"Really," agreed Lauren, "it feels like we're the only people in here, not a lot of tourists stop by, I'm guessing."
Thomas merely gave her his most arousing half smile and continued on the path. No need to tell his bride that he'd arranged to close the gardens for the afternoon, for everyone but them. Rounding a corner, they were greeted by a stunning pergola, exquisitely hued peacocks strutting back and forth. He started laughing at Lauren's eye roll. "Yes, darling. The peacocks did cost extra." Dashingly pulling out a chilled bottle of champagne and two flutes, he opened the bottle with an impressive "pop!' of the cork and poured them both a glass with the experience of a sommelier.
"Is there anything you don't know how to do perfectly?" Lauren accepted a glass and shook her head in amazement.
"Apparently, being a husband," Thomas answered with honesty that shocked them both. With a devilish gleam, he leaned in. "But I do intend to improve my performance." Tapping his glass to hers, he murmured, "To a perfect day."
A little dazed, Lauren nodded, "A perfect day."
"Really," the girl persisted, her head on Thomas's lap, enjoying the surprising warmth of the autumn sun on her face, "I don't think I've seen one person since we arrived, have you? It's likeThe Secret Garden."
"The children's book?" Thomas said lazily, "I never read it."
"Mmmm," Lauren wiggled a little on his hard thighs, getting comfortable, "Frances Burnett wrote the story of a lonely little girl who was sent to live in her uncle's big, scary fancy house near London. No friends or family, no one to talk to."
Thomas shifted uneasily, some of the parallels not lost on him, even if she was unaware.
"So, Mary - the little girl - finds the key to a secret garden, no one's been in there for years and it's wildly overgrown. She begins to clear it and make the garden bloom again. She discovers she has a cousin – Colin - who's been shut away in the scary mansion and more or less ignored by everyone because of his illness, no one even caring that he was in pain!" Her lips firmed angrily, and her husband hid a smile. So empathetic, this girl. "So, Mary brings him into the garden, and as they restore the trees and the flowers, the garden heals them both. It was my favorite book as a child," she confessed, "I must've read it a hundred times." She felt his rough fingertips brush back and forth across her forehead, very gently. Looking up at him, she grinned. "So sentimental, huh? Unrealistic?"
He forced a smile, "I'm sure it's an uplifting message for children."
Lauren started laughing, daringly rising to straddle him, hands on his shoulders. "And what did Thomas Williams the... uh... what are you, like the fifth? Thomas Williams the-"
"First." Thomas answered firmly. She drew her hands away nervously at his tone, but he caught them, kissing the soft skin of one and then the other. "Thomas Williams the first, a new bloodline from an old one."
She nodded, treading carefully on this unstable new ground. "And what did young Thomas read? Edgar Allen Poe? Maybe a little George Orwell? Who was the guy who wroteLord of the Flies?Ormaybe-"
"Shakespeare."
Lauren's mouth dropped open. "Ooooo... Will you please recite something for me? Maybe fromMuch Ado About Nothing, or- orAs You Like It?" Watching his cobalt eyes cool a bit, she backtracked, "I mean, don't worry about it, I just-" With an alarmed squeal, she suddenly found herself on her back on the cushioned seating staring up at the dark beauty of her husband.
Running one long finger over his lips, Thomas pondered her flushed face.
Wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty like a Scotch jig--and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance and with his bad legs falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.
Though it was certainly one of the most cynical passages fromMuch Ado About Nothing, delivered in Thomas's spine-meltingly beautiful voice, the rich elocution of his accent... Lauren could feel an uncomfortable warmth developing south, a certain weakness of the knees that made her question if she could stand up again. He smiled suddenly, subtle lines spreading from those penetrating eyes.
I have marked
A thousand blushing apparitions
To start into her face, a thousand innocent shames
In angel whiteness beat away those blushes;
And in her eye there hath appeared a fire,
To burn the errors that these Princes hold
Against her Maiden truth.
"Ooooo... that's..." Lauren was trying to form a full sentence, but the feeling of his mouth on her neck and sliding downwards made putting thought together more than she was capable of.
Oh, thou did'st then ne'er love so heartily.
If thou rememb'rest not the slightest folly
That ever love did make thee run inot,
