“Of course I stopped,” she said, remembering her broken heart, her shattered dreams, her conviction that she would surely not be able to live on. “Did you imagine that I have been nursing a tendre for you all these years? Do you see me as a poor, frustrated spinster, sighing herself to sleep each night with memories of the one man with whom she shared a romance when she was no more than a girl? That is both absurd and insulting.”
“Did I say I imagined any such thing?” he asked. “I am sorry. I have upset you.”
“I am not upset,” she said, swiping at her cheeks with the heels of both gloved hands and feeling the humiliating wetness of tears there—she, who never wept.
“Let us not talk or even think about all the years between,” he said. “I loved you when we were last here together, Matilda, and you loved me. It is a bitter memory because of all that came so soon after. But there is a very definite sweetness about it too. We were a young couple in love. I have never been in love since.”
“What nonsense,” she said.
“Perhaps,” he said. “But true nevertheless. I do not believe you have either, have you?”
“Me?” she said. “Of course I have—No, I have not. Is there anything shameful about that? I had chances. But I would not marry without love. I was a stubborn young woman.”
“Yes,” he said. “I know.”
“Well,” she said, “itisa sweet memory, Charles. It was also something that happened to two people who no longer exist.”
“But we do,” he said. “We are those very same two people thirty-six years later. There are gray hairs—more for me than for you—and lines carving themselves on our faces and somewhat thickening figures. But you still look very good. Perhaps I can say so because I look at you through fifty-six-year-old eyes. To me you look good, though I would like to see your mouth primmed less often and smiling instead—as it has smiled today whenever we are in company with the young people. I would like to kiss that mouth again.”
She stared at him as though she were welded to the floor. She was too shocked to smack his face. At the same time she felt a renewed rush of awareness—of their aloneness up here, of the last kiss they had shared here, ofhim, of his solid presence, of his continued good looks, of his maleness. Of hismouth.But she was middle-aged. On the far side of middle age, in fact. Kissing was for the young. She no longer knew how to do it. The last time she had been kissed was … thirty-six years ago. It would be embarrassing. It would be bizarre. It would be …
She licked her lips, and his eyes dipped to follow the gesture. Her nipples were tingling. There was an ache between her thighs. She had not experienced such things for many years. She was past the age … But even before then she had suppressed the nagging needs that brought her nothing but empty frustration and misery. She could not now …
She took a step closer to him, and whenhestepped closer toher, she ignored the instinct to jump back in fright and she let herself rest against him instead, closing her eyes as she did so. Even through his coat and waistcoat and shirt she could feel that he was warm and firm muscled and male. She felt enclosed by the smell of him, his cologne, the starch that must have been used on his cravat and neckcloth, the essence that was Charles himself. It was ridiculous, perhaps, to feel that it was all somehow familiar, but it was nevertheless. With her thighs she could feel the powerful muscles of his own. With her lower legs she could feel the supple leather of his Hessian boots. It was all surely sufficient to make her swoon—if she knew how to do it.
She would remember this, she thought, just as she had always remembered the last time. She would remember for the rest of her life. With her dying breath she would remember that she loved him, that she had always loved him even if there had been days, weeks, even perhaps months through her life when she had not thought of him a single time. Oh no, never months. Or even weeks. Love never quite goes away. It was always there, dormant, waiting to be revived. Broken hearts were always aching to be mended.
His arms had come down along hers and he found her hands with his and twined his fingers with hers as their arms rested against their sides. He lowered his head and tipped it slightly to one side. She felt his breath against one cheek and opened her eyes. His own searched hers from a mere few inches away and somehow she did not feel like an embarrassed and dried-up old spinster for whom such things were merely a present embarrassment and a dream of what might have been a long time ago and could never be again. He did not look like an aging man who surely should be past such things.
“Allow me?” he murmured, his lips almost against hers.
For answer, she shut her eyes again and closed the distance. And—
Oh my.
Oh my.
Oh …my goodness me.
Her thoughts were no more coherent than that for however long the kiss lasted. It was probably a few seconds. No, surely longer than that. Minutes? Hours?
Had it been like this all those years ago? All the physical sensations? All the emotional yearnings? All the inability tothink? But if it had been, how could she possibly have let him go?
Ah, how could she have let him go?
Charles.
“Charles?”
He had moved his mouth away from hers and was gazing at her with eyes that were impossible to read. They were still touching along their full length. Their fingers were still entwined at their sides. It had been really, she thought, by any objective standard, a rather chaste kiss. It had also been nothing short of earth-shattering. No, that was far too mild a term. It had beenuniverse-shattering.
For her anyway.
He, of course, must have participated in a thousand such kisses with as many women.
Don’t exaggerate, Matilda.
Wasit an exaggeration?
