Page 6 of The Tides of Time (Storm Tide #1)

A rmitage didn’t think he’d ever been more relieved to see someone set a knife down. He hoped, for the sake of Lili’s fingers, that she would choose to leave it on the table.

“You’ve nearly slept the day away, Miss Lili.” Grandfather spoke from the door connecting the galley and the lighthouse tower. “Hop back to your work, Armitage. I’ll sit with she.”

Armitage had no intention of leaving him alone with a woman he had ample reason to not trust. “Soon enough.” Armitage pulled out a chair for his grandfather. “Us can all gab a bit.”

Lili offered Grandfather a kind but silent welcome. Her eyes flashed a very different message when she looked at Armitage. He no longer thought she despised him, as he’d suspected the day before. Lili was afraid of him.

“Is there somewho us can send a telegram to?” Grandfather asked her. “Somewho what’s waiting for you?”

Lili shook her head. “No one is waiting for me.” Grief filled her voice.

“You said last night that your destination was not France,” Armitage said. “Us’ll need more than that.”

“Else what?” Her tense mouth barely opened as she tossed the question back with clear condemnation. But also fear. What about him frightened her?

Grandfather reached over and lightly touched Lili’s hand. She didn’t flinch or pull back. She gave no indication that she worried that he would take hold of her knife, something she’d made very clear she worried that Armitage would do. “Armitage is a good sort, popsy. You needn’t be scared of he.”

It seemed Grandfather’s ability to evaluate the situation was not gone entirely. He, too, had tipped to the fear she wasn’t quite hiding.

“Fear is safer.” Her whispered response unexpectedly tugged at Armitage.

“You’ve been through an ordeal,” Grandfather said. “No need sorting everything immediately. You’ve a roof for as long as you’ve need of it.”

That was even more unexpected than Lili’s moment of vulnerability.

“Us ought to work at the stuck windows,” Armitage said, rising from his chair. He motioned for his grandfather to follow him into the lighthouse tower, unsure if he would.

“Eat,” Grandfather said to Lili. “You’ll feel better if you do.”

“ Merci, monsieur. ”

Armitage closed the tower door behind them. Lili’s understanding of English was better than she seemed to think it was. Best that he cut back on any eavesdropping she might be tempted to do.

“Her can’t stay here,” Armitage said firmly.

“I know you’ve a bee in your bonnet about the woman, but—”

“Lightkeepers’ rules forbid lodgers at the keepers’ residence,” Armitage cut off his line of argument. “Her can’t stay here.”

“Lili isn’t a lodger, not really.” Grandfather stood at the base of the spiraling stairs, his arms folded across his chest. “There are no rules against housing refugees.”

“Trinity House is unlikely to acknowledge the difference. And us has a junior lightkeeper arriving tomorrow afternoon who’ll be freshly read up on the rules.”

“What would you have we do, then? Drag she down to the lower light and toss she from the tower?” Grandfather hooked an eyebrow and gave Armitage a dry look.

“I’m not advocating murder. I think you know that.”

“But you are advocating cruelty.”

Armitage didn’t see things that way. “Her is lying. And even what seems to be truthful is incomplete. I’ve reason to be wary.”

“Lili from France is lost, Armitage. And afeared. I know you’ve not failed to see that. It isn’t like you to not care about such things.”

Armitage paced away from the stairs. “It isn’t a matter of not caring. It’s worry.” He turned back to face his grandfather. “About you, mostly.”

“Me?”

Armitage nodded. “You are usually the one of we who’s most careful of people. I can’t remember the last time you welcomed anyone with open arms, even people you’ve known all your life. But this Lili had you doting in an instant.”

A bit of color touched Grandfather’s cheeks. Armitage didn’t think he’d ever seen that happen, even before Grandmother had died. “Your mum had a fit lot of trouble finding her footing here. I didn’t do all I ought to’ve to help ease her way. I’ll not make that mistake a second time.”

To say Grandfather’s explanation humbled Armitage would be a vast understatement. “Lili from France is nothing like Mum.”

Grandfather looked almost pitying. “Your mum was from France, arrived here without family and a limited understanding of English. Her was all alone. Painfully wary of everyone.” He clicked his tongue. “They’re proper similar, Armitage. Too much to ignore.”

“Dad said Mum was terrible lonely on Loftstone Island for quite a time,” Armitage acknowledged. “Her still sometimes looked ... lost even so many years after making her home here.”

“Your grandmother insisted Eleanor stay with us for a time when her first arrived. I weren’t so keen on the idea. Romilly seemed of two minds on the matter.” Grandfather’s gaze grew distant at talk of his son and wife, both gone now, and the woman who had become his daughter-in-law, whom he’d also lost. “In the end, your grandmother was the wise one. I’m not willing to be foolish again.”

Armitage still didn’t trust Lili. But Grandfather had made an argument he couldn’t entirely skirt. “Mum would’ve let Lili stay,” he acknowledged.

“And would’ve helped Lili in every way her could.”

Armitage pushed out a tense breath. Now what was he to do? Lili couldn’t be trusted. She absolutely could not. But neither could he refuse to help her without dishonoring the memory of his grandmother and mum. And he couldn’t toss aside the very real truth that Lili was afraid.

“What’s to be done about the new lightkeeper? Him’ll know lodgers aren’t permitted.”

Grandfather’s heavy brow pulled in thought. “Us could say that Lili’s a family friend visiting for a time.”

“A lie?”

“Won’t be a lie if us makes a friend of Lili.”

“Unlikely,” Armitage muttered.

“Then, think of some’n else before you fetch this McGuile tomorrow. Lili’s not to be tossed out.” Grandfather made that declaration with a fierce look of warning. “I’ll not permit it.”

