“But since you brought it up, it’s not unreasonable for your children to expect us to share a bed.”
“You simply can’t help yourself, can you?”
“Evidently not.”
Lily picked up his case. “Shall we go?”
He gestured to her to precede him. It was his assurance that she wouldn’t clobber him when his back was turned, and her smug smile seemed to indicate that she knew it.
Chapter Twenty
Hannah and Clay were playing cards on the floor of the parlor when Lily and Roen passed them on their way to the workroom. Neither of the children looked up when they passed, but Roen didn’t believe for a moment that they weren’t keenly interested in their mother’s activities as well as his own.
After Lily moved her mending and muslin and returned her basket of notions to a shelf, Roen had enough table space to unfold his maps. He set the tripod beside the folded ironing board and his instrument case on top of the maps. There was more work to be done, and Lily would have kept at it if Roen had not insisted it was enough for tonight.
“We have to go to bed sometime,” he said, catching her eye as she began to fold yet another arm’s length of fabric. “Lily?”
She stopped but didn’t put the material down. Instead, she held up the red-and-white-striped cotton remnant in front of her. Roen simply regarded her and her flimsy shield from under a sardonically raised eyebrow and waited her out. She required a few moments to steady her breathing and then mocked herself with a short soft laugh. “I’ll do better,” she said. “I suppose I am skittish.”
“A little. May I?” he asked, pointing to the fabric she was still clutching.
“Oh. Yes.” She passed it to him.
Roen made short work of folding it and added it to the stack leaning somewhat precariously to the left of the door. “You need more shelves.”
“Mm.”
Roen fully intended to leave then, to extinguish the lamp and follow Lily out, but she stayed his hand simply becauseshe was standing beside the table looking heartbreakingly lovely in the flickering light. Her blue-green eyes were luminous, her sweet mouth gently parted. Her topknot tilted slightly to the right and loose, curling threads of hair trapped the lamplight and glowed like a Madonna’s halo in a Renaissance painting. Her porcelain-smooth complexion was tinged with pink color, and the way the light played against her neck emphasized the delicate hollow of her throat.
“Lily?”
“Hmm?”
“I want to kiss you.”
Those luminous eyes widened a fraction.
“Very much. May I?” He was encouraged when she remained where she was, though every line of her body was pulled taut. “I’m wondering if you might want it, too.”
“I, um, I...”
“That’s not permission,” he said. “But neither is it a refusal. May I take your hands?”
She hesitated a long moment before she nodded.
Roen thought she would hold out her hands and thus maintain some distance between them, but she didn’t do that. Whether she didn’t think of it or was too stunned yet to manage it, he didn’t know, but her hands remained at her sides and he had to breach that firm but invisible boundary she kept around her. His fingers circled her wrists and then slid down to cup her palms. His thumbs brushed the backs of her hands. He held her loosely so that she was not in any way his captive. It was Lily who kept herself there.
“Will you look at me?” he asked. “I mean my face. You’re staring at my vest. That’s only acceptable if I have a soup stain.”
She looked up. In contrast to his steady gaze, her smile was tremulous.
“Better,” he said. He slowly bent his head. “Much better.” Roen wasn’t sure that Lily wouldn’t turn away. He would have been disappointed, but he wouldn’t have been surprised. She didn’t, though. He heard her quiet intake of air when his mouth was a mere hairsbreadth from hers. It made sense to him, that sound, because it was his breath that she took away.
His mouth touched hers. The shape of her mouth did notchange under his. Her lips remained firm, not pliant. She did not return the pressure he applied, though the pressure he applied was a light touch. She was unresponsive, untouchable, unfathomable. Roen drew back and his eyes grazed her face. She was pale; whatever color the lamplight had infused into her complexion was gone now. Her eyes were open and he suspected she had never closed them.
Lily had suffered his kiss. Roen thought he might be sick that this was her reaction. When his stomach quieted, he said, “I didn’t mean for it to be a punishment.”
“And I didn’t mean for you to realize it feels that way.”
