He was trying not to smile. Trying not to laugh. “Dirty rocks?” he repeated carefully.
“And the dog! Walking the little dog!” she continued, going shrill. “The puppy!”
“It is my puppy,” he said, already drowned out by the next complaint.
“And looking like … like … calm and lean and … oh, you are infuriating!” she said, blazing and more than a little frayed at the edges of her sanity. “I love you!”
He couldn’t move for a moment. He couldn’t do anything other than stare. He wanted to do something dashing and heroic and kiss her here in front of God and everyone, but he could not fucking move.
“You do?” he managed to say, stupid and hoarse.
She looked just as surprised as he did, at least, her eyes gone very wide. She blinked them, her heavy lashes brushing against her cheeks, and then silently nodded, a slow, creaking nod like she was a rusty clock and her wheels were struggling to turn.
“Do …” She started to speak then stopped, pressing her lips together. She looked away for a moment, drawing in a little breath of the sooty, flame-soaked twilight air, and then looked back at him. “Do you love me?”
He felt a wind leave his body, a little weather pattern that had stalled in him five years ago and finally shook itself free. “Of course I bloody do,” he said, more than a little indignant. “Whatdo you think all of this has been? Do you think I came here to toy with you?”
She didn’t answer. She looked blanched, like he’d just caught her in her worst suspicions, her most shameful fears.
“Christ, Claire,” he muttered. “Come here.”
“Why?” she asked, even as one of her feet slid forward in the dusty ground, like it wanted to obey without knowing for certain.
“So I can kiss you in front of all these people,” he said firmly. “So there’s no question anymore. Come here.”
“I don’t … think …” she was stammering, shuffling toward him the same way she had that night at the wedding, like she knew very damn well that he was going to.
“No, you often don’t,” he agreed, crossing his arms and waiting. “I’m not doing it for you this time, Claire.”
She narrowed her eyes, fisting her hands in her skirt and making herself take the steps, returning to him, nearly brushing against him. “You didn’t!” she reminded him. “The night of the wedding? You made me do it, remember? You made me do it and I did.”
“Did you, love?!” a hawker exclaimed, clearly delighted. “Go on, do it again!”
Claire didn’t even look at the stranger or otherwise acknowledge the insolence, though that pale pallor on her cheeks immediately darkened at the realization that they now had an audience.
Freddy only just then realized it too, realized how quiet it had gone around the stalls, how the only sound was the crackle of thebonfires. He didn’t look around, but he could feel it, the staring, the gathering of eyes.
He was irritated, he realized. He was annoyed that she was correct. He was deeply, deeply in love.
“You’re right,” he snapped, and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her against him with a snatching finality and crushing his mouth into hers to the delighted cheers of their gathered audience.
She kissed him back, just as hard, just as flustered and impatient.
They did not dissolve into passion. They did not tangle or lick or indulge as they might have otherwise. That was not the point. Not for this particular kiss.
All the same, when they broke apart, they were both panting, both flushed, both rumpled beyond reason.
He reached down and took her hand, lacing her fingers through his. His heart was slamming so hard against his ribs that he thought one might crack.
“Freddy,” she whispered, flicking her eyes toward the crowd and back to him. “Please.”
He nodded. With a sigh, he turned toward the people and broke into his best grin, holding up her arm and taking a bow so that they would applaud again, so that they would think it had all been part of the games.
“Go on,” one of the women passing by muttered, fanning herself. “Where’smyhusband?”
He wondered if perhaps they’d gotten away with anonymity this late in the day, this deep in the drinking, and this far from the fire. Perhaps the gathered onlookers had thought they were just normal lovers, having a spat and a kiss for the enjoyment of the crowd.
He bought a pair of pasties with quick, shrugging precision, flashing a smile at the woman selling them, grabbing Claire’s hand before anyone could look any closer or otherwise ask any questions, and pulling her into the torchlight procession that had begun to wind through the center of the grounds, letting them be swallowed by the crowd.
