Page 75 of Salt Kiss
“It’s lovely to meet you, Tristan,” she says, and I absorb how enchanting her voice is. Notquiteaccented to my ears but almost, a faint crispness to her consonants, a small lift to her vowels. I saw that she went to school in Manhattan despite her father being English and her mother Irish, and so she doesn’t sound EnglishorIrishorAmerican.
She just sounds rich.
“This is my uncle, His Eminence Mortimer Cashel,” she adds, because of course there is someone else here with us, watching me with blue-green eyes that don’t entirely match each other. I have the simmering worry that he can see the effect Isolde’s having on me.
“Hello, Cardinal Cashel,” I say with a nod, and then step back and gesture toward the car. “We should go soon, Ms. Laurence. I think our captain is hoping to get out of the harbor before dark.”
“Yes,” she says. Her throat moves over the open collar of her shirt. A swallow. I wonder if she’s nervous about sailing.
Her uncle breaks into a smile, revealing a gap between his two front teeth. It’s so cheerful and kind thatIfeel reassured and it’s not even meant for me. He pulls Isolde into a fond hug. “I’ll see you soon, my child. Have a safe voyage.”
I spy two suitcases just inside the hall, and I make myself useful by slipping past the familial goodbye and grabbing the luggage, walking them out to the car with the gravel crunching under my feet. I hear Isolde and her uncle murmuring together, and when I look back, he’s making the sign of the cross in front of her. Blessing her for her journey, I think. I am Catholic in the same way that I’m good at singing—something I was born with and am happy enough to exercise if the situation calls for it—but Isolde seems to be really,reallyCatholic.
I think about her marrying Mark, about Lyonesse and the rumors of the priest he killed, and then give up trying to make it all make sense. The only route to sanity with Mark Trevena sometimes.
Isolde comes over to the car, her shoulders straight enough to measure the horizon against, and I wonder if she’s uneasy around me. Something that would have sounded ludicrous to Before Tristan but that I’ve noticed happens sometimes with After Tristan. I forget to smile; I forget to relax my body.
Even if I feel safe, I’ve forgotten how to make other people feel safe too. A little ironic, given my job.
I make an effort to be Before Tristan now, smiling at her as I open her door and then smiling at her uncle, who returns the smile and gives us a small wave.
“I like your ring,” she says, before I shut her door.
I look down at the black and silver ring on my index finger. “Thank you,” I say. “It was a gift.”
I don’t say that it was a gift from her future husband, pressed into my palm seconds before I left Lyonesse. Mark’s eyes flashing as his strong hands brushed over mine.
Wear it if you want, he’d said.Just know that I want you to.
“What does it say?” asks Isolde now, making out the faint etching of words along the band.
“Quarto optio.”
“Fourth option?” Isolde translates from the Latin, looking puzzled. “Why?”
“I have no idea,” I say honestly. Just like I have no idea why I’m wearing it. Except that I’ve always liked when he’s given me pain, and so seeing this ring on my finger—the finger for clubs and guilds and alma maters and not the finger for marriage—bruises me deeper than any binder clip or ruler ever could.
I shut her door, and I get behind the wheel, pressing the button to start the car. And then we’re rolling down the gravel drive to the road and to the harbor.
And then to the sea.
Twenty-Five
Isoldeand I take the speedboat tender to the yacht itself and then board the five-hundred-foot monstrosity. The porter shows us to our rooms—adjoining suites with a shared door. Which is when I realize I’ll be sleeping where Mark would have been if he’d come, a mere door away from his betrothed.
There have got to be other empty suites on the boat, and I make a note to ask the porter if I can switch. I don’t want Isolde to feel like I’m...I don’t know.Lurking.
And then we’re free to explore. Isolde tells us that she’ll unpack and then see me at dinner, and I go to meet the captain and ask her about emergency protocols.
The captain gives me a tour of the ship herself, showing me every fire extinguisher and life jacket station as we pass, as well as the stairs to the tender garage and the fastest routes to the helipad.
“There are six of us on deck crew,” she says when we reach the bridge, “six on interior crew, three on galley crew, and one engineer.”
“That’s a large crew for just two guests,” I say.
Captain Duval gives me a look. She has short, tight curls, light umber skin, and straight eyebrows that she still manages to arch whenever I make a comment that shows I have no idea how boats work.
“It’s a sizable craft,” she says dryly, and then adds, “and you haven’t even seen the library or spa yet.”
