I don't know why we'd be concerned about swimming through a flood — by the time we've made it up the driveway, we're both soaked as though we've already been underwater. Thunder claps through the sky once more.
"Is is true you're more likely to be struck by lightning while wet?" I ask.
"Fucking hell. I hope not," Arthur says.
"This might be too dangerous," I say, pausing at the top of the driveway.
Shelly wasn't lying. Everywhere we look is underwater, the road turned into a river.
"Definitely too dangerous," Arthur agrees. "Let's get you back inside, eh?"
Instead, I fling myself into the water, wading through.
"Jesus fucking Christ," he mutters, taking a breath before following me.
It's absolute ice against my legs, seeping through my breeches and freezing me right to the bone. Rain continues to lash at my face, and lightning flashes across the sky as we make slow progress against the flood.
I let out a sharp laugh. "I do apologise," I tell him.
"I've faced worse conditions, my girl. Believe me."
I turn to face him, stopping in the middle of the water. He pauses too, breathing deeply against the cold. Glancing at me questioningly.
"Are you okay?" I ask him. "With... the war, and everything?"
He thinks for a moment. He nods. "Compared to how some men came back, I'm fucking grand."
"Okay." I begin to move once more. "I just thought I ought to ask. In case you weren't, and it's just that nobody had asked, or at least not truly asked."
"I appreciate that," he tells me. "Will you be as honest with me if I ask you the same question?"
"I didn't fight in the war," I tell him.
"You know what I mean."
I do not answer. The muscles in my legs burn from fighting against the current. My hair is plastered to my neck, my eyelashes so full of water I can barely see. I laugh.
"I must look like a drowned rat," I say, unable to stop.
"Could be worse," Arthur tells me. "You could look like a badger."
"Brave soldier, I am mightily offended," I tell him. "I cannot think of anything wrong with looking like a badger. Our facial structure is impeccable."
He chuckles. "You don't look like a rat or a badger," he tells me.
"How about a squirrel caught in a thunderstorm?"
"Nor a squirrel," he says.
We leave it at that as we plough ahead onward, a solid twenty minutes more of wading through the flooded road before it begins to ease, at first only to our knees, then to our ankles, before finally reaching dry ground once more. Before I know it, we reach the top of the driveway to my home. I realise it with a note of bitter sadness.
"This is me," I tell Arthur.
He walks past me, heading down the driveway.
"You don't need to come any further," I call out, rushing after him. "Really. It's just past this bend."
"It's at least another half a mile," he says.
I stop. "How do you know that?"
He continues onward, unless I am mistaken, pretending not to hear me. I rush to catch up with him, grabbing him by the arm and forcing him to look at me.
"How do you know that?" I repeat.
"Wild guess," he says, continuing his march while I race to keep up. "Isn't that every driveway round here? May's certainly was."
"I think you're lying to me."
"And I think you're lying to me about your husband."
"He is not my..." I take a breath, stopping myself. As much as I hate it, he is. "It's complicated."
"I gathered as much."
"Wait here," I tell Arthur when we reach the doors to the house.
I step inside. "Hello?" I call out, loud as I can. "Hello?"
He walks slowly in beside me. We drip water all over the tiled floors.
"Nobody's home," I say quietly.
But still I cannot relax. Luca's men wouldn't be able to come here in these conditions — they wouldn't be able to make it past the flooded road. But I'm still so scared. So unwilling to let any harm come to Arthur.
As I glance up at him, I realise he's been thinking as hard about the situation as I have. But rather than fear, he is filled with anger.
"Why did you marry him?" He asks me, his voice breaking.
I swallow. "I didn't have a choice."
"'Course you did." His words are accusatory.
"You have no idea, Arthur Shelby," I say, glowering. "No idea."
"Yeah? Then fucking try me."
"You wouldn't understand."
"Why? Tell me, Astor, why wouldn't I understand? After writing to you for years. After telling you how badly I wanted to be with you, why wouldn't I bloody understand?" Fresh hurt glows in his eyes.
"It's not a marriage I wanted," I say. "It's a marriage of... of convenience. My parents, his parents, they—"
"So it was about money." Arthur nods. "That's what I wouldn't understand?"
My voice raises to a shout, matching his own. "How dare you. You think I married him for money?"
"What other explanation is there?"
"He killed my fucking dog!" Arthur's whole face softens. He's silent. His brows draw together, but I'm not done. "He killed my fucking dog while he pointed my own gun at me and Pauline. Who he'd tied up and thrown in the storeroom for the night. He said..." I try to compose myself, but it's difficult when I'm soaking wet, and when I'm finally unleashing the fury that has been tormenting me for so long. "He said next time, it would be Ada. That next time, it would be you. If I try to kill him, his men have orders to murder you. If I contacted you again at all, he'd kill you. I married him because I fucking had to, Arthur. Because he told me he'd kill you otherwise. Because he knows I... how much I... how much I care about you."
He's quiet when he speaks. "I came here. Soon as I got back. Bought a massive bunch of flowers. Picked out my best suit. I came here to ask you to marry me."
My breath catches in my chest. "What?"
"You friend Pauline answered the door," he sniffs. "Told me I was being stupid. That you love Changretta, and I'd been... a distraction. That you only found me interesting because I'm not, not fucking like you. With the estates and money and that."
I shake my head. "Arthur, how could—"
"If I'd known..." He steps forward. He takes my head in his hands and gazes deeply into my eyes. All I see is blue. "If I'd fucking known, I would have set this whole place on fire myself to get you out of here."
I place my hands over his own. I marvel at the feeling of him. His hands, so large and so sure. So calloused. Hands that wrote letters to me for years.
"I never once stopped thinking about you," I whisper. I pull my necklace free. "I wear it always."
"My girl," he murmurs, and no man has ever looked at me the way he does in this moment. "My fucking girl."
He presses his lips to mine, and everything explodes like fireworks in an array of colours.