“Oh,” Imogen said, “your poor mother.”
“Well, yes,” he agreed, “though it was only poor me I could think of at the time. I spent the night there and a good part of the next day. It seemed like a week or a year. The tide went out and came in again, but even low tide did not help me. There was no way around the end of the rocks to the main beach. And even if there had been, I was so paralyzed by terror that I could not move an eyelash or an inch from where I was, perched precariously upon a ledge that seemed to become narrower and higher off the beach with every passing hour. And then the wind got up and tried to snatch me off my perch and the sky turned leaden gray and the sea heaved and foamed and I got seasick even though I was not on it. When a boat finally hove into sight, tossing and pitching quite alarmingly, and the boatman and my tutor spotted me from within it, they had the devil’s own time landing. And then they were compelled to virtually scrape me off the face of the cliff. The boatman had to toss me over his shoulder and order me to shut my eyes before carrying me down and lifting me into the boat. I daresay my eyes were rolling in my head and I was foaming at the mouth. I was sick again on the way home.”
He eyed his cup and the biscuit but did not move a hand toward them. Perhaps, Imogen thought, he was afraid his hand might be shaking.
“They had thought I was dead, of course,” he said, “especially when a boat was discovered bobbing on the open sea soon after dawn, empty and mysteriously minus one oar. My father celebrated my resurrection from the dead when I was ushered into our lodgings first by hugging me so tightly it was amazing he did not suffocate me and break every bone in my body, and then by bending me over the back of the nearest chair, hauling down my breeches, and spanking the living daylights out of me with his bare hand—the only time I can ever remember his hitting me. Then he sent me to apologize to my mother, who had taken to her bed with smelling salts and other restoratives, but leapt out of it in order to crush my bones again and half drown me in her tears. After I had eaten—standing—from a tray the cook had sent up, laden with enough food to feed a regiment, I crept off to my room, where my tutor was awaiting me with his cane in hand. He had me bend myself over, hands on knees, before giving me twelve of the best. Then he sent me off to bed, where I remained until we set off for home next morning. I slept on my front, a position I have always found uncomfortable.”
“And you have been terrified of all things connected with the sea and cliffs since,” Imogen said.
He turned his head and grinned at her—an expression so totally without any of his usual artifice that it caught at her breath.
“A fate I thoroughly deserved,” he said. “It must have been a night and morning of sheer hell for them. I was loved, you know, worthless cub though I could sometimes be. It was only sometimes, however, to be fair.”
Yes, she imagined he had been loved.
“I was proud of myself a few mornings ago,” he said. “It was unkind of you to notice my discomfort and remark upon it.”
“Well,” she said, “it takes courage to confront one’s worst fear and move into it and through it. Perhaps it was your courage I was remarking upon.”
He laughed outright and she realized something she would really rather not know. She did like him. Or, rather, she had to admit that he was a likable man who disturbed an inner calm she had spent years establishing. She did not like what he did to that hard-won discipline.
“Your turn,” he said so softly that she almost missed the words.
But their echo remained.
Imogen swallowed. Her throat was dry. Her tea was untouched, as was the single biscuit she had taken. The tea was probably cold by now, though, and she hated cold tea. And if he had feared that his hand might be shaking, she knew hers was.
“There is not much to tell,” she said. “They knew my husband was a British officer, though the fact that he was not in uniform gave them all the excuse they needed to pretend they did not believe him and to use every means at their disposal to force information from him.”
“Torture,” he said.
She spread her hands across her lap and looked down at them.
“They treated me with the utmost respect,” she said. “I was given a private room in their temporary headquarters and the services of a maid, the wife of a foot soldier. I dined each day with the most senior of the French officers, and they made an effort to converse with me in English though I speak French reasonably well. I had not been so well treated since leaving England.”
“But you did not see your husband,” he said.
“No.” She drew a slow breath and licked dry lips with a dry tongue. “But sometimes, seemingly quite by accident, for which they always apologized profusely afterward, they let me hear him scream.”
Her skirt was pleated between her fingers.