Chapter 6
Eliott looked up from his late luncheon to see his sister tugging at an old muslin gown that had become an indeterminate gray from its many washings.
“Where are you off to, Cass?”
“I am going fishing, as if you didn’t know. I promised Cook some fresh sea bass for dinner tonight.”
Eliott laid down his fork and sat back in his chair. “And just what does your fiancé think about your fishing jaunt the day before your wedding?”
“Edward is spending the day in Little Wimmering with his agent, and will not be here until this evening.”
“So the bride is having her last outing before the groom cracks the whip?”
Cassie frowned down her nose at him. “I’m sure there will be even more outings after Edward and I are married. Actually, it was Becky’s suggestion that I get out today. She thinks some fresh air will do me good.”
“Off with you then, Cass, and don’t forget your hat. Don’t want to have you sunburned on your wedding day.”
Cassie gave her brother a quick hug and stepped outside into the bright afternoon sunlight. She crammed her wide-brimmed straw hat firmly over the braided coronet atop her head and walked briskly across the east lawn to the line of landward-bowed beech trees that sheltered Hemphill Hall from the sea winds. A narrow path snaked through the trees, down the rocky cliff to a small protected cove below. A long wooden-planked dock stretched from the beach some thirty feet into the inlet. She firmly grasped her bucket of bait, small minnows which she had learned from long experience brought her as many sea bass as her baskets would hold, and walked gingerly over the floating boards to the end of the dock where her twenty-foot sloop lay anchored.
It heeled sharply as she stepped aboard, and she clasped the thick-stalked mast to steady herself. She stepped to the helm, stowed her bait safely on the shelf below-deck, and pulled out the folded canvas mainsail. She smoothed out the wrinkles and attached the slides sewn into the foot of the sail to the boom, smiling happily as her eyes followed along the luff to ensure that there were no twists in the sail.
From long habit, she gazed out beyond the mouth of the cove to the sea, and saw that the wind was whipping the waves into stiff whitecaps. She put a double reef into the mainsail and tied the sheets loosely. She cast off the hemp lines, drew out her long-handled paddle, and rowed with deep, sure strokes toward the mouth of the cove, the familiar sounds of squawking birds and the loose flapping of the mainsail in her ears. She sniffed the tangy salt smell and enjoyed the wind slapping lightly at her cheeks until she reached the open sea and eased out the sail to catch the wind. She examined the wildly fluttering wool telltale tied to the shroud to gauge the strength and direction of the wind. She smiled ruefully, knowing that with the tide outgoing and the stiff northeasterly wind, she would be spending more of her afternoon with her hands tightly on the tiller and working the sheets than lazing back with her fishing pole dangling comfortably over the side.
She let her sailboat continue on its starboard tack, and the mainsail bellied out as it caught the full wind. She laughed aloud when the bow of her boat sliced through the trough of a wave and sent a fine mist of salt spray into her face. She steered away from the wind to slow her speed, and relaxed her grip on the tiller, content for the moment to let her boat glide smoothly in a course parallel to shore. She baited her hook with a small minnow, flung the thin hemp rope over the side and rested the fishing pole between her knees.
She sat back contentedly on a cushioned plank and allowed her thoughts to drift with the lulling motion of her boat to the afternoon before and the incredible moments she had spent with Edward before Becky’s wretched interference. The image of Edward’s lean chest and arms as he had stood over her and the vivid memory of his hands and mouth on her body made her tremble even now. She wished she had seen him naked. She had felt the swollen, demanding hardness of him as he had pressed her belly against him, but she had been too shy to touch him as he had her.