Page 26 of The Tides of Time (Storm Tide #1)

A rmitage was not in the kitchen for the late-day meal. He was attempting to finish replacing the bolt he’d been working on when Lili had visited him in the lamp room. According to Mikhail, the Pierce men were in agreement that a storm was brewing overhead that would break fiercely overnight. All three lightkeepers would be rushing about, preparing for it, and then spend the night on alert for any damage needing to be urgently addressed.

Lili was double glad to have taken Mr. Pierce’s advice to spend a few minutes with Armitage that afternoon. She wasn’t likely to see her bien-aimé until the next day. And if the storm dealt too much damage, perhaps even then only fleetingly. Armitage had become an unexpectedly crucial part of her happiness.

Géraud stepped into the kitchen just as Mikhail and Mr. Pierce were sitting down at the table.

“There is a plate of food on the table for you.” Lili had been practicing a friendly but impersonal tone to use with the man who had once been her brother. She didn’t intend to be unkind, and she refused to be angry. A chance-met traveler . That was how she had to think of him for her own peace and healing.

She turned back to the stove and set a plate of food in what her book on cooking had labeled “the warming door.” It would remain hot until Armitage could leave his post and take a moment to eat. The inventions of this modern time were rather ingenious, though she reserved the right to never approve of the monstrous train.

“It’s your turn for telling a tale, Mr. Pierce,” Mikhail said. “A quick one though. It’s bound to be a toiling night, i’n’it?”

Lili took up the washing of the pot she’d cooked in. Behind her, the sounds of cutlery against plates clinked and echoed. And in the midst of it, Mr. Pierce obliged his young keeper-in-training. Géraud, thank the heavens, chose to stay quiet.

“Many years ago, my wife decided her were in need of a new blouse and eyed what Mrs. Willis had on offer. But my sweetheart didn’t find anything her felt satisfied with. Mrs. Willis had a shop assistant at the time who’d a knack with the needle, so my wife asked for something to be made. It were an indulgence I don’t think Peony had ever given herself before. Her didn’t again after.”

There was always a softness to his voice as he spoke of his late wife. If Lili’s father had outlived her mother, he would have sounded the same when recalling his memories of her.

“I’d never known my wife to change her mind too often once her’d decided on something, but her sent our son to the clothiers again and again with instructions and thoughts for the seamstress, sometimes even just to inquire after the seamstress’s progress.”

Mrs. Pierce must have been very anxious.

“I might not’ve noticed,” Mr. Pierce continued, “except our boy was gone longer with each visit to the village, and as us was running this lighthouse together, I found myself without help. I’ll confess myself frustrated with Peony. But then the blouse was finished, and the sweet French seamstress delivered it to the lighthouse. I saw the way my son looked at she, and everything became clear. My wife, as was so often the case, had seen what I hadn’t. Her had wanted to give her son a chance.”

Lili set the now-clean pot upside down on a rag to dry, then turned to face the men. “These were Armitage’s parents?”

Mr. Pierce nodded. “When the men of this family fall, us fall hard.” He smiled at her. “And love deeply. Can’t seem to help ourselves.” He rose and set his spoon and now-empty plate in the washbasin. “Thank you for supper, Miss Lili.”

“Thank you for the story.”

He whistled his way into the lighthouse tower. Lili fully expected Mikhail to hop away as well, but he remained in his chair at the table, eating oddly slowly. Lili dried the pot, then washed and dried Mr. Pierce’s plate and spoon.

Géraud rose abruptly from the table and left without a word. In the next instant, Mikhail rose and gathered all the remaining dishes on the table.

“I thought he weren’t never going to leave.” Mikhail handed the items to her. “Mr. Pierce’ll scold me a bit for lallygagging.” His expression turned a touch apologetic. “I know Mr. Gagnon is your brother, but I don’t like the idea of him being in here alone with you. I suspect he’d be unkind.”

“Unfortunately, I think you’d be proved correct.”

Mikhail shook his head. “He shouldn’t be. You don’t deserve that.”

What a dear boy he was. So thoughtful and kind.

“If the weather is better tomorrow, I hope you’ll keep teaching me to dance,” she said. “I’d like to learn.”

His usual grin was back immediately. “I’d like that, Miss Lili.” He left the kitchen as well.

