Taran walked into the field to pace the footprint of the courtyard. When he opened the next scroll and began to ramble about the comparative virtues of marble flooring and terra-cotta, I went into the tent and retrieved a quilted cotton blanket to spread over the future site of the kitchen gardens.
I let his explanation of the stables and baths wash over me as I lay down and rolled the hem of my dress up over my knees. Maybe it was the thick sunlight, but there was an air of unreality to this place. I was surprised by every sensation—grass under my fingertips, wisps of hair sticking to my neck—that reminded me that I was not dreaming. It had been winter when I left, and I closed my eyes and spread my arms, soaking the eternal summer heat into my bare limbs.
I heard Taran carefully sit down next to me after he described the outdoor theater.
“I can show you where we could put your plum orchard, but itlooks like our first crop is going to be freckles,” he said, brushing a fingertip across the bridge of my nose.
“You’re telling me I have freckles?” I said, pretending to be shocked. I didn’t have as many as some redheads—my hair was closer to brown than blonde—but if I didn’t go inside soon, tomorrow I’d be as spotted as a jungle cat and as pink as a primrose.
“Just a few.”
I smiled without opening my eyes when I felt his lips carefully close over a spot on my right cheekbone. “One right here.” When Taran wanted to be sweet, there was nothing better in the whole world. His lips moved to my temple. “A second here.”
I tipped my head back expectantly, waiting for him to kiss my mouth next, but instead he pressed another warm kiss to the tip of my nose. “Three.” He carefully closed his lips around my chin. “Four.”
It turned out that I had twenty-seven freckles on my face, and my mouth buzzed with energy at being the only place not kissed by the time he was done counting. But instead of covering my lips with his at last, I felt his shadow dip before he laid an open-mouthed kiss halfway down my neck. “Twenty-eight.” His breath ran over my collarbone. “Twenty-nine.”
My body started to heat from within, rather than from the sunlight, when he pushed the strap of my dress aside to kiss a freckle hidden on my right shoulder. I didn’t have many freckles on my legs, but he found one on the arch of my foot and one on the top of my knee. His lips trailed down each arm as my breathing quickened and my hands trembled from the effort of not reaching for him. Each kiss was butterfly-wing light.
He’d counted to sixty-one when he identified the last freckle not covered by the silk of my gown, on the bend of my right index finger. He sucked the fingertip into his mouth, holding it there with a satisfied, devilish sparkle in his eyes. The pull of his mouth onsuch an innocent location was erotic beyond what I’d thought was possible.
When he paused, it was to let his eyes drop to my breasts and thighs, still covered by my dress. My breath quickened at the implied question and the image of his lips tracing down my cleavage.Yes. Please.
I had to swallow hard before speaking. “I think I might have a few more?”
Taran’s smile around my finger slowly widened, a cat in the cream, but then his gaze flicked up to the sky, and his expression dimmed.
“You’re getting sunburned,” he said roughly, pulling my dress down over my legs. He helped me up and toward the small pool of shade created by a grove of chestnut trees.
“Oh, I—probably?” I said belatedly, taken aback that he was so concerned.
Had I not been direct enough? Or too direct? I was going to die a virgin.
His attitude was slightly apologetic but no less determined when we regrouped at the edge of the valley. He took a deep breath and seemed to gather himself, smile firmly back in place.
“Anyway, what do you think of it?” he asked, gesturing to his grassy future palace.
I shook my head ruefully. I knew a lot about a lot of things, but this was beyond me. My own little stone house had seemed like an extraordinary promise at the time.
“Who’s going to build it?”
“Me,” he said with resolution. “The Allmother built the rest of the City, but as you saw, she’s unlikely to do me any favors.”
“Won’t this take you an eternity if you plan to do it all yourself? Do you even know how?”
“Happily, I have time to figure it out. You can sit right here”—he pointed to our feet—“with your kithara and a glass of wine and watch me.”
I laughed softly at the idea of Taran turning his considerable energy to learning stonemasonry from first principles. It had to be a joke, but he was keen for my reaction.
“I’m just going to drink wine and watch you haul stone for three hundred years? I sound very lazy.”
“I don’t know why I didn’t ask you before. Did you have better plans?”
I smiled away from him, imagining the evenings where we’d slept under muddy hedgerows as the rain beat our faces through winter branches.Oh, nightingale, this is unpleasant. Would you rather go to my villa for a few centuries?
“I thought you were mortal. A big estate in the Summerlands would have been hard to explain.”
“You would have been impressed though,” he said, the corners of his mouth now curling up but not matching the intensity in his eyes. “If I told you I had a villa.”
