Page 20 of Echoes of the Sea (Storm Tide #2)

“I hope whoever assigned you this role realizes this is a health and safety nightmare.”

That was a very succinct way of putting it. Her health and her safety were most certainly on the line, and not just in the matter of shrubbery trimming.

Satisfied that she’d done enough, Amelia began descending. Her right foot slipped a degree, but the ladder was so steady that she was able to quickly regain her footing.

“Please, be careful,” Mr. Summerfield said.

“Contrary to the impression my uncooperative right foot is giving, I am being exceptionally careful.” She reached the bottom of the ladder.

His position, holding it in place, meant she arrived on the ground with his arms very nearly around her.

Amelia looked at him, meaning to thank him but finding herself too mesmerized by his dark eyes to say anything or step away.

“I will understand if you’d rather not answer,” he said, “but may I ask why it is your right foot is so uncooperative?”

“I was born with a twisted foot,” she said.

“Can nothing be done for it?”

She shook her head. “The cane helps my balance. And my shoes have to be made with some adjustments. Other than that, I make do.”

A surprised confusion tugged at his features. “Make do? I would think it could be fixed, at least to a degree.”

“How could it possibly be fixed?” One didn’t simply un twist bones.

That seemed to just confuse him more. “It can’t? At all?”

“No, but I’m used to it. It complicates things, but it doesn’t stop me from doing most of the things I set my mind to.”

“Like climb ladders in storms because ... why not?” A corner of his mouth tugged upward. He wasn’t going to berate or belittle her. How refreshing.

“Someone has to climb ladders.” She shrugged. “It might as well be me.”

He stepped back from the ladder, allowing her to step away as well. “Once the road is accessible again, how many additional people will be coming out to Guilford?”

She shook her head. “No one in the village wants to come.”

He took up the ladder and walked alongside her as they made their way back to the gardening shed. She might not have been carrying the ladder, but she was still without her cane, so their progress was very slow. He didn’t seem frustrated though.

“I can’t really blame the villagers for preferring to be in the village,” she said. “I would prefer to be there myself.”

He looked over at her as they approached the shed. “When the road is uncovered, we can go to the village and see if that can be arranged.”

“I have to stay on Guilford Island; that cannot be changed.”

Mr. Summerfield leaned the ladder up against the tallest wall of the shed. “Surely you cannot be legally held here against your will.”

“The terms of the arrangement I agreed to are legally binding. I have a solicitor’s confirmation of that.”

“You agreed to this?”

She knew that tone. He felt she’d been foolish, perhaps even weak. Far too many people, at least those whose safety and existence didn’t depend on being unobtrusive, looked at that as proof that poor relations were naturally weaker or not trying hard enough.

“I have not simply shrugged and said, ‘Whatever someone else chooses, that’s what I will accept.’” She leaned against the worktable.

Her cane was doing the same. “This is how I can gain my independence. This is how I can finally claim my future. I understand the trade-off, and if I can manage it, my current misery will be worth enduring in the end.”

“Worth it even if you die trimming a shrub?” He shook his head. “Imagine that etched into your grave marker.”

Relief washed over her immediately. He wasn’t going to continue arguing that she had been foolish or weak-minded. He was already teasing her again, which she couldn’t remember anyone really doing.

With the hint of a smile, she said, “I can see it already: ‘Here lies Amelia Archibald, who died of shrubbery-related causes on 17th May 1803.’” She shook her head. “That would be both tragic and embarrassing.”

His response wasn’t a laugh. He eyed her contemplatively. Why was he never what she expected?

“You didn’t come to the drawing room last night,” she said hesitantly. “I’d hoped you might play that tune again.”

“I still can hardly believe you haven’t heard ‘Heart and Soul.’”

“Music seems to be very different where you come from from what we’re accustomed to here.”

His attention then diverted to the papers she had nailed to the wall.

It was a list of the things needing to be seen to on the grounds of Guilford, and she’d not managed to mark off hardly any of them yet.

Beside the list was a hand-drawn calendar she had made, marking the entirety of the time she would be spending at Guilford.

