When it ended, Moray slid his arm around her back to keep her close against him, and she rested with her cheek against the fine weave of his shirtfront, with his heartbeat sounding strongly at her ear. Above, a gull was hanging on the wind, its outspread wings appearing not to move at all. Its solitary shadow chased across the sand beside them.
Theirs was stolen time, Sophia knew. It could not last. She had not wished to think of it, herself, but since he’d raised the issue, she asked, ‘Will you leave soon, do you think?’
His shoulder moved a little in a shrug. ‘By his last letter, Hooke will be already on the road to Slains, and Captain Ligondez of our French frigate was instructed to keep off the coast three weeks and then return, which means he, too, can be expected any day.’
‘And then you will be gone.’
He did not answer her. He held her closer, and Sophia, saying nothing, closed her eyes and tried to hold the moment. She was used to losing those she loved, she told herself. She knew that when he’d gone the sun would rise and set as it had done before, and she would wake and live and sleep in rhythm with its passing. But this loss, coming forewarned as it did, evoked a different kind of sadness, and she knew that it would leave a mark upon her very different from the rest.
He shifted underneath her. ‘What is that?’
‘What?’
‘That.’ His hand moved to her throat, and lower, till it felt the small, hard object pressing at the fabric of her gown. His fingers found the cord strung round her neck, and slipped beneath it to draw forth the makeshift necklace. She had lifted up her head to watch him, and she saw the change of his expression as he studied the small pebble, gleaming black, warmed by its closeness to her skin. She’d found a leather lace to string it with, and wore it tucked well underneath her bodice, where no one would chance to see it.
He seemed about to say something, then thought the better of it, and asked lightly, ‘Does it work, I wonder?’
‘It well might,’ Sophia told him, holding up her hand as evidence. ‘This afternoon has been the first time I can yet recall that I’ve not pricked myself to pieces at my needlework.’
He caught her fingers lightly, turned them as if to examine them, then flattened his own hand to hers, as if to test the difference in their sizes. She could feel the pressing coolness of the ring he always wore on the last finger of his right hand—a heavy square of silver with a red stone at its centre, on a plain, broad silver band. It had been, he had told her once, his father’s ring, a small piece of his family he could carry with him in a foreign land.
She wished she had some way to know what he was thinking, with his grey eyes fixed so seriously on their hands together, but he made no comment, and at length he simply twined his fingers through her own and brought her hand to rest above his heart.
The light was changing all around them to the light of early evening, and she knew they did not have much time before they’d be expected back for supper. She asked, ‘Shall we walk again to Ardendraught?’
‘No. Not today.’ He did not loose his hold on her, but closed his eyes again in such a way that she knew, from these past days of observing him, that he was deep in thought.
She waited, and at last he said, ‘When I am gone, what will ye do?’
She tried to keep her answer light. ‘I’ll throw myself at Rory.’
Moray’s chest moved with his laughter, but he turned her face to his. His eyes were open now. ‘I would be serious. The countess will want to be seeing ye married, for your sake. Will you take a husband?’
‘John…’
‘Will you?’
Pushing at him suddenly, she made him let her up and sat so that her back was to him and he could not see her face. ‘How can you ask me that?’
‘I think I have a right.’ His voice was quiet, and it gave her hope that he, too, might be looking on the prospect of his leaving with regret.
Head down, she answered, ‘No. When you have gone, I will not marry someone else.’
‘Why not?’ His question gave no quarter, and Sophia knew he would not let the subject rest until he’d had a truthful answer.
Sifting sand again, she watched it spilling freely from her palm, unwilling to be held. ‘Because,’ she said, ‘my sister made me promise her I’d never give my hand unless I also gave my heart. And you have that.’ She spread her fingers, setting loose the final fall of sand, and Moray, raising himself up on to one elbow, caught her hand in his again.
‘Ye give me more than I deserve,’ he said.