“Yes?”she heard her mother repeat.“What can you mean?”
“Sorry, Mama.What did you ask me?I was wool-gathering.”
“Hm.Then we shall go with green, I think.Maybe I can find green with white flowers.”
“A good choice,” Lise agreed.And then, as if there had ever been any doubt, she decided to visit Jonathan in the forest.She stood suddenly.
“I need some air.I’ll take bread and apples to the poorhouse.”
She didn’t know what she would have done had her mother offered to go with her.After asking Frau Becker to prepare a basket, Lise rushed upstairs, changed into her sturdy half-boots, and donned her deep blue cloak.No one stopped her when she had Jacob saddle her horse, and then she made her way to the Great Oak.
She was only going in order to let him know she loved him.It seemed a man ought to be given that gift after risking everything to save her, and after asking her to go away with him.It wasn’t as though she was going to England.
Her decision not to was sensible, and she was a sensible, practical person.
But as Lise went deeper into the woods, her body seemed to accept something her mind had yet to acknowledge.She couldn’t let Jonathan go without experiencing again the sensations that had haunted her since London.
As she rode, her insides grew tingly with anticipation, and where her buttocks made contact with the saddle, rocking gently, she was suddenly more sensitive.
There and between her legs.
Remembering the feeling of his hands on her waist, his mouth on hers, the solid strength of his body when pressed against her own, her skin felt too tight.
She bit her lip.One afternoon.One chance to know what true passion felt like, so she wouldn’t spend the rest of her life wondering.She would have this memory to sustain her through all the sensible, practical years ahead.
If he was willing.She urged her horse to trot faster.
The Great Oak came into view, its massive trunk and spreading branches as familiar to her as her own heartbeat.She barely glanced at it, passing by and heading toward the giant’s berries.Surely, he would be there, tucked away in that secret space.
“Lise!”
Her name echoed through the forest, shouted from above.Turning in her saddle, she tilted her head and scanned the oak’s branches.
Jonathan was perched high in the tree, his legs hanging down from a thick branch upon which he sat, while leaning his shoulder against the trunk.
“What are you doing?”she called to him, unable to suppress her own smile.
“Shouting for my beloved.”He shifted his position, his long legs dangling.“Isn’t that what you said people do here?”
Despite knowing how this day would end, she laughed, the sound bubbling up from some place in her chest that had felt icy and hollow since she’d opened her eyes that morning.Dismounting, Lise tied her mare to a shrub and stood at the base of the oak.
The English oak with her English spy.
“Only the young women call for their beloved,” she said.“I told you that.”
“How unfair!”Jonathan began to climb down, moving gracefully, a man used to being outdoors.“If we had such a tree in England, we would let both sexes use its magic.”
“I’ve never used it,” she reminded him, watching him descend.
He paused on a branch about eight feet above the ground, looking down at her with an expression that made her breath catch.
“Then do so now,” he told her.“Yell the name of your beloved.”
Her heart hammered against her ribs.Wasn’t it the reason she’d gone there?
Grasping the lowest branch with her hands, the bark rough and familiar beneath her palms, she climbed the way she’d done countless times as a child.But she didn’t go too high.Settling onto the sturdy branch directly beneath his, she filled her lungs and called out to the forest.
“Jonathan!”
