Page 3 of The Tides of Time (Storm Tide #1)

Loftstone Island, off England’s southern coast 1873

A rmitage Pierce pulled the oars into his small rowboat. He reached out and snatched hold of the minuscule dock attached to the rocky outcropping on which stood Loftstone Lighthouse’s lower-light tower. The storm the night before had raged long and hard, and he’d gone out that morning to search the water for signs of lost vessels or people.

And he’d found the sodden woman who now sat silent and shivering in his boat.

She’d not said a word as he’d rowed them back to shore. Her posture and expression gave nothing away. He hadn’t the first idea what she might be thinking or feeling.

He had weathered more storms than he could count in his twenty-five years. He knew all too well how unrepentantly the sea took what it wanted. And for her to be alone in the water without a boat in sight spoke of loss.

He could be patient.

Armitage tied the mooring rope to the dock. He adjusted his cap. The wind was not as angry as it had been the night before, but it still made quite certain he knew it was there. The wind never entirely died down at Loftstone. It nipped at his face but couldn’t penetrate the thick wool of his coat or the close knit of his sweater, even after his being out on the water.

He moved carefully from the rowboat to the dock, then turned back to offer the woman assistance. She accepted as wordlessly as she had his last offer.

The wind whipping at her dripping clothes had set her to shivering violently. Armitage swore he could hear the waterlogged woman’s knees knocking and teeth chattering.

What was he supposed to do with her? Get her warm and dry, first. Then he could attempt to sort out who she was and where she was meant to be.

“Us’ll go up to the lighthouse,” he said.

Her gaze remained fixed on the sea but not in a look of fear, as one might expect after what had likely been a very harrowing experience. She looked bewildered. And good heavens, she was shaking hard.

Armitage unbuttoned his long overcoat and pulled it off. He held it open for her, but she wasn’t looking at him.

“You need something to block the wind,” he said.

Still, she didn’t look at him.

“Miss?”

She continued watching the water. Could she not hear him?

She couldn’t stay out in the elements for long, soaked to the bone as she was and not remotely dressed for the weather. She’d be on her deathbed soon enough.

He dropped the coat over her shoulders, trusting she would sort out what to do with it. For the first time, she looked at him.

Her expression pulled into one of pleading. “ S’il vous pla?t, monsieur .”

Ah. She was French.

“ Je ne sais pas ce qui se sont passé. Je suis très désorientée. Et j’ai froid. S’il vous pla?t, aidez-moi. ”

Armitage spoke a little French, though he’d not done so in many years. He hadn’t been as committed to learning it as he often wished he’d been. And he was woefully out of practice. He remembered enough to know she’d said, “please,” a few times. He’d heard “ très désorientées, ” which meant “very disoriented.” And she’d said, “ Je ,” a couple of times, “ je ” being “I.”

Being adrift in the ocean would leave anyone very disoriented. Being soaked and cold slowed the brain; he knew that well enough.

“ S’il vous pla?t, monsieur .” The words hung heavy with exhaustion.

Surviving any length of time in the frigid waters of the Channel would tax a person’s strength. And if she’d been tossed about in the tempest, she might very well have sustained an injury. She needed to rest, but first, she had to reach the lighthouse.

Armitage put an arm around her and nudged her to walk with him. “Us’ll go up to the lighthouse and sort out thissen.” There was little chance she understood him, but he hoped she could tell by his tone that he didn’t intend to toss her back in the water. He was no heartless slubber.

He guided her along the outcropping to the cliff’s base and the stone steps carved there. This wasn’t Dover, with its soaring, sheer, white cliffs. Climbing from the beach to the clifftop here didn’t take nearly as long and wasn’t as impossible. But it would take some effort, and she had already been through a harrowing ordeal. He would let her set the pace.

It was indeed a slow climb. She occasionally whispered in French. She pulled his coat closed around her, which had to have helped her feel warmer at least.

The tall, white tower of the upper lighthouse greeted them as they stepped onto the clifftop. Armitage had lived at the Loftstone Lighthouse his entire life. His parents had helped run it before they’d died. Now he and his grandfather did. The Pierce family weathered violent storms, managed desperate repairs without access to all the supplies they needed, and faced any number of unexpected trials without being sunk by any of it. Absolutely nothing upended his grandfather, but finding a strange woman in the keepers’ quarters just might manage it.