Blast it.

“Her will have to agree to the ruse,” Armitage warned.

Grandfather nodded. “Best explain with patience.”

“ I am to explain?”

Lili was proving an unending source of complication in his life.

“Patiently.” Grandfather began the climb to the lantern room.

Cusnation.

Feeling more frustrated than he had in a long time, Armitage trudged back through the doorway and into the galley. Lili wasn’t looking in his direction, giving him a moment to think through the best way to approach all this.

Her behavior was suspicious, duplicitous even. But she was also afraid and alone. Patience and compassion would serve him better than continuing to clash with her.

Lili hadn’t attempted to cut the apple yet. Perhaps she’d let him do that, allowing him to show her he didn’t mean to ... stab her or whatever she worried he would do.

He returned to the table and sat. She looked up at him. He’d never before encountered anyone who was so simultaneously skittish and resolute.

“Did you not want the apple?” He motioned to it.

She held up her hand, revealing its continued tremble. She’d eaten nearly all the bread and cheese. Perhaps her shakiness was more than lack of nourishment. Her clothing wasn’t terribly well suited to the elements. He’d done his best to mend the damage done by the sea, but the fabric was old and thin. She was likely chilled through.

He scratched at his temple. “You need warmer clothes.”

Her brow pulled in confusion that he didn’t think was feigned.

What was the French word? He wasn’t certain he remembered. “ La robe. ”

She glanced down at her dress. Color splotched her cheeks. “It is not ... fine.”

“It is not warm. Chaude .” For likely the thousandth time since Mum’s death, Armitage wished he’d spoken with her more than he had. Dad had been fiercely dedicated to speaking French. Armitage wished that he’d learned more of her life in France, had learned better the language of her birth.

Lili sighed a touch dramatically. Mum used to do precisely that. “ J’ai très cold.”

“Us can find you a dress in the village.”

She shook her head, her eyes lowered to her now-empty plate. “I do not have money, Armitage.”

“That can be sorted out.”

Her chin lifted once more, and the palpable pride he’d been on the receiving end of so often since fishing her from the water returned in force. “I have eaten your food. You gave me a fire in the chambre . I will not have you pay for more.”

Then, she was in a difficult position. Without money or anywhere to go, she had to endure generosity from someone.

“Do you cook?” he asked.

She tossed that in her mind for the length of a breath. Then she nodded. “ Un peu. ”

“Cooking falls to the wayside here most days. Us’ll scrounge what can be scrounged. If you’d take up duties in the galley, I can say Grandfather and I would consider that ample repayment for a warmer dress, a fire in your room, and the food you eat. Until you decide where it is you’re headed.”

She nodded but neither eagerly nor warily. Armitage had always prided himself on his ability to interpret the expressions of others. Lili from France was proving an enormous challenge.

“Us has another difficulty beyond your unsuitable robe. ”

The cautiousness returned to her gaze in an instant. Heavens, she seemed destined to be an eggshell sort of person, the sort who needed more tiptoeing than ought to ever be required.

With both a smile and slow movements, he took hold of the uneaten apple, then rose and crossed to the sink. He snatched up another knife and halved the apple. Leaving the sharp implement behind, he returned to his seat once more and set the apple on her plate.

“ Merci, Armitage du Phare .”

Le Phare. That was how Mum had always referred to the lighthouse. Heavens, he missed her. “Don’t thank me just yet. There’s another difficulty.”

She watched him closely as she took a bite of the apple.

“A new lightkeeper is arriving tomorrow, coming to Loftstone to finish his training. Him’ll be bang up on all the rules, and one of those rules is that lighthouses can’t have lodgers.”

“Lodgers?” She shook her head.

“People who live there but aren’t connected to the family.”

“Ah.” Understanding lit her expression. “ Un tenancier. ”

“Yes. A tenant.” Patience was proving the right approach after all. They’d not snipped at each other hardly at all. “Us don’t want to see you tossed out before you have somewhere to go. But if this Mr. McGuile thinks that rule’s not being abided by, there might not be a choice.”

She stopped just short of taking another bite of apple. She might’ve even stopped breathing. And her eyes didn’t shift away from him in the slightest. Fear. That was decidedly the emotion behind her eyes.

“Our plan is to tell he that you’re a family friend come for a visit. Guests are permitted at lighthouses.”

Lili lowered her hand and set the apple half on the plate once more. “Will he believe you have amis in France?”

Armitage nodded. “My mother was French.”

The fear that never seemed to entirely leave her eyes was joined by sorrow. “I am sorry.”

“Sorry that my mother was French?”

She shook her head. “That your mother was . You have lost her, non ?”

He pushed out a breath. “Ten years ago.”

“I have lost all my family. There is sorrow in that longing.”

No one is waiting for me , she had said. He’d not realized how true that actually was.

“You’ll need to pretend to be a friend of the Pierce family,” Armitage said. “Us’ll need Mr. McGuile to believe my mum knew yours and that us aren’t chance-met strangers.”

“I’ll need something,” she said.

Extortion already? “What will you need?”

“What was your mother’s name?”

He’d jumped to judgment, just as his grandfather had said. “Eleanor Savatier. Eleanor Pierce after she and Dad were married.”

Lili nodded.

“What was your mum’s name?” Armitage asked.

“Hermine.” She spoke the name with a sorrowful reverence.

“And your surname?” He tried again when her expression made clear she didn’t understand the question. “Your family name?”

And at that, the fear returned full force to her eyes. Fear. Over her surname.

With an audible swallow, she relented. “Minet.”

It was enough to begin the ruse they had to enact, so he didn’t push further. But as he returned to the lighthouse tower, a question repeated endlessly in his thoughts: What are you hiding, Lili Minet?