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“I thought you were nimble like a mountain goat.”

“How nimble are you?” She gave him a shove. His arm shot out, and he tottered, swinging her with him. Her feet left the ground as they spun, locked together. When he set her down in the wet sand, he was laughing, staggering to keep his balance.

“I’m fabulously nimble.” He wheezed. “If there were a candlestick, I’d jump right over.” He jumped in place, sinking before he lifted up, and even then, barely leaving the ground.

“Hard to jump in sand,” he muttered.

She rolled her eyes, then raced—nimbly—for the shingle as cool surf began to flow around her shoes. A moment later, he joined her.

She crouched to examine a shell, a peachy cowrie, no bigger than a fingertip.

“We could stroll,” she suggested when she’d caught her breath. “See what we discover.”

“Which way?”

She chose to walk toward the isthmus. He fell into step beside her, linking their elbows.

“No tickling,” she warned him.

“Indeed not.”

“I appreciate your forbearance.” Her gaze glued itself to his gloved hand.

At dawn, she’d stirred and realized he was already awake, propped behind her, lazily stroking her hair. She’d slid her thighs together restlessly, unable to ask for what she wanted, until his calloused fingers had skated down her hip and worked the hard knot at the top of her opening, plunging inside as everything loosened, and cries burst from her lips.

“Self-preservation.”

“Hmm?” She gave a little shake, looking up.

“It’s self-preservation, not forbearance,” he said wryly. “I know when I’ve met my match.”

The light playing on his irises turned them to liquid silver.

On a shaky breath, she faced forward. The isthmus rose precipitously from the sun-spangled water, rock transitioning to wooded hillside. A castle stood on the hills’ summit, like something from a fairy tale.

“Camelot,” she murmured, half-dreamily, half in jest.

“A popular artistic subject,” he remarked, after a pause. His voice was mild, but his biceps had tensed, and his stride changed rhythm.

“One of yours?” She stole a sidelong look at his profile.

“Oh, yes. The artists I grew up admiring painted knights and enchantresses. I had to try my hand at it.”

“And?”

“I am half sick of shadows,” he said, in a manner she recognized, from James.

“You’re quoting. From a poem?”

“By Tennyson. ‘The Lady of Shalott.’ Do you know it? The Lady is imprisoned in a tower, forbidden to look on Camelot directly. She must sit and weave the scenes she sees in her mirror. Eventually, she rebels. The reflected sight of a pair of lovers stirs her, and then Lancelot, who rides by on a warhorse. She leaves her loom. She leaves her tower. And for that, she dies.”

“Golly.” Muriel directed her frown at the castle. “You painted the unfortunate Lady?”

“I did a whole series. The Pre-Raphaelites all made drawings of her. In their illustrations, she’s powerless by her loom, or floating dead in the river. I took more liberties with the poem.”

“I am sick to the back teeth of shadows.” Muriel tipped her head. “I’d like it if the Lady said something emphatic, then galloped away on Lancelot’s warhorse.”

“You’d have liked my pictures, then.”