Armitage opened the door to the keepers’ quarters and motioned for the woman to step inside. She looked up at him as she passed. Her pale face and blue-tinged lips worried him.

He’d never before wished he truly spoke French rather than a few words here and there, but he did in that moment. He couldn’t even explain to her where she was or ask her what she needed most.

He pointed to the stairs and nudged her that way. Either she understood, or she was too tired and too fragile to do anything but trudge along. Up they climbed to the first-floor landing. Armitage opened the door to one of the unused bedrooms, the one that had been his before his parents’ deaths.

Hoping that holding his hands up, palms out, and very still was a universally understood signal for “bide here a spell,” he gave that sign, then, leaving the door open, stepped into the adjoining room—his now—and pulled open a drawer in his bureau.

“You need something dry to wear,” he called back to her through the open doors. She wouldn’t understand, but he explained anyway, not knowing what else to do. “Thissen’ll have to do.”

With a shirt, trousers, braces, and thick woolen socks in his arms, he returned to the room where he’d left her. She hadn’t moved at all other than increasingly violent shivering. Armitage set the clothes on the bed.

He pulled the blanket from the foot of the bed. “The quilt’s dusty some, but you’ll be warmer. Wrap it around you after you’ve changed.”

The woman blinked a few times, looking at the pile of clothes, at him, at the blanket. But all she said was “ S’il vous pla?t ” in the same blank tone she’d used since he’d helped her onto the dock.

“Please,” she was saying. But “please” what?

What French did he remember? “ Robe .” He motioned to her dress. “ Eau. ” That was the word for water. He didn’t know how to say “wet.” He set his hand on the pile of clothes. “ Sans eau .” He patted the clothes. “Without water” was hardly going to explain to her that she ought to change into the clothes he’d brought. But he didn’t know how to say anything else.

He was doing a horrible job of this. All he could think to do was give a quick nod and leave her there to sort it out.

He walked slowly down the stairs, unsure what came next. How in the world was he supposed to sort out where she ought to be sent or who needed to be told she was there? If his mum were still alive, she could help. Mum was French— had been French. He’d lost her and Dad a decade earlier, drowned while assisting in an at-sea rescue, but he still struggled to think of either of them in the past tense.

He’d many times over the past ten years wished he’d been better about speaking French with Mum. She and Dad had often conversed in that language. Armitage hadn’t seen the point of it. Mum had offered him a bit of herself, a bit of her homeland, and he had, in essence, rejected it.

Upon reaching the ground floor, he hung his hat on the peg by the front door, then passed through the parlor, glancing as he always did at the framed sketch of the Loftstone Lighthouse his mum had drawn so many years ago, then at the barometer on the wall that he had, as a child and much to his father’s amusement, nicknamed Barry. Sometimes living in the home where the three of them had been together and happy was a comfort; other times, it ached.

He walked through to the galley and the door that connected to the lighthouse tower. Beside that door were the bellpulls that allowed the lighthouse keepers to communicate with each other. He tugged on the one that rang at the top of the lighthouse, where his grandfather would be. Just one quick tug. That would tell Grandfather that he wanted to talk but that it wasn’t an emergency.

He pulled off his cap, slapping it against his leg as he wandered back into the parlor. I should just take she to old Mrs. Sands in Loftstone Village ... who also doesn’t speak French. That wouldn’t be a better situation. Although there might be some clothes there that the half-drowned woman could use.

Armitage stepped up to the barometer. He bent close and, lowering his voice, said, “What am I to do, Barry? I know not a soul on this island who speaks any more French than I do. But her’ll have to go somewhere.”

Barry was notoriously unreliable at offering sound advice on any topic other than the weather. He had markings on his face for rising pressure, rain, dry, but not a single one that said, “Warning, you have taken in a main lot more trouble than you’d been expecting.” That seemed an oversight.

He did, however, inform Armitage that the atmospheric pressure was rising, which Armitage had to admit was helpful in its own way. That meant the storm was well and truly passing, which further meant Armitage could breathe a little easier.

He wandered back to the parlor. Wandering was not his usual approach to moving about the lighthouse. Even if he had time for not knowing what to do with himself, he’d have pretended to be busy lest Grandfather assign him something unpleasant to do, such as scrape the salt scale off the lower-light tower. Being the junior lightkeeper as well as the grandson of the primary lightkeeper meant getting away with absolutely nothing. It also, of course, meant having more fun than he ought trying to get things past the old man. He almost never succeeded.

