They had spent some of the happiest days in his life in a place very much like this, he thought.
Well, a place a bit like this. A tropical island, in any case, although the one they had originally visited boasted such amenities as plumbing, electricity, maid service, and restaurants. They had enjoyed the finest of accommodations, the best wines and cuisines the resort could boast, and there had always been the luxury of knowing that, when they tired of their surroundings, they could be on their way with the snap of a finger. There had been air conditioning indoors, paved roads for their limousine outdoors, and all the accoutrements of civilized living besides.
Oh, all right! It had been nothing whatsoever like this, he conceded. They had eloped—two foolish children, head-over-heels in love, sitting hand in hand in a commercial airliner. Stealing kisses whenever the stewardesses weren't too obviously watching them, trading glances that were a silent promise of what was to come when they disembarked, on their way to a place that never knew winter.
He had placed a ring on her finger with a solemn promise, and she had kissed him with an equally heartfelt vow on her lips, and that, they had decided, was as good a wedding as any other. Oh, of course, as soon as they got home, as soon as the old cats in their respective families had stopped yowling and accepted that what was done was done, they'd had a society wedding of the sort they were expected to hold; heirloom veils, exotic flowers, some doddering old relic at the altar, insincere toasts by friends they couldn't stand, reporters scribbling descriptions of who wore what, embarrassing uncles overindulging in overpriced champagne, and sharp-eyed vultures mentally calculating the price of each entrée and centerpiece.
But at that moment, for those few days in paradise, that impromptu honeymoon, they had been alone. They had carved out a place, and a time, that was theirs, and their families, with their weighty names and their expectations and their rituals, had had no part in it. How her hair had shone in the tropical sun. How her skin had gleamed, softer than silk beneath his adoring fingers. Her eyes—bluer than the cloudless sky, brighter than the evening star—had been filled with such love, such boundless trust, that he had promised himself, all over again, that he would be a better man, that he would be worthy of his lady, that he would be the sort of person she deserved.
When had he forgotten those promises? When had passion turned into a sort of complacent disinterest? He looked up at the palm tree beneath which they were sitting, fronds arching against the sky in a jagged line like the teeth of a comb. Yes, there had been trees very much like that one on their little island idyll. There were wildflowers all around, brighter than the ones he'd seen outside their hotel, tamed and trained to some landscape designer's fancy. The ocean lapping at their feet had not changed in a billion years, let alone the paltry decade or two since he'd really looked at it. And the beautiful woman at his right hand was, at least in his admittedly biased eyes, no less desirable than she had been all those years before.
He looked around. The boat beached a few feet away from them could have been mistaken for a slice of Swiss cheese or a colander. Even if it could be patched up… somehow… he wasn't at all sure he would trust it to carry his luggage, let alone his wife. It served them right for not having traveled in the style to which they were accustomed; the yacht would never have failed them in such a… definitive way. So much for spontaneity, for mixing with the little people.
Speaking of which… he took stock of his newfound companions. The two young girls were certainly decorative, and a quite pleasant addition to the scenery. Whether they had other qualities remained to be seen, but at least his wife could count on female companionship. The youngish man reading a book… could go either way. He didn't have much use for eggheads on a personal level, and nothing he had yet seen or heard from the man did anything to alter that assessment. On a professional level, though, if these science chaps could be persuaded to get their heads out of the clouds and into something practical, they were often money in his pocket. He would keep an eye on this one; it would be satisfying to salvage something from this whole debacle. As for the sailors, he dismissed them out of hand. They would prove useful, no doubt; hewers of wood and drawers of water and all that. But, in all likelihood, otherwise negligible. The captain had, after all, steered them straight into this little Swiss Family Howell disaster, which didn't exactly speak to his competence, and, from what he had observed so far, the cabin boy couldn't be trusted to pour water out of a boot, even with the instructions printed on the sole.
He set his jaw. They would probably be rescued in a few days. The entire force of the Howell empire would be thrown into the task of locating and recovering its royal family. No other outcome was possible. He could buy and sell the whole blasted Coast Guard with the change lodged between his couch cushions; there was no reason to think that this little detour was anything other than a temporary inconvenience.
Or, perhaps, he thought, a temporary idyll. Another short break from their names, their responsibilities, their families. Another chance to be nothing but a pair of lovers on a sun-drenched beach beneath a sky bluer than anything except his wife's eyes. Another chance to be the man she deserved. He reached for her hand; still softer than silk, and promised himself that he would do better.
*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*
Author's note: The title is derived from the book of Genesis—'Cain went out from the Presence, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife.'