ChapterFifteen
Bufflehead!What do you think happened?
Georgiana cringed at the mockery of the voices in her head.She needed time to sort out what had happened the day before.Andrew kissed me–or perhaps I kissed him.No!We collaborated.It had been an impossibly pleasurable collaboration.There was nothing to it, really,she tried to tell herself, but the mere recollection flooded her with liquid heat.
This wouldn’t do.She needed time–time for perspective and time for control.She didn’t have it.A message, one she neither hoped for nor anticipated, lay on her worktable.
My Dear Georgiana,
I wish to inform you that I will attend you in person five days hence.I look forward to seeing you again.Jamie Heyworth informs me that you look well, and I wish to see this for myself.
Your brother,
Richard
Lord Richard Hayden, Marquess Glenaire
Drat the man!A day to prepare the message and another for it to travel left her with just three days.She felt certain he must not have liked the information that Jamie took back to him.
She adored Richard in spite of his pomposity.She loved him still, in spite of his betrayal eleven years ago.Of all her family, only Richard accorded her any respect or kindness.Normally, she looked forward to his visits.They provided, until recently, the only light in her existence.Notthis time.
His complicity in her separation from Andrew years ago left a raw wound.She needed time to heal and still more time to sort out what had happened with Andrew the previous day.
She could still feel his kiss.Nothing would ever be the same for her again.She let her mind run through the catalog of sensations.It would take years to sort out each one.Much about yesterday was less obvious.She experienced a profound shift, a life-altering event.She understood now with acute perception that pain and pleasure were remarkably close sensations.Both were life.Their opposite was nothing, the black expanse of nothingness.
Never again could she fall back on her rank or seriously entertain Andrew Mallet as a teaching authority.She knew she had heard the last of “my lady” from him, but she didn’t know what they were now.They had agreed to be partners, but she was unsure of the nature of their partnership.
She set aside Richard’s message in an effort to set his interference aside with it.Work was her salvation.She bent once again over the Nossis of Locri texts.Andrew would come tomorrow.They had one more day to work before she had to deal with Richard.
She attempted to make her work, as always, her sturdy bulwark against the blows of life.This time, the work only added to her emotional vortex.She read the epigrams with new eyes, and what she found there disturbed her.“Erotos” she knew meant love, certainly, and romantic love at that.How should I translate this line?she wondered.
“‘Nothing is sweeter than love.’”
“‘Nothing is sweeter than Eros.’”In English the meaning tilted slightly with the change of wording.The next phrase appeared to be about delight or pleasure.
“Definitely Eros,” she said to the empty room.Whatever it is, Nossis prefers it to honey.Yesterday, Georgiana wouldn’t have understood.Love has a taste; she knew that now.She recalled the feel of Andrew’s mouth on hers, and the taste when he opened and let her explore.The taste was sweeter than honey, indeed.She felt warmth rise again deep within her.Heat colored her neck and pooled deep in her belly.
The words of Nossis hadn’t changed since yesterday, but Georgiana had.Andrew had kissed her when she was a girl, sweet innocent kisses, not like he had kissed her the day before.The raw pleasure of it opened her eyes to Nossis.She understood nuance and meaning she didn’t see before.What other secrets do they hold?With these distractions, how will I ever finish the translations?
* * *
“‘Nothing is sweeter than desire.’”
“‘Desire,’ Georgiana?”They had moved on to the poet Nossis of Locri, and, Andrew knew, to more treacherous ground.
“‘Erotos’ is very specific,” she said with more confidence than she would have a month ago.“I could translate it as ‘love,’ but each of the five or more Greek words that could be translated as love has a slightly different meaning.I could translate it as ‘eros,’ using the actual word, but in English that is pretentious.‘Nothing is sweeter than Eros’ doesn’t ring true.”
“Perhaps not,” he said but withheld comment, allowing her to consider her choices.
“Isn’t Eros also another name for Cupid?”she asked.At his nod she continued.“That left desire.I think eros or erotos refers to physical love.Am I correct?”
She had been pale, his Georgie, when he first encountered her weeks ago.Lately she had a sweet rosy glow, but today a bright pink colored her neck and face.
“Plato understood eros as the deep longing of one soul for union with another,” he explained.“Could ‘longing’ be your word choice?”
“‘Nothing is sweeter than longing.’Interesting.I’m not sure that conveys the author’s intent in this case.”
“Perhaps not.‘Desire’ does come closer,” he said and continued reading her translation, “‘All other delights are lesser.’Clumsy that.You might invert it, move the negative, and it becomes ‘No other delights come as high’ or ‘are as great.’”
