Page 30 of The Tides of Time (Storm Tide #1)

L ili didn’t have an answer to Armitage’s question, but she meant to ask Mr. Pierce at her first opportunity. And she also didn’t have a satisfying answer to her own lingering questions about Elisabeth Minet, seamstress. Madame Guillotine could not have claimed a person who had not been there to be claimed. It was impossible.

But so were the Tides of Time. Impossible. Real.

When Mrs. Goddard, Mrs. Dixon, and Mrs. Willis came by the lighthouse specifically to see her the next day, she welcomed the distraction. She made to usher the women inside, but they shook their heads.

Speaking for the group, Mrs. Goddard said, “Us are undertaking the preparations for tomorrow’s fete. Would you come along? Offer a hand?”

“Do you truly wish for me to do so?” How she hoped they did.

All three women nodded eagerly.

“I have never attended an English fête before,” Lili warned them, “so I will likely need a great deal of instruction. But I’m a quick study, and I am eager to help.”

None of the women seemed to think her ignorance on this matter was of too much importance.

Lili scratched out a note for Armitage so he would know where she’d gone should he return from his duties and find her missing. They’d not spoken overly much the last couple of days. Her soul had been too heavy for conversation. She hoped he understood that and wasn’t hurt by her quietude.

“Armitage is so sweet on you,” Mrs. Willis said. “The entire village is pleased to see it.”

“He is wonderful.” Lili wasn’t embarrassed to confess further than that. “I have never loved anyone the way I love him.”

For a moment, she thought the women might burst into tears of joy. Did Armitage realize how deeply the people of Loftstone cared about him?

The women fussed over Lili as she prepared to undertake the outing with them. Was she warm enough? Was she healed enough from her injuries? Did she need to walk slowly? She was not usually one who liked being fussed over, but she appreciated it after the difficult days and weeks and months she’d passed. Years, really.

As they walked back in the direction of the village, Mrs. Willis eyed her quizzically. “I’d not mention it with any men present,” Mrs. Willis said, “but it appears you’ve obtained a new corset as well. The one you wore previously gave you an odd shape.”

Corset , she’d pieced together, now referred to what she’d always known as “stays.” And she had, indeed, finished the new stays she’d been making for herself using the extra fabric from the dress Armitage had purchased for her.

“I worked as a seamstress in France,” Lili said, “so I was able to make myself a new corset.”

That seemed to intrigue Mrs. Willis. “You sew that well?”

“As I said, I am a quick study, and I can sort out how to make or mend most anything.”

“Armitage’s late mother worked for me as a seamstress,” Mrs. Willis said. “Perhaps you should consider doing the same now and then. Most of the women in the village sew, but them would likely be willing to pay a farthing or two to have those tasks taken off their hands.”

Mrs. Dixon nodded to her friend. “I like that idea, Anne. Especially as we would see Lili more often that way.”

She received three beaming smiles. And how grateful she was for the way they’d chosen to embrace and accept her.

Before reaching the outskirts of the village, the women turned off the lane they were walking on and took a smaller, winding one. It led not toward the heart of the village but toward the seashore.

Lili followed, a little confused. She had expected that the feast or festival or whatever it was to be would be held in the village itself. That appeared to not be the case.

The small winding path took them to a large, grassy area at the edge of the beach. While there were trees along the edges, the grassy meadow was uninterrupted. Stalls were being erected at varying distances.

“Is the fête to be held here?” Lili asked.

Mrs. Goddard nodded. “Us sometimes hold them farther inland. But Mr. Pierce assured we that the barometer says us is unlikely to have a storm in the next twenty-four hours. That, of course, could change. But us thought it worth the effort to hold our fete by the sea.”

It was a beautiful spot. And all the village would attend. Armitage would appreciate that. Though Lili would never be an overly skilled or graceful dancer, Armitage had promised to dance with her, and she would appreciate that.

“What can I help with?” Lili asked the women she’d arrived alongside.

“Us’ll introduce you around,” Mrs. Goddard said, adjusting her precariously balanced spectacles. “And us’ll take up whatever tasks would seem most helpful.”

Lili walked with them.

“Mr. Kimball.” Mrs. Goddard greeted the man assembling the nearest stall. “Have you met Miss Lili? Her is Armitage Pierce’s sweetheart.”

Sweetheart. These women didn’t mean to tiptoe around things, did they?

“I have. She buys bread for the lighthouse,” he said.

“It is lovely to see you again, Mr. Kimball,” Lili said.

“Have you met the Maddisons?” he asked.

“I have not, but I would like to,” Lili said.

The three women eagerly pulled her to another stall and introduced her to the couple. Mr. Maddison was the village wheelwright. They both, like everyone else she’d met on Loftstone Island, spoke of Armitage like family.

The women urged Lili toward yet another stall and yet more people she’d not yet met.

“It makes my heart happy that Armitage is so loved,” she said.

