Page 25 of What Happens in Hedone

“Perhaps we oughtn’t move her,” Jay said doubtfully. The animal was enormous, almost as long as he was tall, and it far outweighed him. He’d made it a practice to appreciate the Hunstanton seals from afar, not walk among the giant, muscular beasts. Effie stroked this one as if she’d made a pet.

“Jay.” Effie fixed him with a reproachful gaze. “We have to help.”

“So this is why you were not in Adelaide Crescent.” He hoped he didn’t sound reproachful in return. He was not going to chase the woman if she didn’t want him.

“Mmm.” She circled the beast, running her hand along it. The seal lay complaisant beneath her palm as if Effie had some magical effect on it. Jay understood; he did the same when she touched him, held still and vibrating, enchanted, waiting for more.

“Illiger gave them a new family when he reorganized his taxonomy,” Effie said, moving to the rear of the creature to study its hindquarters. “He called them pinnipeds—Latin for fin foot, isn’t that delightful? I read that walruses can maneuver on land using their back feet for a sort of waddle, but seals are clumsier. Look at her body, that ovoid shape. She is made for swimming. And see? There’s another distinction.” She came to stand beside Jay, pointing a finger at the seal’s head. “No outer ear.”

He stared at her. He would chase this woman after all. He would follow her wherever she went, sing beneath her window, pitch a tent at the gate of her home. He would besiege her until she fell in love with him.

She glanced up at him, a question chasing away the softness and wonder. “Did you think I had abandoned our meeting?”

“I had hoped that was not the case. But I see now you have a good reason.”

She held his gaze, hers warm and probing, posing a question he didn’t understand. He stared back, and a lovely blush, like the streaks of a pink dawn, climbed her neck and cheeks.

He would ask her today. This afternoon. He would drop to his knees before her. There would be no finesse, because he had lost all finesse around her, if he’d ever possessed it. There was only the sheer ache of want. Of need.

“So how do we get her in the water?” Effie asked him.

Jay hauled his mind back to the task at hand. “Push?”

Effie shook her head. She wore some pert high-brimmed hat with a bit of net flapping from the brim. “We might injure her further.”

“We could make a sling and carry her.”

“That will take more strength than I have. She’ll weigh at least twenty stone.”

“Roll her like a barrel?”

Effie bit back a laugh, her eyes dancing. “Mr. Burnham.”

“Jay.” He was charmed by her amusement, even at his expense.

“You are brickmaker, are you not?”

“I call myself one.”

“You dig your bricks from the ground. Your brick earth, or whatever you call it. Did I not find you, at this very beach, scooping up mud?”

“What are you suggesting?”

“We dig. We make a path for her, and she can slide back to the sea.”

Jay followed her line of sight to the pup, swimming back and forth, crying mournfully. The mother seal vocalized in return.

“But if she is injured…”

“She needs to be with her baby. And while they pup and molt, I believe, the common seal will gather in groups. So she might have others to look out and protect them from predators.”

Jay regarded the rocky shelf of the beach, the several yards between the seal and the sea. “So we build her a slide.”

She gave him a laughing smile. “What an excellent idea.”

Her leather gloves were thin for the task, and his were not ideal either, but Jay knelt across from her as they began smoothing a path down the rocky beach. As if she knew what they were about, the mother seal rolled to her belly and pointed her nose toward the water, whiskers vibrating. She lifted her rear fins, poised for the plunge.

“Would you dine with me tonight?” Jay asked.