“Please.”
“I don’t like it sometimes, what I see on my lids.”
“Trust me, Cilia. And I’m right here. Not going anywhere.”
Holding my breath, I did.
The disorientation started. The sound of the spoon hitting the side of the bowl was a dull gong. It vibrated through me. I clasped the table.
“Pineapple ice. Open wide.”
I panted when the spoon went into my mouth. I opened my eyes quickly and re-established my balance, where I was. Then I concentrated on this thing in my mouth that was cold and fruity.
“Frozen like the rain you called snow, but this tastes good.” I let the sweetness melt on my tongue.
“Cilia, I never noticed how your face glows when you try something new and like it.”
My skin was flushed, but he had such a big smile on his face that I agreed. Why make him feel lesser? It was just one of those things, me and my sensitivity to temperature and noises.
“Want more?”
Eyes wide open, I nodded.
Grinning, he fed me spoon after spoon. The coldness on my tongue made it tickle, then slide down my throat.
His face changed. His cheeks reddened. It looked as if he had trouble swallowing.
“Perhaps you need some sweet ice.”
He put down the bowl, bent his head and kissed me. It was light at first, then he slipped his tongue along my lips until I opened fully. The kiss went on forever.
His hands tugged the strings of my smock. It disappeared and his fingers caressed me, my curves, making my breath tumble out.
I slipped away when he fingered the buttons of my yellow gown. “My lord, you’re fast tonight. We haven’t bantered enough. The toga.”
“You want more talk?” He clapped the spoon in the dish. “Want more?”
“More talk.”
His face filled with a smile, the type that filled his entire face with strength and joy.
My fury always lessened when he looked at me like this, like I was precious to him, that he understood. What we’d found that evening in Stroebek was special.
“You, my dear, may never know the pleasure I receive by making you smile. All I want is you . . . happy, Cilia. I’ll get better at saying it.”
“You always say that. Then you go away. If not for Tramel, I’d be bored.”
He squinted at me, the heat in his eyes lessened from flames to a stirring smolder. “My father comes to see you, here, when I’m away?”
“Yes. He knows that I miss the studio he lent me at Warwick Manor. It was very thoughtful of him to give his son’s new bride a room to look out at his lands. A place with a high ceiling and many windows for the best light. He calls this a closet.”
Felton’s eyes glazed over, and his head turned left and right at the tiny one-window room his sister had given me for my particular use. “Yes, one needs a larger room for paintings of Roman soldiers. I’ve only seen the one and it’s never finished.”
“For art to be right, the correct amount of light is needed. But you don’t like the light, do you, my lord?”
“Just enough to see you. That’s all I’ll ever need.”
The scars on his legs and upper arms, the back of his neck bothered him. He hated me looking at them. Didn’t he know he was beautiful, and the spots reminded me of a sleek jaguarete? Pity jaguaretes were solitary animals that only formed friendships when it was time to mate.
