Lady Savage by Donna Lea Simpson

Author:Donna Lea Simpson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance
Publisher: Beyond the Page
Published: 2020-01-09T00:00:00+00:00

• • •

“Savina, my dear.”

Savina turned at her father’s voice behind her. She had come down to the beach at sunset to watch the horizon and wonder if their signal fire would be visible. Were they even on the right side of the island? Perhaps the east side of the island, toward the Atlantic, would be more sensible. Or should they be on the higher ground in the center of the small island? “Yes, Papa?”

Her father approached and put his arm over her shoulders. She glanced over at him, thinking how weary and troubled he appeared. He had even fallen from his usual immaculate appearance, and the stubble of gray beard on his chin was unfamiliar and oddly alarming.

“His lordship came to me after dinner tonight.”

“Yes?”

Her father stared out at the horizon and pulled at his stained neckcloth with his free hand. “Uh, he is, uh, concerned . . . that your . . . hmm, your friendship with Mr. Heywood is . . . is influencing you to behave immodestly.” He sighed, as at a burden shrugged off.

“Behave immodestly?”

Still staring out at the horizon, he replied, “Yes, uh, your performance on the beach this morning, and your behavior while learning to swim.”

Points on her treacherous body pulsed with remembered sensitivity, and Savina reflected on the day, and her own mixed feelings during the swimming lesson. The unaccustomed feel of the water, warmed by the sun, had been unsettling at first; it felt like bathwater, but to be sharing it with Mr. Heywood felt shockingly intimate, especially when Zazu had splashed away from them for her own private practice. The sensation became agreeable and she soon grew to relish it. But then came her lesson, and the agitating sensations that had coursed through her as Mr. Heywood talked her into surrendering to the buoyancy of the water and reclining in it, and she had felt his strong hands at her waist, holding her up, and then pressing her to his chest.

The longing in his warm brown eyes had been unmistakable and mirrored her own craving for his touch; everything was etched in her memory and left her confused and shaken. Supported by his hands, thrust against his torso, the gentle motion of the water rocking their bodies together; it had all given her much to ponder of the physical relations between women and men, and as she went mechanically about her business for the rest of the day she had thought how wise, perhaps, were those matrons who limited interaction until a firm commitment was made by the gentleman to wed the young lady. Temptation to prolong those moments of contact was strong.

And yet Zazu, later, when questioned, had claimed not to feel those same feelings. Was it because she was already committed to Nelson in her mind and heart, if not in fact? Her own engagement to Lord Gaston-Reade, then, ought to have protected Savina from any mere physical response. Unless there was something between Mr. Heywood and herself that needed to be expressed .

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