as if the matter of Caroline Tolbertson receiving a gentleman caller was not an astonishing thing. “If I am going to resist my mother’s harried matchmaking efforts this summer, I suspect I am going to need a good friend in Brighton to make it through unscathed.”