“Yes?” she prompted when he fell abruptly silent.
No, he thought,I want to keep going. I want to kiss more than your mouth. I want to fit myself against your lovely, flawless being until all the fractures and jagged places in the world are eased. And I want to hold you, breathe you, as we move together into a moment of transcendent perfection.
“Nothing,” he said. “It’s been a long day. I do believe I will retire.” And giving her a pleasantly bland smile, he turned away, thereby missing the wishful expression in her eyes as he went to hide in the washroom and recover his good senses piece by piece.
14
despite a thesaurus, alice is rendered wordless— the naked truth—the bechdel test is failed—spy central—just desserts—knock on wood—lectio interruptus
It is better to have kissed and been interrupted than never to have kissed at all. This Alice reminded herself as she rebuttoned her bodice. Even so, her heart drooped miserably, despite the carefully nonchalant disguise upon her face. With a sigh, she reached for the emergency thesaurus she kept in a skirt pocket, seeking comfort. A quick, expert flick through the pages brought her to an altogether familiar list of words.
Chaste, celibate, pure, virtuous...
A knock on the door saved her from further sighing. She returned the thesaurus to her pocket and was proceeding toward the door when Daniel emerged from the washroom.
“Was that someone knocking?” he asked.
Alice stopped mid-step to stare at him. He was dressed only in trousers and shoes, his braces hanging loose, as he applied a towel to his naked torso. This was not the first time Alice had been made privy to what existed beneath a man’s shirt; after all, she’d been raised in acoeducational facility and had worked undercover as a chambermaid. But Daniel’s torso was not like all the other torsos. It wasspecial. It had clearly been honed into a model of efficiency rather than brawn: not one inch was superfluous to its purpose of neutralizing whatever A.U.N.T. deemed a threat. Interesting ridges of muscle banded its tanned surface. An even more interesting patch of fine dark hair dusted between the pectoral muscles. And a vertical line of hair below the navel, descending into his trousers, was so extremely interesting, Alice’s brain had to go have a wee lie-down.
“Uughhngh,” was her response to his barely recollected question.
He gave her a bemused look. She did not see it, however, because she had fixated on his forearms and was busy trying to consult her internal thesaurus for just the right adjective... only the pages kept catching alight...
“Shall I answer it, then?” he said, and Alice dimly realized that the knock had sounded again.
“Um-hm,” she managed to say.
His expression deepened from bemusement to concern, but he crossed the room and opened the door. Veronica stood in the corridor.
“Yes, what is it?” Daniel asked in a brusque voice.
The junior agent stared at him. “Unghghn,” she said.
With a weary sigh, Daniel ran a hand over his brow. At the revelation of a hairy armpit, Veronica dropped her duster. Stepping aside, Daniel made way for the young woman to enter the room. As his back presented itself for Alice’s view, she dropped her own internal, metaphorical duster.
There was the tattoo that had been hinted at above his collar: a barbed rose vine winding up his spine, beautiful, elegant, vicious. That he had the symbol of A.U.N.T. etched into his skin troubled Alice, although she could not quite grasp why. A rose against his breast would have been one thing (she paused to imagine it); a tangled vinewith more thorns than roses, superimposed on his backbone, suggested a deeper, harsher meaning than she dared to contemplate.
“What do you want?” he said.
Alice drew breath to ask if she could touch the tattoo, but then Veronica spoke, alerting her to the fact that Daniel’s question had been addressed to the junior agent, not her. Which was just as well. Further practice of marital touching might behoove the mission, butactually participating inthe mission would no doubt behoove it even more.
“You must come at once, sir!” Veronica urged. “There is a calamity in the kitchen.”
“What kind of calamity?” Daniel asked, folding his towel serenely. “Has someone been murdered?”
“No, sir,” Veronica said.
“Has Mrs. Etterly’s tiger got free and gone on a rampage?” Alice asked.
Veronica frowned. “No, ma’am.”
“Has—”
“The cake for tomorrow’s morning tea has been ruined!”
Daniel looked at her until she flinched. “Please, sir. Just come and see.”
“Fine.”
