They dripped onto the bed like fat droplets of rain.
She wiped her cheeksthere would be no tears; one did not mourn stormy fantasiesthen she pumped a bucket full of cold water and set about removing the remains of Robert Coally.
Only to end up in the ignoble position of squatting and desperately reaching into tender flesh for a sponge that would not come out.
It struck her how ridiculous she must look, perched on her toes with her tangled hairhair that he had promised to brush flowing between her outstretched thighs. The absurdity of it was the final straw, somehow.
Once the tears started, Abigail thought she would drown in them, fishing around where a lady's fingers should never be while silently bawling as if she had a right to.
As if he had promised her more than a stormy union.
A union that
To make him forget his past. To make her forget the future.
But now the storm was over and it was time for him to rejoin his regiment.
And it was time for her to put aside fanciful fantasies.
The cottage door opened just as her fingers gained purchase. The sponge came out in the same moment that Abigail came up.
Mrs. Thomas stood framed in the door in a spill of sunlight and dancing dust motes. 'It be all right, dearie. Men be forever takin' advantage of us women. I told my mister he shouldn' 'ave left you alone in the storm. We'll watch o'er ye now, me an' Mr. Thomas.'
Ignoring the sponge in her hand and the tears that refused to stop, Abigail grabbed the towel by the sink and wrapped it about her as if nothing more untoward had occurred than a maid inadvertently walking in on her bathing mistress. 'Thank you, Mrs. Thomas. There is no need to worry. I have decided to return to London. My family needs me, you see. I would appreciate it if you would assist me with packing, however. You may then drive me to the train station.'
'There's a train that leaves in two 'ours time.' Mrs. Thomas's face was full of pitya far, far more devastating emotion than the shock or disapproval that a spinster lady who strays from the straight and narrow path would expect to see in the eyes of a virtuous married woman. She retrieved Abigail's chemise from the rumpled bed. 'Plenty of time, we got. I got a nice pan of Cross buns, just baked 'em, and a fresh crock of butter'
'I am not hungry,' Abigail interrupted abruptly, wondering if she would ever be able to eat butter again. Or tolerate the odor of brandy. 'But thank you.'
She accepted the chemise with quaint dignity. Mrs. Thomas turned her back when Abigail had to perforce drop the towel.
'Of course I will pay you for your trouble.' Abigail's head cleared the neck of the chemise. 'No!' Her voice whipped the dust motes surrounding Mrs. Thomas. 'Leave it!'
Mrs. Thomas looked up from where she bent over the journal that Robert in his passion had ripped out of Abigail's hands and flung across the room.
'It is merely something that I purchased for my vacation.' She hurriedly spanned the distance that separated them. 'Here, let me have it.'
Abigail grabbed the journal from the befuddled woman. Walking across the room to the foot of the bed, she lifted the lid of the smallest trunk and tossed inside it
Mrs. Thomas was as good as her word. Abigail was dressed and packed in plenty of time to catch the train. While Abigail laced up her half-boots, Mrs. Thomas took care of the chamber pot and stripped the linen off the bed. Together they emptied the hip bath, then together they lifted up two trunks onto the back of the worn gig. Dusting her fingers with a handkerchief, Abigail lifted her skirts and stepped high to reach the metal step. There was pain between her legs when she settled onto the worn leather seat, yet it was strangely distant, as if it did not belong to her but to someone else.
Mrs. Thomas stood by the side of the gig. 'Ye be forgettin' a trunk, Miss.'
'No.' Abigail stared at the rhythmical swishing of the horse's tailit was not bobbed, as were those of the horses her brother kept. A brutal operation, she had always thought, involving as it did the removal of several vertebrae. 'There is nothing more for me in the cottage.'
'But'
Abigail pulled out a gold sovereign from her reticule. She looked down into Mrs. Thomas's wrinkled, worried face. 'I would consider it a favor, Mrs. Thomas, if you and your husband would destroy the trunk. Its contents are no longer of any value to me.'
'Of course, Miss.'
Mrs. Thomas turned and entered the cottage. She returned just minutes later carrying the basket Mr. Thomas had left yesterday.
Fleetingly she wondered what Robert had done to the crock of butterif he had put it back into the cupboard or if he had stuck it inside the basket. Just as fleetingly she wondered if Mr. Thomas had told his wife of finding Miss Abigail and her 'mister' frolicking naked in the rain.
But of course Mr. Thomas would have told her.
The mortification that Abigail should feel would not come.
The road to the station meandered around the ocean. At one spot a slip of the carriage wheel would plummet the vehicle over the cliff and into the water below.
'Stop!'
Mrs. Thomas nervously sawed on the reigns to stop the horse. Abigail reached into her reticule and grabbed the key to the trunk that carried her every fantasy.
How ironical that it should be dreams that had kept Robert alive these last twenty-two years.
They had given Abigail nothing but pain, isolating her from those she should emulate.
Before she could think about what she was doing, about what she was leaving behind, she stood up in the carriage and threw the key as far as she could.
It sparkled for a second, arcing over the water, then it disappeared. Into the air. Into the ocean.
It mattered not.
From this day forward Abigail had no dreams.
It was, after all, why she had chosen the isolated cottage, to say good-bye to the erotica that fueled impossible desires.
She closed her eyes against the sparkling clarity of the sea and made the decision she had been unable to make a week ago.
When she returned to London, she would accept the hand of the first man who her meddling siblings presented her with.
'You bloody horse, I should sell you to the glue factory.'
Softly whickering, the horse looked over its shoulder.
And allowed Robert to grab its halter.
After a two-hour chaseand a three-hour hunt.
Robert stared into the horse's soft brown eyes and felt a melting sensation all the way down to his toes.
Toes that now sported a set of blisters, thanks to this great beast.
He had indeed lost his mind if every pair of brown eyes reminded him of Abigail, he thought in disgust.
Grabbing the pommel, he swung up into the saddle.
The sun was brilliant, the sky a cloudless blue as it can only be in the aftermath of a storm.
The melting sensation flowed from Robert's spine to his testicles at the thought of the storm… and Abigail. And of how they would spend the rest of the day.
She would read from her erotica while he soaked his feet. Afterward, he would brush her hair as he had earlier promised. Then he would lick her and suckle her until she begged for mercy. And then…
Then he would propose to her. She wouldn't dare refuse him, hanging on to the edge of release.
It was well after noon by the time Robert returned to the cottage.