The shivering Frenchwoman would be making her way downstairs eventually, he assumed. Likely wouldn’t be a bad idea to warm the room up a bit. He set to work getting a fire started, laying kindling and pulling down the tin of matches.

“I’d like to see you try this, Barry,” he said. “Two hands but can’t build a fire. Pathetic.” He winced a bit. “Nearly as pathetic as regularly having a full conversation with an aneroid barometer, you’d likely say. You have me there, Barry.”

Armitage sat in the chair by the window to wait. He had always thought it odd that the design of the Loftstone Lighthouse keepers’ quarters had the windows facing away from the water. Made it heapin’ hard to know what was happening at sea. Perhaps his ancestors who’d built it had possessed the second sight but had unkindly neglected to pass that on.

Footsteps on the stairs grabbed his attention. He hopped to his feet and turned to the parlor door just as his unexpected guest stepped inside.

Anonymous Frenchwoman—it was the only name he currently had for her—had apparently made sense of what he’d been attempting to tell her in the room upstairs. She was wrapped in the blanket he’d left her, and he spied underneath it the rolled edges of the trousers he’d also left, and her hand clasping the blanket closed was covered by the cuff of the shirt. Her hair, which she’d clearly attempted to plait, was a tangle of wet knots. He ought to have given her a comb.

Muffed that up, didn’t I, Barry?

Anonymous Frenchwoman took a look around the room. Her eyes stopped on the fireplace.

She rushed over to it. From under her blanket, she pulled out her soggy dress and started to lay it on the fireplace screen but then seemed to think better of it. She turned toward him, a question in her eyes, her really rather beautiful, hauntingly gray eyes.

Pull yourself together, Armitage.

“The screen has a lot of soot on it,” he acknowledged, assuming that was her reason for hesitating. “Best you lay that on a chair.” He didn’t know if the dress was salvageable either way.

She remained there, holding the dress in one hand and the blanket closed around her with the other. Armitage brought a chair over and took the dress from her. A petticoat, stockings, and what looked to be something like a corset fell from her hands. She snatched it up, eyeing him accusatorially.

Rushed to an unflattering evaluation of him, didn’t she? “Don’t worry,” he said, “Barry didn’t see a thing.”

She not only didn’t laugh at what was an inarguably funny joke, but her gaze narrowed on him. “Who is Barry?”

Well now. Her French accent was thick, but her English was easily understandable. She’d spoken only French thus far, even when he’d been attempting and failing to speak that language to her upstairs.

Armitage laid the ocean-battered dress over the back of the chair in front of the fire. He then brought over another. “I can fetch more if you need them. And once I know where you are supposed to go, us can sort that out as well.”

Confusion flickered across her sharp gaze. What about that hadn’t made sense to her? She spoke English; he knew that now.

“Turn away, s’il vous pla?t. ” Still, her tone rang with accusation. He’d done nothing but help, yet she spoke to him as if he were her enemy.

With a shrug, he returned to the chair he’d been sitting in and dropped onto it, looking away without even the tiniest hint of subtlety.

He could hear Anonymous Frenchwoman moving about. Perhaps privacy was what she’d been wanting, and she would be less accusatory now that he’d given it to her.

After a moment, she stepped into his line of sight once more. “ Pourquoi fait-il jour? Cela ne devrait pas être le cas. Le temps n’est pas différent en Angleterre. ”

“I don’t speak much French,” he said. “But you, it seems, speak English.”

She shook her head. “Broken.”

Broken? Broken English , she likely meant.

He pointed to himself. “But my French be’est too scattered to even be broken.”

“We are not—” She thought a moment. “ Anglais est the language of ...” More thinking. “ C’est reprehensible.”

Reprehensible . He’d fished her from the water and had thus far received a great deal of grief for his efforts. Dad had always insisted that patience was a virtue. Armitage could be virtuous in that moment, with effort.

“ Comment t’appelles-tu ?” He was relatively confident that was the right way to ask her what her name was.

“Lili.” Her eyes darted around the room.

“Lee Lee?” He didn’t think he’d ever heard a name quite like that.

Her lips compressed in apparent frustration. “L-I-L-I. Lili.”

