"It was your sixteenth birthday, I recall…your dress caught the light of the chandelier above so beautifully; I confess I was momentarily stunned that I had never noticed how beautiful you'd grown until then."
I was conscious, but too afraid to open my eyes for what I would find, and instead continued to pretend to be under the influence of the sedative. James, I presumed, sat near me, his hand tenderly combing the wisps of hair from my face. He spoke half to himself, contemplative and morose.
"And then, when I asked you for our usual customary dance…your smile was that of a woman's, not the girl I'd known a day before. I saw the grace you'd developed, the poise." He sighed, moving his hand from my hair to entwine in my pallid chilly fingers. I was careful to keep them limp and devoid of movement. "You laughed at my jokes that night, as ever," James continued. "Do you remember the story I told you, the one of that absurd young marine who was chased by the pig off Hutchinson's farm? You smiled so merrily at that. You put your head on my shoulder, just as you always did, but it was different…so different." His breath caught, and I thought I detected an uncertain shudder to his voice as he continued, broken with dry pain. "You were just a girl, just a girl, yet you had no idea that all eyes in that room were dancing around you, Elizabeth. And at the end of the night, when you kissed my cheek goodbye…your sweet lips…I thought the room would melt. How could I have known how to respond to your farewell? You asked to go out riding the next day with me, a picnic in the Orange Groves down by Santa Maria."
My heartbeat picked up a pace as sunlit memories crowded into my brain, each scented with the sweet fruit from that trip to Santa Maria. I'd been a fool, splashing water at him, letting him kiss my nose when I was sleepy. Yet he'd been my brother back then; a trusted friend with whom I could confide all in.
"We sat beneath those trees for hours," James whispered hoarsely. "You took your shoes off, said you wanted to feel the sand…feel it properly. A girl, God, just a silly little girl."
Droplets fell onto our entwined hands. He cried softly, thinking there was no audience to his bitter pain. My chest lurched, and I knew I could hide no longer. I tightened my grasp around his fingers.
"E-Elizabeth?"
"I'm here. I've been awake a while," I whispered. His face was crippled with agonised concern, and he dropped to his knees beside the bed. He touched a trembling finger to my cheek, tracing its outline.
"Forgive me," he said softly, the tears flowing freely this time. His face crumpled like a child's, and raw suffering was suddenly evident in his green gaze. Unable to process the sight of him before me like this, unable to even absorb my surroundings properly, I cried out. I sat up and pulled him to me in a way that can only be described as fervently instinctive, as though it were unnatural for us not to be joined. He was so warm, so perfectly fitted amongst my arms and neck. Our noses touched, and, as he had done in Santa Maria, he kissed the tip of mine very gently. "I couldn't do it," he whispered, shaking his head over and over. "We…we hit a reef. The one by Blackling Cove…I requested that we were brought back."
Yes, the feel of the bed beneath me was familiar. The light from the window had shone on me most of my life. He'd brought us back. Home, home.
"But the doctors in London..?"
James shook his head, again the tears wracking his voice. "Your heart belongs here, with the sun." His hand slipped down and laid on my chest. There was a pounding in my head as I processed what this meant.
"You do love me." I could see it now. Clear, clearer than the rock pools in the bay below. Bluer than those little pools of water, purer too, perhaps more akin to a high mountain spring.
"Only you…" he breathed. "All I live for is you, Elizabeth, can you understand? You are more blessed than-"
I placed a finger to his lips, letting the liquid from his eyes trail over it. "More blessed than the sea," I finished for him. Our sights met in new understanding.
This time, as the lacings of my dress fell away, it was with quiet bliss. No longer pain.
