Beloved Enemy (77 page)

Alex
smiled. "I do not expect to live always in peace with such an indomitable
rebel. A man cannot expect miracles." Taking her face between his hands,
he kissed her with lingering sweetness, then left her standing on the bank as
he put to the torch the chains that had bound her.

Epilogue

Alexander
Marshall stepped through the great oak door and stood for a moment on the front
step of the gracious Jacobean mansion of soft, sea-weathered stone standing on
the cliff top above Alum Bay. It was a bright spring afternoon, the sky
pellucid, scattered with drifting, cotton-puff clouds, the waters of the Solent
clear and green, flecked with white horses, stretching to the coast of England,
some five miles away.

He
surveyed his orderly empire with a nod of quiet satisfaction. The driveways
were weeded, the lawns neat, the earth of the flowerbeds freshly turned. A
gardener, skilled in topiary, was clipping the ornamental box hedges, a peacock
with full fantail appearing beneath the shears. Yes, Alex thought, his late
father-in-law would have approved of the neat, prosperous solidity of his
estate, now gifted to his daughter by her husband. Although he had never known
John Redfern, Alex had heard so much from Ginny that he felt as if they were
old friends, and it gave him much pleasure to feel that his management would
have earned her father's approval.

He
crossed the garden, stopping to exchange a few words with the gardener, going
round to the westerly side of the house facing the bay. The springy grass of
the headland stretched to the cliff edge, and he glanced down at the all but
invisible rectangle that formed the door to the secret passage. The elder bush
still flourished, but the priest's hole and its two entrances were known only
to the master and mistress of the house. The two mischievous reasons for
keeping the secret so closely guarded appeared from around the back corner of
the house.

Masters
William and Thomas Marshall, their three-year-old legs astride a pair of
Shetland ponies were in the charge of Jed, chewing reflectively on a wisp of
straw as he walked steadily between them. His charges squealed and bounced at
the sight of their father who, smiling, walked to meet them.

"Where
are you off to, then?" he asked, ruffling the chestnut heads. "Are
you pirates or bandits this afternoon?"

His
own green-brown eyes twinned, sparkled back at him. "Indians,"
William said. " 'N Jed is a settler. We're goin' to the orchard to play,
aren't we, Jed?"

"Reckon
so," Jed replied, laconic as usual. "Less'n you've other orders,
General?"

Alex
shook his head. "Don't let them plague you to death, though."

Jed
chuckled. "They're no more likely to do so than you did."

"There
are two of
them,"
Alex pointed out with a grin.

Jed
shrugged in careless dismissal of such a minor point. "It's their mother
in 'em that puts them up to mischief, if you ask me."

Alex's
grin broadened. Jed was more than entitled to voice such an opinion. It was one
with which he was in wholehearted agreement anyway.

"Where's
Mama?" Thomas asked, looking around expectantly at the mention of her.

"Sailing,"
his father told him. "I am going to call her in now."

"We’ll
come too." William swung one chubby leg across his saddle preparatory to
launching himself, in usual disregarding fashion for life and limb to the ground.
His brother promptly followed suit.

Alex
grabbed one child, Jed the other. "No, you won't come too," he said
firmly. "You are going to the orchard with Jed. I am going down to the
beach to fetch Mama."

Incipient
mutiny hovered, but General Marshall was just about a match for his twin sons.
It was a close-run thing on many occasions, but this afternoon a steely look of
resolution achieved compliance, albeit a reluctant one. Laughing, Alex watched
them go, their shoulders set in stiff indignation for about one minute, before
the short attention span of the three year old won the day and the prospect of
playing Indians and settler in the orchard again took precedence.

Alex
strolled to the cliff head, to the point where the narrow trail snaked down
through the colored sand to the beach. At the mouth of the bay, he could see
the sailboat tacking its way back and forth as Ginny brought the dinghy in from
the wide waters of the Solent. It would take her a good ten minutes, he
reckoned. Long enough for him to descend to the beach by the longer, more
dignified route. Even after three years in this house, he still could not adapt
to the goat trail that Ginny used by preference and that his sons assumed was
the only way down.

Ginny
saw Alex standing on the sand, hands on hips, watching her as she made a
lengthier than necessary tack just for the pleasure of it. He beckoned
imperatively, and she smiled and waved, debated teasing him with another long
tack, then decided against it. Much as she enjoyed scudding across this clear
green water, gazing down at the flat rocks masked in seaweed embedded in the
sandy bottom, feeling the tiller in her hand, the tug of the main sheet as the
sail filled in response to her guidance, it bore no comparison to being in the
company of her husband, particularly on the deserted beach, on a glorious
spring afternoon, with no immediately compelling calls upon one's time.

She
pulled up the centerboard as the dinghy entered shallow water, swung the boat
into the wind, and stood up to drop the sail. "Come and help," she
called to Alex, still standing watching on the shore.

"You
are quite capable of managing without help," he returned, "and I like
to watch my raggle-taggle gypsy."

Ginny
chuckled with a prickle of pleasurable anticipation. Hitching her skirt higher
into the girdle at her waist, she swung herself over the stern, her brown legs
flashing in the sun as she jumped knee deep into the shallow water, wading to
shore, pulling the dinghy behind her.

Solemnly,
Alex helped her beach it, keeping his hands to himself with an appearance of
nonchalance. But when she stood, lifting her face to the sun's warmth, reaching
up to tuck an errant wisp of chestnut hair back into her braid, her bosom
lifting with the movement, her slim brown legs set firmly on this land that was
her own, the narrow feet curling into the sand, he could withstand temptation
no longer.

"I
wonder if I will ever be able to resist you," he groaned, taking her hand
and running her up the beach to the cool, damp cave where the dinghy was
usually stowed. "I think it must have something to do with the open
air." His fingers were busy with the hooks of her bodice.

"Like
appetite," Ginny chuckled. "It grows sharper out of doors."

"No,
it is because in the old days we rarely made love within doors, unless it were
under canvas," he said, cupping her breasts as they fell free.

Ginny's
hand fumbled with his belt buckle, pushed his britches off his hips with the
impatience of desire that did not know how to bide its time.

"The
boots have to come off first, chicken," he teased, and Ginny bit her lip
in mortification, dropping to her knees on the damp sand, lifting his feet to
pull off the inconvenient obstacles.

"You
are wearing so many more clothes than I am" she grumbled, raising her
face, pink with her exertions.

Alex
gave a shout of laughter and pulled her to her feet. "How I love you, my
own. Do you know how wonderfully funny you are, how delicious—how . . ."
The laughter died from his face as he touched her lips with an almost
reverential tenderness. "How there would be no meaning to my life without
you?"

“You
are every breath I breathe," she whispered.

The
sea crept softly up the beach, little waves licking the shore as the tide rose.
The cave was redolent with the elemental scents of seaweed and damp sand,
mingling with the rich fragrance of their loving, and the world disappeared,
toppling slowly about them as infinity beckoned.