By The Sea, Book One: Tess (16 page)

"Aaron?" she whispered, her warm breath
falling on his sleeping form. He was awake at once. It occurred to
Tess that on board a boat he had learned to be prepared for any
emergency.

"Tess." He said only the one syllable, and
yet she knew, suddenly, what it was that she needed and that he was
willing to give.

"Love me, Aaron," she said in a voice filled
with heat.

"Ah, Tess—gladly."

He came into her quickly. It was lovemaking
without preamble, fierce, focused; satisfaction demanded and—in a
single, thunderlit moment—achieved. It left her breathless with the
shock of eroticism, but most of all, it left her in peace.

Morning brought clearing and the strong
northwest wind that Aaron had forecast. The
Enchanta,
a
hundred-foot, heavy-displacement yacht, rose and fell gently on her
anchor, not enough to be uncomfortable, but enough to stir Tess
from the best sleep she'd had all summer. Her eyes fluttered open:
Aaron was sitting on the side of the bed, a dark green robe wrapped
loosely around him.

"Good morning," Tess whispered, but she did
not smile.

Nor did he, as he reached his hand out to
move a strand of auburn that lay across her cheek.

She held his look. "Don't feel sorry for
me," she said, though she was falling apart at the thought of
leaving him.

A weak laugh escaped him. "Sorry for you!
All my pity I reserve for myself, sweet lady—because I've run
myself straight up on some rocks," he added sadly.

"If it's about the money—" she blurted out
naively.

"The money?"

"I don't care about it, not at all." In fact
she wanted no part of it, only the remembrance of their night
together.

"You dear little witch—the money is nothing.
Take ten times the money—only don't go, Tess. I can't let you go."
His hand caressed the curve of her neck and shoulder.

She took his hand in hers and held it. "I
can stay longer," she said, her eyes shining with pleasure. "Only I
have to let Maggie know—"

"I don't mean for the morning, Tess, or for
an extra day. Come away with me on the
Enchanta."

"Away ... where?" she asked, stunned.

"Does it matter?" he asked lightly. But he
saw that it did. "Not far—we'll tuck into half a dozen deserted
harbors between here and New York. The
Enchanta
is due among
the spectator fleet for the America's Cup Races, which begin on the
seventh of September. Stay through the races," he said in a soft
voice. "It's not so very long."

"But—"

"But
—your family. I understand. Send
the money ashore with a note."

She laughed out loud at the suggestion. "A
note! It's not as if l'm declining tea!" In a softer voice she
said, "I'd love to stay with you, but can't I see my sister first
and explain all that's happened?"

She had no idea how she would manage her
entry into Beau Rêve, but surely she could figure something out.
"It wouldn't take long," she added.

He looked genuinely sorry. "I think not,
Tess. If you want to stay on, decide now. We must weigh anchor at
once if we're to catch a favorable tide through the Race. With or
without you, the
Enchanta
must be on her way. Tess!" he
added in a voice that sent her blood racing. "Can you walk away
from last night? Can you?"

Put that way, it seemed that she couldn't.
Aaron had claimed her heart's secrets, and then her body, and now
her free will. And yet he was making her feel as though it was she
who had dominion over him. She shook her head slowly to herself.
One of us has become enslaved to the other, and I don't know
which.

Aaron saw concession in her face; his own
lit up. "You're staying. It's the best thing." He slid his arm
around her waist and lifted her to him in a kiss of pure joy. As
for Tess, she swept all thoughts of fallen women aside in her
determination to take each day one kiss at a time.

And although time and tide wait for no man,
they traded a little of both for the chance to make love again.
Their coming together was lilting and carefree, the happy play of
two children about to set off on a raft downriver, with all the
world before them.

Afterward Tess had just time enough for one
draft of a note to Maggie. It was horribly inadequate, but Tess
promised a longer letter to follow. Aaron gave her the addresses of
several yacht clubs which would hold mail for them: In Greenwich
and Fishers Island in Connecticut; and in Larchmont and Manhasset
Bay and New York after that. It seemed unlikely that the
Enchanta
and a letter from poor Maggie could end up in the
same place at the same time, but Tess knew that Maggie, who was
barely literate, would probably not write.

