Free The Cornish Affair by Laura Lockington Page B

in quick, jerky strokes a few yards, swearing at every opportunity.
    “Shit, oh shit, it’s cold!”
    Jace swam over to me, in lazy professional strokes and clasped me in his arms. His flesh was cold and smooth under water, and I could see his face in the moonlight. Our limbs were weightless in the salty liquid, and it was easy to wrap my legs around his waist. I clung to him for warmth, and begged him to carry me out.
    “Jace, my teeth are chattering, I’ve turned blue all over and –”
    “All over? That could be proper nasty, I’d better take a look…”
    He waded into the shallows, and we raced up the beach to the blanket. He gallantly offered me his tee shirt to dry myself with, scrubbing my back hard with it, to help me get warm. Trying to put my clothes back on was difficult, my flesh was goose pimpled and damp. My fingers were so cold, I had a great deal of trouble with managing buttons or zips. In the end I put my sweatshirt on, and wrapped my zip up fleece round my hips, it was far too much trouble to tackle my jeans in such a state.
    “You know what?” Jace said, softly.
    “What?” I replied, thinking that now perhaps I would hear that I was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to him, and wondering how I was going to feel about that. Flattered, certainly, but not able to carry it off with any degree of confidence.
    “I’m proper starvin’!”
    I collapsed with laughter again. It seemed so wildly inappropriate. I had to sit down again, to recover from my giggles. Jace pulled me to my feet and said, “How about we tackle the cliff path to Penmorah, an’ maybe we could have something to eat? Know what I really fancy?”
    “No, what?” I spluttered, thinking of exotic dishes flavoured with cinnamon and decorated with gold leaf.
    “Fish finger sandwich!”
    I howled with laughter again. We found that it was infectious, and as soon as one of us stopped, the other one would start giggling again, till we were locked in some awful hysteria loop. It actually began to hurt .
    I begged Jace to stop, and with an enormous effort we pulled ourselves together. We headed towards what I took to be the direction of the cliff path, holding hands and weaving around over the sand. Soon, the bank loomed in front of us, and I tried to sober up a bit. The path was tricky at the best of times, and in the dark, under the influence, was not going to be easy. I decided that the best way to tackle it was on my hands and knees, much to Jace’s amusement.
    “You’ll hurt yourself right proper, get up and hold my hand, we’ll go real slow,” he said, leading the way.
    I objected, “This is my path, and I know it better than you, and I think I should go first.”
    We had a drunken tussle, with much giggling on my part, but in the end I allowed him to lead me.
    “I can’t think how you know the way,” I grumbled.
    “I use the path a lot, often use this way back from the beach,” he said simply.
    Well, that was news to me. Technically, of course, he was trespassing, but that was an absurd thought, and I banished it. It took us ages to reach the top, and I was so grateful when we finally did that I sank down on the ground and refused to move for a moment. I had a sudden wild urge to drag him off to the woods, and make love amongst the bluebells, but I was so cold and sticky with salt water, another idea popped unbidden in my head. Maybe Jace would stay the night with me? I let the idea drift about in my head for a bit, and decided to let things just happen, and not plan anything. This was, after all, a night when the dark shadows were at play, and what would happen would happen, damn what everyone else would say about it in the morning. That could take care of itself.

 
     
    Chapter Seven
     
    As we skirted the gardens, with all the bushes of lavender ghostly pale in the moonlight, I saw that the lights were blazing away in the kitchen of Penmorah, and I dragged Jace into the shadows. A terrible thought