I sensed that there was something behind the question—something that concerned him, not just me. I glanced at his face, wondering what was in his mind. He had that same brooding look I’d noticed before. “I understand why my father did what he did,” I replied. “I think he honestly believed he was protecting me by forbidding me to marry Dan.”
“Hmm.” He rubbed his knuckles against the dark stubble on his jawbone. “I can imagine my father taking a similar view. He was a traditionalist. Always quoting the family motto, ‘Duty before thyself.’ I never thought about it when I was growing up—the responsibilities that came with inheriting a title. I imagined myself sailing the world, running the family’s shipping company.”
“You did that—for a while—didn’t you?”
“Yes. But it all fell apart after the Wall Street crash. Within a few years the business was unsustainable. We had to liquidate all the assets. And by the time my father died, the house had become a terrible financial burden. I couldn’t . . .” He stopped short. I noticed the subtle change in his eyes, the indefinable something that lingered there momentarily. I wondered if he’d been about to reveal something about the girl he’d fallen in love with.
“I shouldn’t go on about it,” he said. “You must be tired. You should try to get some sleep.”
The way he said it was like an order. But as I turned to go, he caught my hand. “I’m sorry for what happened to you in Africa.” His voice was different now: soft, almost a whisper. “But I’m not sorry that you’ve given up being a nun.”
I gazed back at him, tongue-tied. I couldn’t tell if he was offering me sympathy, or something more. I felt myself blushing and I broke away, muttering something stupid about my convent haircut coming in useful for fooling the enemy.
Down in the cabin, the men were all still asleep. I sank into one of the hammocks and closed my eyes. But I couldn’t settle. For the rest of the journey I lay awake, tortured by what Jack had stirred up.
I’m not sorry that you’ve given up being a nun.
What had he meant by that? Was he simply glad that I’d washed up at Mermaid’s Cove, desperate for a new life and with the abilities required for the secret work he was involved in? Or was he like the men on the Brabantia? The ones who used to cast sly glances as I walked past their deck chairs?
Men always want what they can’t have. Sister Clare’s voice floated into my head, all the way from Africa. Was that true for Jack? If Leo Badger was to be believed, Jack had flouted convention to run after a girl from a very different background to his own. Was that something he was drawn to? Pursuing women who were out-of-bounds?
All I knew of romantic love was the summer I’d had with Dan. At the convent, I’d tried to forget what it felt like to have a man’s hands on my body. I’d often drawn blood with the twice-weekly flailing of my shoulders, battling to suppress the rush of desire those memories unleashed. Twelve years as a nun should have squeezed all that out of me, along with all the other human yearnings. But it hadn’t.
Thinking about Jack in that way was like standing in front of Pandora’s box. Did I want to lift the lid? Could I take the consequences if I did?
Chapter 14
When we got back to Cornwall, I slept for nearly twenty-four hours. I had no idea what time it was when I woke up—I must have knocked the little alarm clock onto the floor when I fell, exhausted, into bed. I jumped up, my heart pounding, unable to work out where I was. The boathouse was pitch dark. The only clue that I was on dry land, not in the belly of La Coquille or the motor launch, was the lack of movement. Not fully conscious, I stumbled out of bed and felt my way along the wall. I knocked over a row of fishing rods, which clattered like dominoes to the floor. “Mary, Mother of God,” I muttered. “Just tell me where I am!”
My hand found the doorknob, and below it the large metal key. When I opened the door, I saw that the sky was gray with clouds and the tide was a long way out. I couldn’t work out what time of day it was. I gazed at the shoreline, where the crisscrossed poles of the sea defense lay exposed like the skeleton of a monstrous fish. It added to the air of unreality, to the dreamlike memories that swam into my head as I stood, motionless, in the doorway. Had I really been to France? Had I imagined those men and that desperate escape in the dinghy? I ran my fingers up and down my arms. The ache in my shoulders from pulling on the oars told me that I hadn’t dreamed it.
A glimmer of orange sunlight touched the western edge of the estuary, dying away as the clouds scudded across the sky. Afternoon, then, not morning. As I watched the seabirds digging their bills into the wet sand on the tide line, my stomach grumbled for food. The tame robin that always appeared when I opened the door came hopping along the sand, eyeing me expectantly. I couldn’t remember what, if anything, there was to eat. I opened the shutters, then went back inside to see what I could find.