I will be back after the races
, she
finished up.
And then I will tell you the most amazing tale yet.
Be happy, Maggie. Our lives will be so much better now. You need
not stay at that house. Use these funds to find someplace nice for
you and Will and father. All will be well, now. Be happy.

Tess put the note and fifty dollars in an
envelope and sealed it, and Aaron had it sent ashore. The crewman
had some machinework to do on an engine part ashore and would not
rejoin the
Enchanta
for days; Tess would not be able to
learn her sister's fate until then. Not until that moment did the
awful truth hit her: she was being separated from her family for
the first time in her life.

Maggie would be on her own for the next week
or two. There was little doubt in Tess's mind that her sister was
about to be given the sack. But the money would arrive in time;
Maggie could take a nice flat in town and wait for Tess. Maggie
could shop, and buy treats, and dream of good times to come.

It was the best possible outcome, Tess told
herself. She remained below in Aaron's cabin while the
Enchanta
weighed anchor. Aaron had not asked her on deck,
which bothered her. Nothing about him had struck her as overly
discreet. Was he ashamed of having her on board?

I'll have to learn proper protocol for
floozies,
she thought wryly as she stared out a cabin porthole,
sensing the yacht being pulled link by link to its anchor. It was a
brilliant and cool summer day. For only the second time, she was
seeing Newport's shoreline. It was such a pretty little jewel, this
city by the sea. Church spires poked through green trees as the
town crept up the hill away from the historic, protected harbor.
She searched for St. Mary's brown stone tower. Would Maggie go to
mass this Sunday without her?

From her vantage she could see no evidence
of the royal opulence that lined both sides of Bellevue Avenue, but
farther down the hill and closer to the water she was able to pick
out a dozen fenced-in widow's walks on the slate roofs of the
well-built houses of Newport's sea merchants. There might be a wife
on one of them now, pacing anxiously, absent-mindedly taking in the
black hull of the
Enchanta
as it glided out of the harbor,
en route to—where?

"I must be mad!" she said, jumping up. "The
deed is done, the money is mine, Maggie is as fearful as any
captain's wife—and yet I sit cowering in a man's cabin, waiting to
satisfy his immoral whims!"

She slipped back into the guest stateroom.
Her black dress was in the armoire, dry and neatly brushed, and for
a moment she thought she'd been too drunk to remember hanging it
up.
A servant did this for me,
she realized in a daze.
For me.
After changing out of the brocade dressing gown into
her own clothes, she returned to the leather settee in Aaron's
cabin.

He came in a little while later, wearing
full yachting regalia: flannels, a blazer, a cap, and
waistcoat.

He took one look at Tess and said, "I'm
sorry, darling. There were one or two gowns in the other stateroom
that might have fit you. Didn't you see them?"

That was another thing. Why were there
women's clothes on this widower's yacht?

"I need to get off, Aaron," Tess said
without preamble.

"Now?" His smile was wry.

"If you would. Or if not now, then at the
first port you put in to." She tried not to look at him, focusing
instead on the Rhode Island shoreline as the
Enchanta
steamed south.

"I see." There was a pause. "Is it because
you're frightened of deep water?"

"Don't be absurd!" Her lower lip trembled;
she bit it angrily. "You
know
why, Aaron."

"Let me guess. You're having too much
fun?"

She swung on him. "Yes—you could say that,"
she answered, flushing. "If I were intended to lead this sort of
life, I would have been raised—well, differently."

"And if the rose were intended to shrivel on
its vine, it would have been made to look like a thistle," he said
impatiently, drawing close to her. "Don't you see that, Tess? If
you had stayed behind at Beau-Rêve like a good little girl, the
chances are you'd have been wooed—perhaps seduced—by some lout of a
footman. A life in service, a brood of brats—is that how you see
yourself, Tess? What good would you be to Maggie then? And young
Will?"

