Disoriented, Pandora became aware of a flurry of jubilant movement near her legs. Ajax had run back along the holloway to bounce and prance around them, and paw at the skirt of her robe.
Feeling the way she was trembling, Gabriel kept holding her, his palm resting on her back between her shoulder blades. His chest moved with the ragged rhythm of his breathing, but he sounded calm and collected as he replied. “Phoebe, the fact that I asked you to be a chaperone should have made it obvious that I didn’t want a chaperone at all.”
“I have no desire to be one,” Phoebe retorted. “However, the children are asking why you’re taking so long, and I can’t very well explain to them that you’re a libidinous goat.”
“No,” Gabriel replied, “because then you would sound like a parsimonious prig.”
Pandora was perplexed by the quick, fond grins the siblings exchanged after the sharp words.
Rolling her eyes, Phoebe turned and strode away. Ajax bolted after her—with Pandora’s hat clamped in his mouth.
“That dog will cost me a fortune in hats,” Gabriel said dryly. His hands stroked her back and neck, while the rough pounding of her heart eased slowly.
It took at least a half-minute before Pandora could speak. “Your sister—she saw us—”
“Don’t worry, she won’t say a word to anyone. She and I like to bait each other, that’s all. Come.” Nudging her chin upward, he stole a last swift kiss, and pulled her along the path with him.
Chapter 8
They emerged from the holloway into a landscape unlike anything Pandora had seen except in photographs or engravings . . . a wide belt of pale sand extending toward a white-frothed ocean, and more blue sky than she’d ever seen at one time. The foreshore was backed by dunes anchored in place with bushy grasses and spiky flowering plants. Toward the west, the sand graded to pebble and shingle before the ground ascended to chalk cliffs that bordered the promontory. The air was filled with the rhythmic collapse of waves and soft rushes of water flattening across the sand. A trio of herring gulls pecked over a bit of food, squabbling with thin, sharp cries.
It didn’t look like Hampshire or London. It didn’t seem like England at all.
Phoebe and the two boys stood farther along the shore, engaged in unwinding the string of a kite. Seraphina, who had been wading in ankle-deep water, noticed Pandora and Gabriel, and scampered toward them. She had removed her shoes and stockings, and the trousers of her bathing costume were sodden from the knees down. Her strawberry-blonde hair hung in a loose braid over one shoulder.
“Do you like our cove?” Seraphina asked, with an expansive gesture at their surroundings.
Pandora nodded, her awed gaze traveling across the scenery.
“I’ll show you where to put your robe.” Seraphina led her to a bathing-machine that had been left near a dune. It was a small enclosed room set on high wheels, with a set of steps leading up to a door. A removable hook ladder had been affixed to one of the outside walls.
“I’ve seen one of these in pictures,” Pandora said regarding the contraption dubiously, “but I’ve never been inside one.”
“We never use it, unless we have a guest who insists. Then we have to hitch up a horse to pull it out to waist-deep water, and the lady steps into the ocean on the other side, so no one can see. It’s a lot of bother, and rather silly, since a bathing costume covers just as much as an ordinary dress.” Seraphina opened the door of the bathing-machine. “You can take off your things in there.”
Pandora went into the bathing-machine, which had been supplied with shelves and a row of hooks, and removed her robe, stockings, and canvas slippers. As she emerged into the sunshine dressed in the bathing costume with its short skirt and trousers, and her feet and ankles bare, she turned as red as if she were naked. To her relief, Gabriel had gone to help with the kite, and was standing at a distance with the two boys.
Seraphina smiled, brandishing a small tin pail. “Let’s go look for shells.”
As they headed toward the ocean, Pandora was amazed by the feeling of sun-warmed sand conforming to her soles and slipping up between her toes. Closer to the water, the sand became firm and moist. She stopped to glance back at the trail of footprints behind her. Experimentally she hopped forward on one foot for a few yards, and turned to view her tracks.
Soon Justin ran to them with something clasped in his cupped hands, while Ajax trotted at his heels. “Pandora, put out your hand!”
“What is it?”
“A hermit crab.”
Cautiously she extended her hand, and the boy deposited a round object into her palm, a shell no bigger than the tip of her thumb. Slowly a set of miniature claws emerged, followed by thread-like antennae and black pinhead eyes.
Pandora inspected the tiny creature closely before handing it back to Justin. “Are there many of them in the water?” she asked. Although one hermit crab by itself was rather adorable, she wouldn’t care to go wading with a consortium of them.
A shadow crossed over her, and a pair of bare masculine feet came into her vision. “No,” came Gabriel’s reassuring reply, “they live under rocks and shingle on the far side of the cove.”
“Mama says I have to put him back later,” Justin said. “But first I’m going to build a sandcastle for him.”
“I’ll help,” Seraphina exclaimed, kneeling to fill the tin pail with wet sand. “Go fetch the other pails and spades by the bathing-machine. Pandora, will you join us?”
“Yes, but . . .” Pandora glanced at the waves surging and breaking on the shore in tumbles of foam. “First I’d like to go exploring a little, if I may.”