Page 35 of Blueprints, Battlelines and Ballrooms
‘I don’t mean that.’She huffed a laugh, then groaned as she steadied herself on her feet and turned to face him.‘Thatfelt amazing.But my shoulder pinches sometimes when I move too fast.I forget my limitations when I’m with you.’
He gathered her against him.Caught the little puff in her chest and the smile in her voice.‘Good.You should have no limitations or barriers in your way.I’ll knock them all down.You should fly.’
She rested her cheek against his chest.He stroked a curl from her forehead.Her next breath was laboured, and she felt awkward in his arms.
‘I think I need to lie down.I did not sleep so well last night.Can you finish these?’
She was moving away before he could reply.He made to follow but paused in the doorway and watched her slow progress down the hall with her sluggish step.At the bottom of the stairs, she gave him a little wave.Like she was brushing him and his concerns away.
He laughed to himself, then checked the light.
On the paper, the cyanotype wash was starting to change colour, and the blues were starting to bloom.
Chapter Seventeen
Sheshouldnothavedone that.
Mercy, heavens, and hope, she should not have done that.
All day her body had hungered for Johannes, craving his touch, his energy, and his strength.And how he’d looked at her.Like sin and flame.A look that had been everything.
First step.Left.Right.
Next step.Left.Right.
Florence clung to the handrail.He’d asked her first, too, like he thought about that night as often as she did.Her back creaked, and she rested against the wall.Braced herself for the next step.Nothing had hurt as he’d spread her knees.Nothing had hurt as he’d stroked her, rolled her, and even now, parts of her felt sated while others cried out and reminded her that she was not whole, she was not young, and she could not allow herself to be bent over a table and taken.No matter how good it had felt while it was happening.
Left… left…
The nibbling ache that sat in her lower back as a persistent white noise grumbled, growled, then roared.It erupted with a clawing agony that clamoured and climbed around her spine, along her bones, through her fingers,everywhere.
She was not whole.She could not do such things.
The pain raged and consumed her until everything fell away.The walls, the carpet, the stairs, the handrail, they all slipped like water.And she surrendered, fell through nothing into the arcing emptiness of the world at her back.The pain owned her.Owned everything.Through its blackness, Johannes shouted her name, and his voice jumbled with her mother’s, even her father’s.All of them calling, but she could not answer.
She fell.Fell past her feet.Fell forever.
What was her pain shattered as she collided with the edge of the stairs and the floor, each solid surface a blunt wallop that beat against her, and then everything was agony and she could not breathe or make her heart pump or her eyes focus or do anything because everything, everything screamed.
Gentle arms.Worried shouts.Her broken body, gathered.Ascending.Cotton, pillows, comfort, warmth, and finally, finally, laudanum in water and the promise of relief.
Chapter Eighteen
Seventeen.Eighteen.Nineteen.Twenty.
Johannes pivoted to face the road, then turned back to the fence line.At least this block was all square corners, not like Number 4.And apart from some bricks that hadn’t yet been salvaged, and the remaining wooden posts from the makeshift chapel Hamish had made for Iris, the site was clear.Wide street frontage, no drainage—but it wouldn’t be impossible to connect it to the water network or the underground sewers.He’d build a house with every modern comfort.Hot water boilers, good lights.He’d put the office and a library at the front of the house so the south-easterly sun filled them on winter mornings.And if he was clever with the layout, it could all be on one level.
No stairs.
Absolutely no stairs.
Spencer brushed against his leg.Johannes crouched and scratched the tom beneath his chin.‘What do you think, old rogue?Do you think she’ll be happy here?’
The cat mewed.He pawed at a dandelion that had gone to seed.Little white tufts dislodged from the stem, some dropping to the ground and others taking flight.
‘What’s your wish, Spencer?’
The cat followed the line of white fluff, then licked his paws.