He touched her hair as if it were spun of
glass. Once again, it was not only his logic, but his reverence for
her beauty that brought her around. Tess felt more than flattered;
she felt ... chosen. For what, she had no idea. It didn't seem to
matter, somehow. The long-lashed lids of her eyes drooped and her
full lips parted, waiting for his kiss: it was an opiate, and Tess
was well on her way to addiction.

They kissed long and deep, until Aaron said
in a voice slurred with desire, "Tess, you gave me your word that
you would stay. It tore me apart just now when—damn you, Tess," he
said weakly. "How can you torment me this way?"

The ache in his voice, more than his words,
moved Tess deeply; she had never been the object of anyone's
obsessive desire before.

"I'll stay," she whispered tenderly. "Until
the seventh. I promise."

****

Three days later, the
Enchanta
was
tucked all alone in the lee of Shelter Island. It was hot and
still, a typical late summer afternoon on Long Island Sound. Tess
was seated on the afterdeck sipping a ginger-beer, her mood languid
and pleasure-sated. In the morning she and Aaron had gone shelling
on a deserted beach. When they returned to the yacht Aaron had
wanted to make love, but first Tess had insisted on setting out her
shell treasures all around them. Aaron had stood by patiently,
complaining good-naturedly of the torture she was putting him
through, and later Tess, without feeling any shyness at all, had
rewarded him by satisfying him in the manner of the French.
Afterward, as they lay in one another's arms, he confessed to her
that his wife had steadfastly refused to indulge him in the act,
which he said all men enjoyed to an intense degree. Tess found his
confession fascinating, as she found everything about him
fascinating.

She was also fascinated with the yacht.
Aaron had given her a complete tour, from the wheelhouse to the
engine room, and Tess had met Captain Oberlin and most of the crew.
They called her Miss Moran and were brutally polite. Tess had not
yet found the courage to look any one of them in the eye. It was
much easier, she was discovering, to serve than to be served; it
took skill and practice to accept a ginger-beer without feeling
gratitude.

Lunch was being served to them on the
afterdeck. After the last dish was set down, Tess sighed happily:
they were alone again. It could not last, this isolation—they were
getting closer to New York and to Aaron's circle of friends—but for
the moment Tess was serene. She felt utterly feminine in the
ice-blue gown he'd bought for her on the Connecticut shore. And she
had a hat to match: In her time alone, while Aaron reviewed his
stock portfolio, she designed hats. Hats and gowns, but mostly
hats. She had a drawer full of sketches, and two or three actual
hats she'd made from scraps of trim she'd scrounged from the small
shops in New London. Aaron seemed genuinely impressed by her
ability to create something from nothing. Tess had responded, "You
must have terribly low expectations of women. Some of us can be
quite useful ornaments, you know."

And he had scolded her, again, for being so
defensive.

He was watching her now, in his thoughtful,
appraising way, stroking his goatee, a look of beguiling tenderness
in his eyes.

"You don't like this dress, after all," she
teased. They had laughed over the fact that Mrs. Astor took ninety
gowns to Newport with her for the season. Tess had three.

"The dress is perfect on you."

"What, then? You've hardly spoken in the
last hour."

He reached into his blazer pocket and tossed
a small envelope across to her. "From your sister," he said. "Mac
came aboard at eleven."

"He's back then! What news of Maggie?" she
cried, snatching up the letter.

"I assume it's all in there," Aaron answered
in a terse voice.

"You should have told me about this at
once," she said excitedly, tearing it open.

"Tess, must you look so damned
young?
You look like a schoolgirl at Christmas holiday!"

Tess heard none of it. She read:

Dear Tess,

Well a surprize! How awful re M. Hillyard.
The other man sounds ever so nice. I gave the man who bruought your
note one $ to take this back, not too much I hope. It doesn't
matter about my job because you will never guess. Birget is going
it on her own & wants me. I may need a bit of your mony but
only at frist. I do miss you. Yours sincerly with love,
Maggie.

Tess's face skidded through half a dozen
emotions before coming to rest in a bank of sorrow.

"Well? Has the wicked Cornelia extracted her
revenge? Is Maggie cruelly dismissed?"