Each time she was out here, she marked off the days that had passed: forty-one so far.

Mr. Summerfield tapped her list of items. “This is far too much for you to accomplish alone.”

“What choice do I have? The Iverses run the lighthouse, and that is all that can be asked of them. Marsh and Mrs. Jagger keep the house running. Jane is both the upstairs maid and the cook. Mick is just a child, though he helps where he can. And you have agreed to help with repairs around the house, which is really all I can ask of you. There’s no one left but me. ”

“And you truly can’t convince anyone in the village to relocate out here?” He turned back to face her, obviously frustrated on her behalf. That was not an experience she was familiar with.

“Some might be willing to come up the road for a very brief time,” she acknowledged, “but they are not keen on being stuck here.”

“That isn’t an entirely unreasonable concern, I suppose.”

“I certainly can’t argue with the fact that being stuck on Guilford Island is not a pleasant experience. There are legends about Guilford that add to their nervousness.”

He faced her with a look of curiosity. “What are these legends that keep them away? I don’t know much of the story of this place.”

“All anyone will say is, ‘Time behaves strangely on these waters.’ They seem to believe there’s a dangerous magic in it.”

“A friend of mine said that used to be believed hundreds of years ago,” Mr. Summerfield said. “The people in the village can’t possibly refuse to help you because of something no one believes in anymore.”

“I don’t know that I believe in magic,” she said, “but there is something odd about Guilford Island. I want to believe it is nothing more than my dislike of the sea, but I know there is something more to it. Storms form here so quickly. And the one we had the night you arrived was very strange. The air felt different. It crackled in a way I haven’t experienced before. It was ... unnerving.”

“And you aren’t ‘allowed’ to leave this island that unnerves you so much?”

She was reluctant to simply explain to him that she’d been dropped here by a grandfather who disliked her and was at the mercy of an uncle who had some motivation to see her fail.

Mr. Summerfield treated her as someone capable, and she didn’t want him to stop believing that.

“I only have to remain for five more months in this house that is falling apart and this island where the sea feels as though it’s crashing in on me.

” She emptied her lungs in a quick exhalation.

“I have to set the place to rights in that time, then I can leave and never look back.”

Mr. Summerfield’s forehead creased with concern. “No one should be able to force you to be miserable, Amelia.”

Amelia. He said it as though he didn’t even realize he’d used her given name. She didn’t want to correct him. She hoped he would do it again. And in the privacy of her own thoughts, she suspected she would begin thinking of him as Kipling.

“I’ve always been at the mercy of someone’s whims,” she said. “That has sometimes meant being unhappy. But if I can manage this, I’ll never have to be a poor relation again. I’ll never have to be the one who bows to the dictates of people who dislike me.”

“I’m sure we can get you a new role,” he said. “Renegotiate so you don’t have to stay on this island. When I next go to the village, I’ll see if I can’t sort something out.”

“It really can’t be done,” she said. “I promise you it can’t. Besides, once you leave, you won’t come back. No one does.”

“Because of the superstitions?”

“Because of me. I’m a very easy person to walk away from, Kipling Summerfield.”

He reached out and took her hands. She had certainly not been expecting that. The way her heart fluttered and pounded and leaped and spun all at once caught her off guard as well. She found it a smidge difficult just to breathe.

“Firstly, you are not in any way a forgettable person. Secondly, I, too, have a very long history of people walking out on me, which makes me very reluctant to be the sort of person who abandons someone else.”

“I don’t want you to feel you have to stay out of a sense of guilt or pity.” That would be horrible.

“I assure you, my motivation would be neither of those things.” His voice had dropped a degree and grown softer, deeper. The air around them had turned warm, which was a strange thing inside this perpetually dim shed on an island where the wind never stopped blowing.

“Why would you want to stay here?” Her voice emerged as little more than a whisper.

“Because I’m discovering I like spending time with you.”

His gaze held hers. She simply melted inside. There was a warmth to him, an invitation to trust and to lean on him, the unspoken promise that she could believe what he was saying. And though it likely was an unforgivable bit of foolishness, in that moment, she believed it.