Page 17 of The Tides of Time (Storm Tide #1)

M y heart is smiling.

He moved toward the connecting door to the parlor, but he stopped at the sound of Lili quietly saying his name. She was at his side in the next instant.

“ Tu as quelque chose sur ton visage .” Heaven help him, he liked the soft peacefulness in her voice.

“I recognized the words for ‘face’ and ‘you,’” he said, “but little else.”

She held out a cloth to him. “There is something on your face.” She tapped her cheek with her finger.

He rubbed at his cheek. “Better?”

“ ?a c’est bon .” She spoke softly. “Now the women will not think you need to be mothered.”

“Thank— Merci ,” he said.

“ Avec plaisir , Armitage.” He loved the sound of his name on her lips.

He was in inarguably good spirits as he opened the door and returned to the parlor. Even the “what a sad orphan” expressions the women tended to wear around him didn’t dampen his mood.

“Good of you to call on Lili,” he said. “I’d hoped her would find friends in the village.”

“Oh, her is delightful,” Mrs. Dixon said.

“How long will Miss Lili be staying on Loftstone?” Mrs. Goddard asked.

Armitage looked at Lili, hoping to gauge her reaction. “As long as her wants to.”

She stood with her left arm bent across her middle, holding on to her right. A soft light spilled over her through the parlor window. The tiniest hint of a smile tipped her lips, so minuscule that had he not been watching closely, he would have missed it. There was a delicate aspect to her in that moment. Not weakness or frailty—he doubted Lili could ever be described that way—but something more like tranquility.

Lili’s eyes flitted to him. His heart somersaulted in his chest. How quickly he’d gone from refusing to view her with anything but caution and suspicion to holding his breath for the sound of her saying his name and even the briefest moment of meeting her eye.

She’d shown herself to be kind and thoughtful in a way he would not have guessed. Grandfather was changed with her here. The heartache that had kept Grandfather at a distance even from Armitage seemed to be easing by degrees. There was more light at the lighthouse, and all because of her.

Lili’s smile slipped. She closed the distance between them and set a hand on his arm. He did his best to ignore the shiver of awareness that simple touch caused.

Lili stretched up and whispered in his ear. “I do not know how to heat water on the stove for tea. I have been reading about it, but I have not yet tried.”

He whispered back. “You don’t have to make tea.”

“I do not wish to be a ... euh ... poor hostess.”

“The women won’t sprack off if them aren’t bribed straight off.” He was sorely tempted to brush a thumb along the corner of her mouth to see if doing so would coax that elusive smile back into place.

Her shoulders squared. “I will find something.” And she returned with determined step to the galley.

He watched her go, smiling.

“Oh, Armitage,” Mrs. Willis said. “The way her looks at you.”

He turned back toward the women. All three appeared ready to sigh or faint or cry; he couldn’t tell which.

“Her’s besotted,” Mrs. Goddard answered the question at last.

He allowed himself to believe it for only the length of half a breath. He knew she was tugging at his heart, but he also was well aware that the swiftness with which that had happened bordered on the ridiculous. Lili was too level-headed for that.

“Perhaps her will dance with you at the fete,” Mrs. Dixon said.

“There’s to be a fete?” Armitage hadn’t heard as much.

Mrs. Dixon nodded. “All the village will see for theirselves how your Lili looks at you.”

“And how you look at Lili.” Mrs. Goddard’s motherly smile didn’t make him cringe the way it too often had these past years. It encouraged him, which he needed.

“Lili is ...” Criminy . How was it he couldn’t think of a single word that did her justice?

“Wonderful? Very kind?” Mrs. Dixon’s suggestions brought laughing smiles to the other women’s faces.

Mrs. Willis then added her own guesses. “Doesn’t speak perfect English, but her is trying hard?”

The women did laugh after that.

“Why do I suspect there’s something you all aren’t saying?”

Mrs. Goddard took pity on him. “Those are things Lili had to say about you.”

That had his full attention. “Her said that?”

They all nodded eagerly.

Mrs. Dixon even stood and took his hands in hers. “What does Loftstone need to do, Armitage, to convince Miss Lili to stay?”

From close behind, Mrs. Goddard added, “You’ll not convince we that you don’t wish for she to stay.”

“I would like that.” Armitage made the admission surprisingly easily. “And though it’ll shock you, my grandfather would as well.”

