she hadn’t given it much more than a second thought. When he looked at her it was as if she were looking at herself. They were mirrors, Tom her own reflection. Even when he pulled back the covers and eased her onto her back, kissing her neck, trailing all the way down until he arrived at her bare tummy.
“You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” he whispered, before resting his head into the crook of her arm, letting one hand settle across her chest. Instinctively, she wrapped her arm around his bare shoulder, cradled him close. His breathing deepened, the soft lick of air across her chest as his rose and fell. Her eyes flickered shut, blithe to the insurmountable complications that their union would trigger. Little hope existed that she could lie or explain her way out of an overnight absence any more easily than her father would be able to decipher the complexities of her feelings for Tom. But it seemed to her that nothing was as important as right there and then. Perhaps that was what love was, she thought to herself, when nothing that came before or after seemed to matter anymore, when the world could be on fire, but you didn’t fear the burn. Moments later, she drifted into sleep.
* * *
Tom was the first to wake, and he watched her sleeping for a while. It wasn’t the first time he had observed Elizabeth like that. Her presence in the village had become something for which he searched when he left his home in the afternoons, or when he was returning to it after a morning fishing, his eyes exploring the coastline in search of the girl who liked to paint. How many times had he watched her since then? Last night, as much as he had wanted to kiss her, what he wanted to do even more was curl up next to her, touch her face, listen to her talk, and feel the rush of her very presence. That would have been enough. It wasn’t like he had only a few stolen hours to enjoy, or that he was going to lose her; he could never lose part of himself, and he felt sure that was what she was.
The bedroom door opened before he had time to appreciate what was happening. His mother’s eyes widened then narrowed, an animal with prey in its sights. They flicked between her son and the soft blond mass of hair stirring in the bed. Elizabeth roused, saw the look of concern on Tom’s face. “What’s going . . .” she began, but he shushed her with a finger set tight against her dry lips, before she saw the shift in light as Martha Hale stepped into the room and closed the door.
Elizabeth had seen Mrs. Hale before but only vaguely knew her face. Either she had a wonderful constitution, or she visited a different doctor, because she never attended the practice, and neither did the rest of the family. Up close Elizabeth realized she was a beautiful woman; Tom shared her pale skin and dark hair, which she had scraped back in a loose knot at the base of her neck. The sight of her staring at them, which she did—it seemed—without any great discomfort, made Elizabeth’s throat go dry and her heart race.
“What in the name of our Lord are you thinking, Tommy? I said that no good would come of this. Have you forgotten everything I told you?” She picked up Elizabeth’s dress and placed it on the bed. “I thought you were engaged to be married,” she said, her hands on her hips.
“She fell,” Tom said, trying to distract his mother.
“Into your bed?” Mrs. Hale took in the cut on her forehead, and the single shoe still drying in front of the heater. “I mean no disrespect, Miss Davenport, but you’ve no business being here.” Her attention turned to Tom. “If you needed to help her, you could have woken me. We could have explained whatever might have happened to her father together. Last night.” Disbelief and perhaps something else, maybe despair, crossed her face as she glanced to Elizabeth. “Not much explaining it now, is there?”
“Mum, it’s not what you think—” he began, but she interrupted him.
“It’s exactly what I think, Tommy. But I’ll hear it from her. I don’t need any of your clever lies.” Elizabeth was going redder by the second. “Just how do you expect to explain your