Ah. So, “Lily” but pronounced in the French manner: Lee-Lee.

“I am in England now, oui ?” she asked.

“On Loftstone Island, off England’s southern coast.”

That seemed to relieve her. Odd.

“Do the agents du Tribunal come here?”

“Might.” He nodded, pretending to be deep in thought. “Depending on what the agents du tribunal are.”

She pulled the quilt more tightly around herself. “The English cannot be so ... ignorant as this.”

“Ignorant?” First reprehensible and now ignorant? Lili was proving surprisingly hostile.

She tipped her chin a bit upward. “The things of France are ... of concern in Angleterre .”

“Us is isolated here on Loftstone,” Armitage said. “The things of France don’t bother we much.”

She lowered herself onto an empty chair, sitting stiff and uncomfortable. “The island is not well known, then?”

He shook his head. Mariners knew of the dual lights on the island and used them to help navigate the Channel, but the island itself was almost universally overlooked.

“ Je peux me cacher ici. ” Je was “I.” Ici was “here.” He assumed the bit in the middle ran along the lines of “... consider myself too lofty to spend much time ...”

The door in the galley that led into the lighthouse always squeaked when it opened, and this time was no different. It meant Grandfather never could sneak up on him, which Armitage appreciated. Being completely and utterly startled by a man more than forty years his senior would be humiliating.

The squealing hinges in that moment caught Lili’s attention. She jumped to her feet. Her expression was almost militant. Did she intend to wallop Grandfather?

“Hoist the white flag, mademoiselle . Him’ll be unfriendly but also unarmed.”

“You are saying le homme that is soon to enter, he is not dangereux ?”

“ Oui. ”

Voice quieter, she said, “Everyone is dangereux .”

Reprehensible . Ignorant . Dangerous . Hers was a very unflattering view of the world.

Grandfather stepped inside. He always moved with purposeful step, never any wasted energy or effort. “I were feared the storm caught you at the lower light last night.”

“Did. I passed the night there.”

“Rough, that.” Grandfather scratched at the silver stubble on his chin. “Any—?” His eyes found Lili, and every sound and movement stopped. An odd thing for Grandfather.

“This is Lili.” Armitage did his best to reproduce her very French pronunciation of the two syllables. “Found she in the water this morning.”

Silence from his often-irascible grandfather was odd enough; drawn-out silence was not something Armitage had ever experienced.

“Her’s French.” Armitage opted to continue with his explanation. “Her speaks some English ... when her chooses to.”

But neither of them seemed to be paying him much heed. For the first time since Armitage’s grandmother had died, there was some softness in Grandfather’s expression. A tiny hint but real nonetheless. Lili was studying him in return.

“Were you hurt, then?” Grandfather asked her.

She thought a moment, then shook her head. “Disoriented. Très cold.”

Grandfather looked to Armitage. “Have you offered she any tea?”

“I hadn’t thought of it yet.”

“Would you like a hot cup of tea?” Grandfather asked Lili with uncharacteristic tenderness. He wasn’t an unfeeling person, nor was he unkind, but he was craggy in the way so many lightkeepers were.

Lili smiled at him, soft and sweet. Her entire countenance changed, and Armitage didn’t trust it for a moment. “ J’adore le thé .” She pressed her hand to her heart. “ Je m’excuse. Eh ... I love tea.” Her friendly smile disappeared when she looked back at Armitage. “I do not refuse to speak Anglais . My mind”—she brushed her fingers over her forehead—“confuses the words.”

That might be true, he would grant her that. But her quick jump from personable to combative, her immediate willingness to take advantage of Grandfather’s unexpected gentleness toward her kept Armitage wary.

“Where is it you were going when the storm dropped you into the Channel?” Armitage asked her.

In a tone of defiance she said, “Away from France.”

Armitage narrowed his gaze. “Why?”

She didn’t answer but turned back to Grandfather. “Must I answer before le thé ?”

“Of course not, Lili.” Grandfather tossed Armitage a look of reprimand.

She had very swiftly turned him into the villain of the piece.

“I will return with tea in a moment.” One more quick smile from Grandfather, then he slipped back into the kitchen.

Lili’s affable expression dropped away.

Armitage stood and moved to stand facing her. “I don’t know what game you are playing here, Lili from France, but I’m terrible good at sorting such things.”

Her chin lifted. “As am I.”