The Storm-Grey Sea

Chapter Eight - The Reef Knot

"No, no, not like that!" came the firm reprimand.

Stephen, who had been tying a reef knot very badly, paused as an even firmer hand gripped his to correct him. He paused and looked up at Miss Marlowe, whose grey-blue eyes were fixed sharply on his handiwork as she took his hand in one of hers.

Her grip was tight and very hard, the strength of those long, white fingers incongruous with the delicacy of her pretty hands. She halted his movement, took the knot in her own hands, and, fingers flying, tied it correctly in a matter of moments.

"There, like that, doctor," she said, and placed the knot in his fingers. "Do you see how it's done?"

Stephen gave her a small smile. "I do, Miss Marlowe. Reproducing it, however, is something else entirely."

"Come, try again, sir. I cannot imagine why you are having such difficulty - you are so very skillful and dextrous with your hands otherwise!" she said, and her bright eyed were sharp, demanding excellence from him.

He smiled to himself. He had long since mastered the art of tying the knot. But Miss Marlowe's correction, her hands on his, those were things he could not enjoy if he did not feign ignorance.

Miss Marlowe, though a patient teacher, had begun to become irked with him for she, with a flick of that hand, spoke.

"If you produce the knot correctly, I shall end our session early and you will have to endure less time with this wicked schoolmistress," she said, affecting an air of benevolent bartering.

Stephen looked directly into her face and tied the knot incorrectly.

She blushed pink. Reaching forward, she took the rope from his hands and with deft movements, tied the knot perfectly. "I - Dr. Byrne, I am flattered, but I should imagine that my constant nagging of you in these ridiculous lessons has become somewhat tiresome over this week and you need not pretend that you enjoy my tutelage for I-"

"Nothing could be further from the truth, Miss Marlowe," said Stephen, noting how the glorious Miss Marlowe, that steely creature, had become somewhat bashful. "You are right if you assume I have little interest in affairs of the sea - I should be lying is I said otherwise. But I should be a fool if I passed up any opportunity for the company of any person so" - Stephen searched for a word that would not make him sould ridiculous - "admirable as yourself."

Miss Marlowe did not smile, and that worried Stephen. Perhaps he had overstepped his bounds with her. After all, they had known one another just over a week, and perhaps he had been foolish to assume that she liked his company so well as she liked Isaac's, or that damned Mr. Browne's.

"Tush and nonsense," Isaac had said when, at dinner the previous night, Stephen had quietly voiced this concern. "Rosalind speaks very highly of you. She enjoys your conversations, very much so."

"Better than Mr. Browne's?" he asked.

Isaac got a strange, impish smile on his face at Stephen's query. "I should think so. She has a fair degree of affection for you. As much as you have for her, I'd imagine."

"Are you implying something, Isaac?" Stephen had snapped, his attention momentarily having been distracted from Miss Marlowe, who was speaking in a low voice to Mr. Fanning. Stephen had thought it was remarkable that anything managed to distract him from her, for her magnetism drew every eye to her, even his own, even when no woman, nor any other person, had ever captured him so.

"Of course not, Stephen," said Isaac, but his eyes danced with too much good humour for his words to be anything but a good-natured lie. "I am only observing that Rosalind appears to be quite fond of you, and that you have seemed positively infatuated with our esteemed Miss Marlowe over this past week."