Géraud was unlikely to return to this side of the keepers’ quarters. But on the off chance that he did, she’d rather not be in the kitchen or parlor, where escaping whatever unkind thing he meant to say would be difficult.

After only a few minutes more, she had the kitchen cleaned and everything back in its place. Armitage’s meal was in the warming drawer, so she needn’t be there when he was ready to eat.

She slipped her book of folktales from its place on a shelf, then passed through the parlor and up the stairs. She stepped inside her room, her sanctuary, and closed the door. She didn’t think it the action of a coward; she was looking after herself, choosing to give herself peace. Mr. Pierce had said that was what she ought to find here, that her own peace was worth claiming.

She lit the paraffin lantern. Though she wasn’t entirely comfortable with the lantern yet, she had used it every night the last few days and was grateful for the strong spill of light it offered.

She sat in the chair near the window, setting the lantern on the table beside it. This really was a peaceful room, and she was grateful for that. Armitage had insisted she had a home here. It felt like one.

The ribbon in her book still marked the page she’d been reading earlier about the angry waters. She left it there as she flipped ahead. The word storms caught her eye, and she stopped. With the sky rumbling outside, that felt like an appropriate topic for the night.

In the west of Sussex lies a mysterious estate sometimes referred to as The Little Sister of Mont Saint-Michel.

Mont Saint-Michel was an island off the north coast of France. Lili had not ever seen it, but she had most certainly heard of it.

Ghyllford, unlike its sister, is not cut off from the mainland by the coming in of the tide but is, rather, isolated by the sea surge of storms.

Though the idea of this small sibling of the legendary French tidal island was intriguing, Lili’s interest wavered. She found herself flipping through the book once more.

Again, her eyes were caught by the word storms .

Ancient tales in the south of Hampshire insist that the frequent and violent storms on the Channel in this area of the world once separated a sprite from her family, trapping her in the swirling waters near Loftstone Island. Desperate to be found again and reunited with her loved ones, the sprite used all her strength to imbue the lightning with shades of green, lighting the way for her family to find her. And as this area of the southern coast is the only place where strikes of this color are seen over the water, legend holds that she waits for her family still.

The poor little sprite. Lili knew how it felt to be so utterly alone.

“I’d be honored to be a grandfather to you, Lili.” Mr. Pierce had hugged her as he’d said that. A grandfather. Family.

“You’ve a home on Loftstone Island, Lili. And people who care about you. And love you.” Armitage’s words filled her heart.

She wasn’t alone, not anymore.

Lightning flashed outside. The storm had begun raging.

She was watching when a second flash lit the sky outside her window. It was ordinary lightning, not the green pleadings of the lonesome sprite.

The clap of thunder followed soon thereafter, so close and so loud that the window rattled. The men had said the storm threatened to be a significant one.

Lili crossed to the bookcase and slipped her book into the spot it had been occupying since Captain Travert, for reasons she still didn’t know, had secretly placed it inside her basket. She then set the paraffin lantern on the mantel shelf while she worked to light the fire. She could manage the friction matches now, but she still found them frustrating and didn’t overly trust them. So many things about this time would likely always feel odd to her.

But Mr. Pierce would feel like family.

And Armitage would always feel like home.

She needed to explain everything to Armitage. Perhaps she could begin by telling him why the book of folktales, marked as it had been, had struck her as so significant. She could read him the section about the Tides of Time. If she planted the seed of that in his mind, he might be more ready to accept the truth of it.

Or she could simply tell him the full truth, then hold her breath to see what the outcome was.

“He won’t want you to stay,” Géraud had insisted.

But Lili had greater faith in Armitage.

More lightning flashed as Lili changed into her nightdress. The sound of the angry wind and the rumble of the thunder pulled her mind back to the deck of the fishing boat, to the ferocious waves. If she hadn’t been tossed overboard, Géraud would have dragged her belowdecks again and kept her there until the boat returned to France.

The Tribunal had told him to trade Lili’s freedom for his reputation, Lili’s life for his. He’d intended to do just that. Her journey to Honfleur and out onto la Manche would have wound back to Paris and ended at the guillotine. There was absolutely no doubt about that.

