She made a small noise that was part acknowledgment, part dismay. He did not turn, but after a beat she joined him. She held her skirts aloft, and she, too, was barefoot. She’d had on half boots before, and, he assumed, stockings. She hissed as she made contact with the cold water.
He regretted having missed her removing her stockings. There would have been garters involved, he imagined. She would have had to reach under her dress and unfasten them. He untucked his shirt and let it fall over his hardening prick. He had the notion he was meant to be embarrassed, but he wasn’t. The arranging of the shirt was merely to spareherany embarrassment or discomfort.
He observed the physical phenomenon underway in his breeches with, on the one hand, a detached sort of curiosity. This had never happened spontaneously, out in the world.
On the other hand, hewasn’tdetached. He wasn’t detached at all. He was inside the phenomenon. It was an urgent, not entirely pleasant feeling, a heaviness that, if he were to pay it too much mind, might make him mad with . . . something.
“I don’t know you,” she said suddenly, startling him.
“Youdo,” he protested.
“You sound indignant.”
“Iamindignant. You know me.”
“I don’t. How can I know you if I was unaware that you had an unhappy childhood?”
“It was a long time ago. It is not relevant to who I am today.”
“Hmm.” It was a rather grumblyhmm.
“What do you want to know? I am an open book.”
She was going to ask him why he’d been unhappy. He didn’t want to discuss such matters, but for her, he would. He took another step seaward, the waves coming high enough to dampen the bottoms of his breaches.
She walked so she was even with him, damn her.
“Tell me about swimming when you were a child. Did you swim with your sister?”
“No. I swam alone.”
“Who taught you?”
The question gave him pause. “I . . . don’t know.” Someone must have, though. “I can’t remember.”
“Hmm.” Thishmmwas more contemplative than grumbly.
“It has recently come to my attention that I do not remember quite a lot of my childhood,” he said.
“But you remember that you swam. You remember that you loved swimming. You told me that, earlier.”
“Yes. I remember thefeelingof swimming more than I remember the specific logistical circumstances surrounding it.”
“What did swimming feel like?”
“This is what I mean when I say that you know me. I’ve given you the opportunity to ask me questions, and instead of asking about fact, you are asking about feeling. We are alike in this way. We have spoken intensely and frequently offeeling. That is what matters. Who taught me to swim, who my family are, where I grew up—all of that is unimportant.”
“All right, then, but you still haven’t answered my question, which was entirely about feeling and therefore ought to be something you are well prepared to address: What did swimming feel like?”
“Why don’t you find out for yourself?”
She grinned, instantly lightening the mood. They hadn’t been arguing, exactly, but they hadn’t been entirely accordant, either. “What do I do? Do I go in in my dress?”
“That is a good question. I’ve never swum with a lady before.”
“How do you know you’ve never swum with a lady, given your lapses of memory? Perhaps a lady taught you to swim.”
He smiled. “Perhaps I was taught by a water nymph who enchanted me when we were done with our lesson, making me forget her.”
