Lady Ines Scandalous Hobby-Chapter 59 - Fifty Nine

Carcel tilted his head, his gaze soft, his small, comfortable smile still in place. He had just complimented her writing, and she had, in response, frozen. She was staring at him, her lips parted, her book forgotten in her lap. Her hazel eyes were wide, and he could see a thousand, unreadable, frantic thoughts swimming in them. She looked, he thought, like a startled, beautiful fawn.

"Ines?" he asked softly, his voice a low, gentle rumble.

Ines blinked.

She was pulled, with a jarring snap, from the depths of her own mind. She had been staring. She had been staring at the man she had just, in a moment of profound, earth-shattering, internal clarity, realized she wanted. All to herself. The thought was so loud, so clear, so final, that she was terrified he had heard it.

Her heart was a drum. Her cheeks were on fire. She needed a distraction. A new topic. Something that was not the library, not her ’illness’, and not, for the love of God, her writing.

"Well," she said, her voice coming out a little too high, a little too bright. She fumbled, her gaze dropping from his kind, patient face to the lavender bushes by her feet. "I’m... I’m interested."

Interested? she thought, her mind scrambling. In what?

"In... in France!" she finished, seizing the word from the air.

She looked back at him, forcing her expression into one of polite curiosity. It was a mask she was becoming very good at wearing.

"I wonder what France is like?" she continued, her voice gaining a (mostly false) confidence. "We are, after all, having... ’French’ lessons."

As if the thought had just, this very second, struck her, she pressed on.

"Carcel," she said, her tone serious, "you have spent a lot of time in France, right?"

Carcel, who had been watching this entire, slightly manic, performance with a deep, fond amusement, relaxed. France. This was safe. This was a topic that did not involve... other topics.

He leaned back on the stone bench, stretching his long, booted legs out in front of him. He looked ahead, past the garden wall, to the pale sky.

"Not so often," he replied, his voice a low, thoughtful rumble. "I have traveled, of course." He paused, his expression shifting. The amusement faded, replaced, just for a second, by a distant, familiar shadow. "But I did... I did live there. For about a year."

"You did?" Ines asked, her own curiosity, this time, completely genuine.

He nodded, his gaze still fixed on the horizon. "It was... after I came back from the war. With Rowan. After that ball, he stayed in England... and I... I did not."

Ines watched his profile. She had not known this. She knew, of course, of the war. She knew they had gone. She knew they had come back... different. Rowan, more rigid, more obsessed with time and perfection. And Carcel... Carcel had just, until recently, been... gone.

"It must have be very different from here, right?" she asked, her voice softer now, her false brightness gone. "How... how was it?"

He was quiet for a long moment, as if he were pulling the memories from a place he kept locked and dark.

"It’s different," he said, his voice quiet. He turned to look at her, and the shadow was gone, replaced by a small, true smile. "It was... needed. It was quiet. And warm."

He settled back, a new, lighter energy in him. He was a man, remembering a time he was just... a man.

"While it’s still spring here in England," he said, gesturing to the pale, watery sun and the damp, green earth, "and it is... damp, and grey, and, let us be honest, cold... it’s already high summer in the south of France. Right now. This very minute."

His smile widened. "Men are probably enjoying swimming already."

"Swimming?" Ines asked, her eyes widening. "In the ocean? But it is only May!"

"The sea isn’t cold there," he explained, his voice taking on a new, warm, almost boyish tone that she had never, ever, heard from him. "It’s not like the Channel. It’s... it’s like a warm bath. You can just... float in it. It feels... nice. You just lie on your back, and the water holds you, and you look at a sky that is so blue it almost hurts to look at."

He looked down at his own large hands, and a small, dry laugh escaped him. "Sometimes, it gets so hot that you get sunburned. I learned that lesson very, very quickly. I was as red as a lobster for a week."

Ines was completely, totally, captivated.

She was no longer a writer researching a scene. She was a girl, who had, for her entire, sheltered, ill life, been confined to drawing rooms, and gardens, and, on very rare occasions, a carriage ride.

"Wow," she breathed. The word was full of a pure, childish, unadulterated wonder. "Sunburned? Floating?"

She looked down at her own pale, gloved hands, which were twisting the poor, forgotten book in her lap.

"I... I have only been to the sea once," she confessed, her voice a small whisper. "Rowan took me, years ago. We went to Lorain Bay, on the coast. Grandfather wanted to meet us." She shuddered, the memory sharp, and gray, and cold.

"But it was in winter," she said, her voice dropping. "It was... it was terrifying. It wasn’t... it wasn’t blue at all. It was just... gray. And it was roaring. The wind was so cold, it felt like needles. I have never... I have never been so cold in my life."

She looked up at him, her eyes wide. "Is the sea in France terrifying, too?"

"No," Carcel said. And he laughed. A real, genuine, happy chuckle that seemed to warm the very air around them. "No, Ines. Not at all. It is completely different from the summer sea here, too. It’s not... it’s not a gentle, tame thing. It’s... it’s hot. But it’s... thrilling."

He was lost in the memory now. His eyes were far away.

"It’s fun," he said, his voice almost conspiratorial. "You go out on a boat, a small, wooden one, with a simple sail. You just... you just go out. You sail until you can’t see the shore anymore, until there is nothing, in any direction, but water, and sun."

He leaned forward, as if he were telling her a secret.

"And you just... you just dive in," he whispered. "You dive, from the boat, into the deep, deep ocean."

He looked back at her, his eyes, in that moment, as clear, and as bright, and as alive, as the very water he was describing.

"And the color, Ines," he said, his voice dropping, full of a strange, quiet reverence. "The seawater... it isn’t gray, or brown. It... it shines. It’s... it’s like emeralds. As far as you can see."

Emeralds.

Ines just stared at him. She was holding her breath.

She tried to picture it. A sea that did not roar, but shined. A sea that was not gray, but green. A sun that did not just offer a pale, watery light, but burned. A place where you could... float.

It sounded... it sounded like a place from one of her novels. It sounded... magical. It sounded... unreal.

She looked at Carcel. He was still smiling, his gaze far away, his face, for the first time, truly, genuinely... at peace. He was a man who had seen this magic.

A sea that shines like emeralds, she thought, her heart giving a slow, painful, aching thump. A thump of longing.

I would love to see that.