She closed her eyes and breathed as deeply and slowly as she could manage. She was not in France. She was not facing the Tribunal. She was safe.

Lili set her carefully folded clothes into the drawer. She laid her borrowed shawl atop them, brushing her hand lightly over it. She wished she could have known Armitage’s mother.

Wind-whipped rain lashed against the window.

The remembered whoosh of the guillotine blade echoed in her mind.

I am safe.

She could feel once more the icy grip of the sea dragging her beneath the waves. No. She needed to pull herself from this remembered panic. Closing the drapes so she could not see the storm would help.

She stepped toward the window.

A deafening crash and the immediate sound of shattering glass filled the room. Instinctively, she threw her arms upward to guard her face. Pain seared through her, pulsating in her arms and face. A cold, angry wind tore at her in the sudden darkness. She could hardly breathe through the intensifying pain.

Her pounding pulse demanded that she run from whatever had attacked, but she was too terrified to move. And in far too much pain.

Heavy, fast footsteps sounded, growing louder and louder. Someone was coming. But who? She couldn’t think clearly.

Her door flew open, and the spill of lantern light illuminated the room. Her breaths came in sharp, quick succession at the horror she could now see: a tree branch had crashed through her window, sending shards of glass and splinters of wood all over. Glass and splinters. The realization brought added horror to the continued agony in her arms and face.

She didn’t know who was holding the lantern; she simply called out for the person she desperately wanted it to be. “Armitage?”

He was next to her in an instant. “Are you hurt, Lili?”

“ Oui. Mon bras .” She had to fight for each word and the thoughts needed to form them. “ Et mon visage .”

He stepped in front of her, holding his lantern aloft to better see her. “Blast it,” he muttered. “Anywhere other than your arm and face?”

“ Je ne sais pas. ” The pain was growing. “I do not think so.”

Armitage pulled off his coat and draped it over her shoulders. Until he did so, she’d not even realized she was being pelted by rain.

“You’ll have to walk out on my feet.”

Her confusion must have shown.

“There’s glass everywhere, my dear, and you’re only in your stockinged feet, but I don’t dare try carrying you out, seeing as I don’t know where you might have bits of glass threatening to be dug deeper into you.”

Her thoughts were swimming a bit too much for that to make sense. But she trusted him.

Armitage set an arm very gently and loosely around her middle as she stepped onto the tops of his boots.

“Us’ll move slow,” he said.

And they did just that. By the time they reached the corridor and she stepped onto the floor once more, she was shivering. It was more than cold. Pain pulsed more intensely, and her strength was running short.

Mr. Pierce was rushing up the stairs as they reached the top of them. “I heard a crash.”

“The wind tossed a tree through Lili’s window. There’s glass everywhere, and rain’s soaking everything.”

“I’ll see to it,” Mr. Pierce said. “You look after our Lili.”

Armitage walked with her down the stairs, holding her closer and more firmly with each step. Her legs shook underneath her.

“ J’ai mal ,” she whispered.

They reached the kitchen. Her thoughts grew ever more muddled. Armitage set his lantern on the table, then pulled another over from near the sink. Lili lowered herself onto a chair, unsure whether she had the strength to keep standing. Large spots of blood covered her right arm, with crimson rivulets trickling down from them.

Her vision swam as she sat there. Blood. Quite a lot of it. And her face hurt the same way her arm did. It must be bleeding as well. Blood didn’t usually cause her distress.

Armitage moved his plate of half-eaten supper off the table, trading it for a small metal box he placed directly in front of her. He pulled a chair over close.

She blinked a few times, forcing herself to take a deep breath. Then another. She needed her mind to clear a little. “Is my face as bloodied as my arm?” she asked.

“I’m afraid so. The glass and wood caught you.” He opened the box and pulled out a pair of tweezers and a bit of bandaging. He laid a kitchen cloth on the table, then met her gaze. “This is going to hurt quite a lot, and I’m sorry for that.”

“I am hurting a lot now. Perhaps I won’t even notice.” Her attempt at humor earned her a fleeting and likely obligatory smile.

Armitage set his left hand under her chin and turned her head so the right side of her face was pointed toward the light. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him take hold of the tweezers. He bent closer, inches from the side of her face, and raised the tweezers.

