A Banquet of Consequences Read Online Free PDF Page B

up Golden Cap to see the view.
    A sign posted the way. William led, with a rucksack on his back and a confidence in his stride. They rested often, for there was no hurry. They paused to take pictures. They stopped to rustle through his rucksack, where she discovered he’d brought chocolate bars, nuts, fruit, water, and even a bottle of red wine and two glasses. They sat against a boulder and looked back across the magnificent sweep of Marshwood Vale, all the way to a hill fort that Will told her was called Pilsdon Pen. Another month and the gorse would be blooming on Golden Cap, he told her. Then it would be yellow explosions, floral bursts of sun on a mantle of green.
    When they made it to the very top of the cliff, it was all that William had promised it would be. The wind was intense, so they did not remain long. But in the western distance the crescent of Lyme Regis winked in the afternoon light while to the east Dorset’s Jurassic Coast introduced itself along the length of Chesil Beach, where boulders segued to rocks to stones to pea-sized pebbles as the strand travelled its incredible eighteen miles, backed by a glittering shield of water, an enormous lagoon that William identified as the Fleet.
    The sea was grey on this day, but the sky was blue. Clouds scudded across it as if chased by the sun, but there were no birds, which Lily found odd. She’d expected gulls, but not a bird was in sight. And the only sound was the relentless wind.
    She said to William, “You’re dead mad, you are, bringing us up here. Even the birds can’t cope.”
    His response was a happy, “Swim to France? I feel like I could.” He cast a look at her, and his face was boyish. He said spontaneously but a little shyly, which she found appealing, “Lily, can I kiss you?”
    “Odd question from a bloke I shared a tooth glass with.”
    “Does that mean yes?”
    “S’pose it does.”
    He leaned to her and kissed her, a gentle kiss without expectation of anything more. This, too, she found appealing. She responded, and the kiss lingered. She felt the stirring within her, as she ever had.
    SEATOWN
    DORSET
    On the way back down to their camping site, he kissed her again. This time he didn’t ask permission. He merely stopped abruptly, and the expression on his face told her what was coming. She discovered that she wanted it to come, but there was danger in this.
    She said, “I’ve got my life back, William. I don’t want to lose it again.”
    “We’re not going to talk about that,” he told her. “Not yet. I won’t say not ever because things have changed for me. I’ve moved on as well.”
    “What’s that mean? Is there someone . . . ?”
    “I wouldn’t have asked you to come down if there was someone, and I bloody well hope you wouldn’t have come if there was someone on your side as well.”
    “I’ve said there isn’t.”
    “But has there been? In these last months? Because there hasn’t for me and—”
    “William . . .” She said his name like a gentle admonition.
    “Never mind,” he said quickly. “None of my business.” He resumed their walk.
    They made love that night. Lily couldn’t have said what was behind William’s desire to be with her that way—aside from biology and the kind of animal lust that arises when a male and a female are thrust into intensely intimate quarters with each other after a pleasant day together—but on her part it was a half-and-half thing. Half lust, if she was honest with herself. Half curiosity, if she was more honest still. For their previous coupling had been an engagement of manic intensity where his release followed so hard on the heels of initiation that the end result had most often been abject apology, reassurance, and a recommitment to “make things different next time.” They’d never been different, but she’d kept up her hopes. Now she was merely curious.
    Thus she let him seduce her once she read the signs that he wanted to do so: the earnest looks,