"It sounds wonderful," she said, her voice a little breathless.
She looked away, back at her small, safe, familiar garden. It suddenly seemed... very small. And very... gray.
"I would love to go there," she said, her voice a low, wistful murmur. She thought of the "emerald sea" he had described. A place where you could float. "Even though summers here are beautiful... they can be a bit dull sometimes."
It was the understatement of her life. Her summers were not "a bit dull." They were a prison of endless, identical days. They were needlepoint, and lukewarm tea, and polite, boring walks, and a sky that was, more often than not, just there.
Carcel watched her. He saw the light that had been in her eyes—the bright, fierce, living light he had seen when she was angry, or when she was... curious—suddenly dim. He saw her gaze fall to the sad, little lavender bushes. He had given her a glimpse of a world of color and heat, only to trap her, once again, in her polite, gray cage.
"Then you should go," he said, his voice practical.
She looked up, startled.
"It might be a bit of an effort to get there," he continued, as if it were the simplest, most logical thing in the world. "But the journey is beautiful, too."
Ines let out a small, short, bitter laugh. She picked up a single flower from the bench, her gaze falling to her lap. "It is not the effort I am worried about, Carcel. It’s too far. It is too far for a lady to travel alone."
She was not a man. She could not just go. A woman, an unmarried woman, could not travel alone. Not unless it was somewhere nearby, a neighboring estate, or a relative’s house, and even then, she required a companion. To travel overseas? Alone? It was unthinkable.
And this, she thought, her brief, bright happiness crumbling into a familiar, dull dust, got her worried. It got her thinking about the reality of her life.
I don’t know when I’ll get married, she thought, her fingers twisting the soft silk fabric of her gloves. A husband was the only proper, acceptable escort for such a journey. And her prospects, as Lord Westhaven had so cruelly pointed out, were... nonexistent.
And Rowan... Her last, best hope.
Since Rowan went to war, he hates the idea of traveling abroad. He had seen... things. He had come back... different. He had come back with a darkness she did not understand, a darkness that made him crave the familiar, the predictable, the safe. The very thought of leaving England, of crossing the sea again, made him... tense. He would not, she knew, accompany her on such a whimsical, frivolous trip. He would call it unnecessary. Dangerous.
She was trapped.
She looked at the man beside her. The man who had seen it. The man who was free.
"I am afraid," she said, her voice flat, "that my chances of seeing an emerald sea are very, very small."
He was quiet for a long, long moment. He was just... looking at her. At her small, hopeless, resigned face.
"I will take you," he said.
The words were simple. They were quiet. And they were, in that small, proper garden, as loud, as shocking, and as explosive as a cannon.
Ines’s head, which had been bent over her lap, snapped up.
She stared at him. Her mouth opened. She tried to form a word. Any word.
"What?" she finally squeaked. It was a tiny, strangled, disbelieving sound.
He was not joking. He was not smiling. His face was perfectly, utterly, gravely serious.
"I will take you," he repeated, as if he were offering to pass her the salt.
"I have a small villa. In the south of France. It is where I stayed, after the war." He looked away, back at the horizon, as if he were picturing it. "It is a tiny house. Just a few rooms. It has a garden... a wild one, not proper, like this. It is on a cliff. It overlooks the sea. It is not... it is not the most luxurious of places. It is not a grand estate. But it is... charming."
Ines... was lost.
Her mind, her logical, sensible mind, was trying to process the words. He will... take me? To his... villa?
But her heart... her heart was not listening to logic. Her heart was exploding.
A slow, dazzling, incandescent smile spread across her face. The hope, the one he had dimmed, came rushing back, not as a flicker, but as a fire.
"That..." she breathed, her voice full of a sudden, painful, joyful awe, "...that sounds... wonderful."
She was, in her mind, already there. She was in the tiny house. She was in the wild garden. She was... she was floating in the emerald sea.
And then...
Her mind, her cruel, logical, socially-aware mind, caught up.
Wait.
Her smile... faltered.
No, her mind whispered, a cold, sharp, sensible voice. No, Ines. Think. No matter how... ’close’... we are... no matter what... (she could not even think the words ’library’ or ’climax’)... it is against all the norms.
To travel... alone? Together? When we are not blood related?
It is impossible.
Even just being in an enclosed space together, she reasoned, her mind racing, in the library, in the carriage... that is enough to get people talking. Let alone... let alone traveling together. For weeks. Especially... overseas.
It was not a scandal. It was... it was social annihilation. For both of them.
And then, her treacherous mind, the one he had just praised, provided her with the image of that annihilation.
Her mind produced a scene. Her and Carcel. At his villa. They were not... they were not just looking at the sea.
They were walking by the sea. The sun was hot. And... and they were... holding hands.
And then... then, he stopped. He turned her. He pulled her close. And he... he kissed her. Not the dark, desperate, kiss of the library. But a slow, warm, sun-drenched kiss, with the sound of the emerald sea in the background.