She closed her eyes. A moment later, pain seared through her cheek. She sucked a breath in through her teeth, attempting to hold still enough to somehow ease the agony. And it did ease, only to peak again a bit to the side of where it had hurt mere moments before. Armitage was removing another shard.

He tugged. She couldn’t hold back a moan of agony.

“I’m sorry, Lili. I really am. I’m trying not to hurt you.”

She suspected there were many wounds to tend to still. “Will you tell me a story?”

“A story?”

“To distract me.”

He pulled something from the skin at her jaw. “What do you want to hear about?” He pressed something to her face.

She opened her eyes and looked at him. He was pressing a handkerchief to the wounds on her face. Three pieces of glass and a jagged bit of wood sat on the blood-spotted cloth on the table.

A wave of lightheaded nausea washed over her. She truly needed something else to think about. “A happy memory of tes parents ?”

“I have a lot of those.”

“I’d like to hear one.” Her neck was struggling to keep her head aloft, and dark spots marred her vision.

“Lay your head down, sweetheart,” he quietly instructed as he shifted the cloth a bit away from her. “Let yourself rest while I finish this.”

She did as he suggested. It helped. She was still in pain, but she didn’t have to summon nearly as much strength. He worked a moment in silence. She did her best just to breathe.

“My parents and I would often go out onto the Channel in our rowboat. Mum would pack a basket with sandwiches. Dad’d add biscuits if us had any to hand.”

He pulled out more shards. Lili did her utmost to keep her moans silent, not wishing to make him feel guilty when he was helping her.

“When I was small enough to do so, I’d lay in the boat with my head on Mum’s lap, looking up at the sky. Her would stroke my hair and hum tunes. Those were some of my favorite times.”

Lili felt his hand slip under her injured arm, and she braced herself. A sharp sting followed; he was removing shards from her arm now.

Lili breathed through the pain. Once it eased a little, she spoke again. “You used a rowboat to rescue me.”

“It’s about all the rowboat’s used for now.”

She sucked in another sharp breath as he pulled more glass and wood from her arm.

“Ten years ago, there was a terrible storm,” he said, “worse than this one tonight. A ship turned on its side out in the Channel. My parents rowed out as the storm was calming to rescue whomever them could. But them misjudged the water. The rowboat was turned over.” He paused. She heard him swallow. “My parents drowned.”

“Losing both parents is too harsh a blow,” she said. “I still can’t think on mine without it piercing my heart.”

For a moment, he didn’t speak and didn’t pull anything from her arm. She would have opened her eyes to look at him, but she was too tired and in too much pain to do anything more than lie there and try to breathe.

“Did yours die at the same time as well?” he asked, resuming his efforts.

“Within hours of each other.” She breathed slowly, and it helped keep the pain at bay. “The family they worked for—the same that tossed me out when I broke my arm—were angry with ma mére for something. I never was told for what. She was being beaten for it, and mon pére learned of the punishment and tried to stop it. So he was beaten too. Pére died that night. Mére followed the next morning.”

“Them were beaten to death?” He sounded rightly horrified.

“Most servants were not so badly treated. Les Nobles did not see the common people as equals, but it was not usually that bad. We were simply very unfortunate.”

Armitage pulled a couple more bits of glass or wood free. “You said your parents’ deaths were what sent Géraud on a path of vengeance and anger.”

“Those responsible for the death of our parents saw nothing wrong with what was done. They considered people of our station expendable. Not all of their station were so cruel and heartless, but there were others who viewed the world in the same vicious light. Those who took away our parents showed no mercy, so Géraud felt himself under no obligation to show any either.”

“That is a lot of pain to carry around, Lili. For both of you.” He pressed a cloth to her arm again. “How is it you weren’t made bitter by it as well?”

“ Who I am is all the power I had left to claim. I decided that being shown hatred was not going to make me hateful, and being wronged wasn’t going to turn me into someone who wronged others.”

Searing pain shot through her forearm. There was tugging and pulling and so much agony.

“This is the last bit of glass,” Armitage said. “You’re almost through.”

“I am not usually this weak.” She heard a whimper escape her lips before she could stop it.

“I can honestly say, my dear, that I have never met anyone as astoundingly tenacious as you.”