“Is him truly speaking to she of Peony?” Mrs. Willis shook her head. “Him’s not so much as mentioned she since her passing.”

“Lili’s changing Grandfather. For the better.”

Mrs. Dixon squeezed his hand. “Her’s changing you, too, Armitage. For the better.”

He couldn’t deny that. “I think her’s a little lonely here.”

“Us can sort that easily.” Mrs. Goddard waved that off.

Armitage immediately shook his head. “But her also is one who needs some space of her own. Not to mention the language frustrates she a bit.”

“If only your mum were still here.” Mrs. Dixon sighed as she made the observation.

“I think that often.” He had even before Lili’s arrival. “Though Mum would’ve been even less subtle about hoping I’d fallen for Lili than the three of you are being.”

“Your dad fell for Eleanor in an instant.” Mrs. Goddard smiled at the memory. “Once she turned his head, it never turned back.”

And they’d been with each other in the end. That hadn’t saved Armitage from the crushing grief of losing both his parents at once, but he couldn’t imagine either of them going on without the other.

A cacophony of clanks and crashes erupted from the galley.

Armitage rushed that way. “Lili?”

He opened the door to find her standing near the worktable, facing away from the door, looking, apparently, at the window. The teakettle, a few spoons, and a serving tray lay on the ground at her feet, the kettle spinning a little on its side.

“Lili?” He stepped around the spilled items to face her. She was pale, mouth a bit agape. “Lili?”

At last, she looked away from the window and at him. Confusion filled her gaze.

“ J’ai cru voir quelqu’un à la fenêtre qui me regardait. ” Her eyes moved back to the window as she spoke. Deep furrows formed in her brow. “ J’ai vu quelqu’un .” Her breathing grew tense. “ J’ai vu quelqu’un. Puis il a disparu .”

He set his hands on her arms. “Lili, look at me, sweeting.”

She blinked slowly as her eyes struggled to fulfill the request. Armitage moved one hand to her face, softly brushing his thumb along her cheek.

“I saw someone—” She spoke in broken syllables. “Someone in ... the window.”

He glanced that way. “Who’d you see?”

She shook her head. “ Je ne sais pas .”

“Then why are you so rattled?” He could feel her trembling.

“ Je ne sais pas. ” Lili was more than rattled; she was shaking.

Armitage pulled her into an embrace. She leaned against him, though she didn’t relax. He spotted their visitors watching from the doorway. All he could do was try to silently communicate his bafflement.

The same motherly expressions they so often gave him emerged as they looked at Lili tucked into his arms.

“Us’ll clean this up,” Mrs. Willis said, “and make some tea. You sit with she in the parlor for a time.”

He accepted the invitation and silently walked with an arm around Lili back to the sofa in the parlor. She sat beside him without a word, hugging herself and looking as confused as he felt.

“I do not know why this has upset me.” She rubbed her face with one hand. “Your grand-père or Mikhail in the corner of my eye. I might be startled by that.” Emotion clogged her voice. “But I ought not be ... shaken by it. Pas peur .”

She looked at him. The pleading in her eyes sliced him through. He put his arms around her again and held her.

“I am not a coward.” She seemed to be speaking to herself every bit as much as to him.

“I know you aren’t.”

“And I am not easily unnerved.”

He tucked her closer. “No, you aren’t.”

“Then, what is wrong with me now?”

Armitage rubbed at her arm. “I suspect you might be tired, Lili. The storm last night was terribly scrow. I’d wager none of we slept well.”

She leaned more fully against him, a little less tense than she had been. “I am keeping you from your work.”

That was true, but he’d not want to be anywhere else. “Grandfather’ll come fetch me if there’s something pressing them can’t manage without me there. But him’d not want me to leave you just now, not when you’re needing a bit of comfort.”

“I am not accustomed to depending on people, Armitage. I don’t usually let myself need people.”

“Neither do I.” He smiled a little. “Yet, here us are.”

She adjusted her head enough to look up at him without leaning away. “I am grateful you pulled me out of the water, Armitage.”

He brushed a hand along her cheek. “You would’ve drowned.”

Sadness and exhaustion flitted over her face. “I have been drowning for years.”

She closed her eyes, the sadness in her expression increasing. Without another word, she tucked herself into him once more. And he sat with his arms around her, torn between exhilaration at being able to hold her and heartache at realizing the fear and guardedness he’d identified in her straight off was mingled so wholly with grief.