“Him wouldn’t allow anyone to care about he for months and months after his parents died.” Mrs. Goddard sighed at the memory. “Him was fifteen. Old enough to understand how final death is but too young to navigate such a loss.”

“I lost my parents when I was seventeen. Enduring that at an even younger age would have been truly horrible,” Lili said.

Mrs. Dixon gave Lili a hug as they walked. She offered no platitudes or pity. It was a simple but uplifting show of support.

The man who carried planks of wood to the stall they approached looked familiar, but Lili couldn’t identify him. She had, no doubt, seen him from a distance on one of her many visits to the village.

Mrs. Willis solved the mystery for her. “Captain, have you met Miss Minet?”

He dipped his head to Lili. In flawless French, he said, “At last we meet, Miss Minet. I have heard so many in Loftstone Village speak of you.”

“And I you, Captain Travert. Everyone has predicted I would be delighted to speak with a fellow Frenchman.”

“And are you?” he asked with amusement.

“I am indeed. What part of France do you hail from?”

“I have lived many places,” he said, “but my childhood was spent near Mont Saint-Michel.”

“A book I was reading recently mentioned Mont Saint-Michel. I have never been there, but I am familiar with it.”

Lili didn’t know how long they spoke. Conversation was easy and light between them. Speaking in the language of her birth and her family and her home warmed her heart. Other than Géraud, who had treated their native tongue as a way to berate Lili and belittle the English-speaking men they were living with, she’d not spoken nor heard more than a handful of French words in months.

“How long will you be on Loftstone Island?” she asked.

“I do not wish to miss the féte ,” he said. “Other than that, my time is flexible.”

If Géraud did convince the captain to grant him passage to France, he might not be leaving as soon as he hoped, as soon as she hoped. She needed the peace that his departure would grant her.

Lili was able to help the villagers with their preparations for the next day’s gathering. It was healing to be needed and wanted and welcomed. She had lost her parents and her brother. She had lost her home. But she had found something truly wonderful on Loftstone Island. This place and the people who called it home had helped Armitage heal from his losses; they could help her too.

The tide was out and the sea was calm when the villagers began making their way back home. Lili was anxious to be back at the lighthouse, but she also longed to continue feeling the breeze off the water and listening to the gentle breaking of waves on the shore.

“Does the beach continue all the way back to the lighthouse?” she asked Mrs. Goddard.

“When the tide is out, as it is now, a person can walk all the way there from here without returning to the road.”

Parfait. “I will walk home that way.”

The women hugged her in turn, asking her to give Armitage their love and to give their greetings to Mr. Pierce and Mikhail.

Lili tucked the thick-knit shawl more tightly around herself, grateful for the loan of it. She was not merely warmer for the use of it, but she also felt closer to the woman who had raised her darling Armitage. In many ways, she felt embraced by Eleanor Pierce just as she had been by the three women and many others that day.

Her book on folktales had spoken of the Tides of Time in tragic terms, but she found their interference in her life to be absolutely miraculous.

Mince! How could she have forgotten to ask Captain Travert about the book? He had purchased it from Mr. Vaughn, and it was most certainly he who had secretly given it to her. She truly wanted to know why.

She had been so decisive and focused during her final year in France. Her life, along with so many others, had depended on it. Perhaps forgetting so important a question was not a failure of her memory or concentration but proof that she was no longer living in perpetual danger.

She was no longer constantly fighting for her survival.

There was a calmness to la Manche just then that tugged at her. She was making her peace with what these magical waters had done. More than peace, she was pleased with what they had done. Lili could never have imagined such a thing the night she had faced Géraud in the raging storm. Peace. And home.

The lighthouse came into view. She smiled to see it, another thing she had seldom done before coming to this time and place. Armitage would be inside. That made it the most wonderful place she could imagine. And the promise of seeing him made the daunting task of climbing the cliffside steps all the way from the beach up to the lighthouse a welcome one.

But at the top, she heard voices— tense voices—speaking French. She didn’t see the speakers but suspected they were just on the other side of the lighthouse tower.

“I do not know what you expect to gain from this.” Was that Captain Travert?

“I intend to regain some of what was taken from me.” Géraud. He was, no doubt, requesting passage. Though, the tone he was using was that of one making a demand rather than a petition. “You are returning to France soon. I will simply go with you.”

“It is not so simple as that,” the captain answered. “I have cargo to deliver and obligations to meet.”

“I do not understand why you require so much convincing. What difference could my presence possibly make during a simple crossing to France?” There was something odd in the way Géraud asked the question, something implied and hinted at but too subtle for her to sort, especially as she couldn’t actually see him.

And she didn’t know what the captain’s response was. There were no further words spoken between them, at least none that she could hear. It was possible one or both of them would walk around the tower and find her listening.

Though she could not say why, she felt in her bones that being discovered listening to them would be a very real mistake.