Page 83 of A Shore Thing

He touched her hand. For the tour, he’d donned buff-colored gloves. His leather-encased fingers skimmed her knuckles.

“Dogs are common everywhere.” He turned her hand over. “You are uncommonly brave, to face them daily.”

Air rushed into her lungs. He was graceful with compliments. He had the ability to make a person feel seen, and special. Knowing this should diminish the effect. He looked at other women with that same glittering gaze.

“Face them daily? Flee them, you mean.” She shook her head. “It’s not daily, thank God. Too often, though.”

He considered her. “Remarkable that the fear doesn’t keep you indoors.”

“The only pleasure I ever found was out of doors.” She realized, too late, how that might sound, and blushed. “Occasional terror doesn’t weigh in the balance. Despite the nuisance.”

“It’s more than a nuisance,” he said gently, concern in his eyes. “You were in agony.”

Her discomfort increased. He’d observed her in an abject state, blanched and cowering.

“Nuisance to others,” she clarified. “That’s what’s bothersome.”

Frown lines carved down from his nose. “How is your fear a nuisance to others?”

“How isn’t it?” She laughed humorlessly. “Shall I list the problems I’ve caused? Once I flung myself on the ground and crushed a rare orchid. My husband was livid. On two occasions, I panicked and threw an expensive lens into the undergrowth. Neither lens was recoverable. Then there was the time I made us miss a boat. The time I was the reason an expedition got cut short. The list goes on.” Her temples began to throb. “Trust me, you’ll find it a nuisance too if I let a perfectly benign retriever interfere with our timely return to St. Ives.”

“Trust me, I won’t.” His smile was lopsided. “But perhaps I can lure the retrievers from your path.”

“Your infamous charisma works on dogs?” She aimed for a bantering tone, but there was a catch in her voice. He couldn’t create a charmed circle around her. No one could. Gratification bloomed inside her regardless, at the thought that he wanted to try.

“My charisma.” He smirked. “I was thinking table scraps.”

“I wouldn’t bother. And I wouldn’t worry. I will finish the ride.” She nodded for emphasis. “Most dogs don’t frighten me. It’s only the large ones, with a certain kind of fur, a certain way of moving. A certain smell. Teeth that…”

She’d crossed her ankles and was grinding the bones together. Tendrils of emotion pushed at the cracks in the wall she’d built around herself. Usually, she cut them back.

“It’s not the dogs themselves,” she said at last. “It’s a memory. They drag me into it, and then I can’t get out.”

His lashes had lowered as he listened. His gloved thumb traced the air above the pink mark on her palm.

“May I?” he asked. She acquiesced, half in understanding, half in bewildered faith. He lifted her palm to his lips. She exhaled. His mouth was silky, and she felt the slight suction of his indrawn breath, and then the damp tip of his tongue. Sensation twinned. The center of her palm seemed connected to the center of her being, which she located somewhere behind her navel.

It was a kiss. No one had ever kissed her there. Her hand was slightly cupped, as though the kiss were something she could keep. The intimacy made her head swim. She tightened her grip on the branch.

He lowered her hand, tucked it between them. “What frightened you today—it was an echo of something that happened a long time ago?”

“To my mother, not me.” She looked up, through the branches. The leaves weren’t so bright anymore. The gaps between had filled with gray. “But I was with her, in the yard. It came out of nowhere, the dog. It smelled like the bowels of hell, and it bit her before we could move. I couldn’t make it let go. No one could. Mr. Wilson beat it with a shovel, and it still didn’t open its jaws. Another neighbor had a rifle, and…”

She broke off and glanced at him.

He was looking at her steadily.

“Well,” she said. “That dispatched it.”

“Your mother’s wounds.” He hesitated. “They were mortal?”

She turned up her gaze again and watched the leaves shift in the wind. “Not at first. The doctor treated her leg. When the symptoms began, he came back, several times. Lord Raleigh paid the fees—James’s father. Usually, he didn’t extend himself beyond the Christmas dole of blankets, coal, and plum pudding. But news spread like wildfire. My mother was well-liked. A young widow. She always went to church. She sang in the choir. She had the prettiest hair. And she suffered so piteously. Everyone wanted to help, or gawk.” She pulled a deep breath into her burning lungs. “The dog was mad, you understand.”

Griffith made a soft sound, and his arm wrapped around her, strong and supportive. Feeling him there, without having to meet his eyes—it enabled her to go on.

“Mother had always been gentle,” she said. “But she pushed away anything I brought her, violently. She broke our plates, our only pitcher. She had to be tied down. There wasn’t enough sedative to keep her asleep. She strained against her bonds so that the bed thumped the floor. She made noises like I’d never heard. As though that dog’s snarl was coming from her throat.”

Griffith’s arm tightened, and she released the branch above, trusting that he wouldn’t let her fall.