Page 46 of Blueprints, Battlelines and Ballrooms
The weeks between their promise to love one another and the day of his departure for Italy had been filled with countless passionate nights, although there had been too few leisurely mornings like this.Florence rarely wanted to stay at the hotel beyond dawn.‘Think of propriety,’ she’d say, even as she slipped her hand over his trousers.‘Think of our reputations.’
But he knew the truth.Sheenjoyedthe sneaking.Whenever he walked her home in the dark, she took his hand and squeezed it, trembling with exhilaration.Every time they tiptoed out of the side entrance, she pushed him against the alley wall and demanded one final midnight kiss.
Yet during the day, she was the very model of propriety.She’d become almost as steadfast as her mother in monitoring their behaviour through what was, to the world, a burgeoning courtship.The woman who’d been denied the simple innocence of courting in her past life now relished slow walks through the park and casual conversations at garden parties.Dear heavens, he’d even sent her poetry just to see if it would make her smile.
And it had, because she’d teased him about how terrible it was.
It was maddening, the distance by day contrasting with the almost deranged wantonness by night.In one breath, she commented on the weather.In the next, she declared with hedonistic specificity exactly what she desired that evening because she was having averygood day.Her special indulgence was deciding on ever more elaborate aliases to be entered in the guest book to claim their room.
Last night, they had become Mr and Mrs Gotobedde.
He would never be boring old Mr Jones again.
‘I can’t decide’—he grazed his lips over her stomach—‘if you are a well-behaved young woman or a thoroughly debauched one.’
‘Can’t I be both?’She slipped the bend of her knee over his shoulder.
‘If you can get your other knee up there, you can be anything you like.’
Johannes kissed her stomach just as the parish clock began to sound the hour.Inone, two, threesteady gongs, he had licked his way down to the apex of her thighs.Four, five, six,and she had hooked her other leg over his shoulder.
Seven…
He dragged his lips over the inside of her thigh.
Eight…
He nipped a path a little higher.
Nine…
He paused, then tilted his head, listening.
Ten…
He squeezed her lovely, lush skin with his fingers.
Eleven…
Johannes froze, then stretched over the mattress to yank his watch from the table.He clipped it open again, and just as the bell chimed out the fateful hour of twelve noon, his eyes sharpened on the minute hand.It wasn’t moving.
‘Bollocks.’He eased himself free of Florence’s limbs and slid off the bed.‘I forgot to wind my watch.The train leaves at one, the boat at three.’An uneven tempo struck up a rhythm in his chest.‘I’m going to miss them.’
He cast about the room for his clothes.Where had he thrown his smalls?Or rather, where hadshethrown them?And his coat?His shirt?He scrambled about, half crawling as he gathered up each item, then began tugging and pulling them on as fast as he could.‘Can you see my necktie?’
‘It’s right where you left it.’Florence giggled.He looked up to find her pointing to the top rail of the cast-iron headboard.He leant over, stole a kiss, and yanked the knot loose.
‘I still need to load my trunk.I’m never going to—’
‘Will you help me dress?’Florence heaved herself into a seated position.‘Please?My back is tight this morning.I don’t want to get caught with my corset around my ears.’
He could never refuse her a request, even if it meant covering her nakedness, and even if it made him very late.She threaded her arms gingerly through her chemise, and he lifted it over her head, pausing as she pulled her hair free.It would be weeks or even months before he’d see her breasts again, before he’d nip each bump of her ribs once more.In that time, she might well decide she was happier without him.He might get lost in a country he had never been to before, or fumble his phrases and say something outrageous, or lose his papers, or encounter any number of travesties that befell travellers abroad…
‘Maybe I shouldn’t go!Maybe this is an omen that I am not meant to travel or take on different work.Or have adventures of any sort.’
‘I think it’s an omen that you must remember to wind your watch.And sign from the spirits or not, I still need my stockings.’
She wiggled her toes.He gathered the silk into his hands, then eased it over her heel and her calf.‘I will miss untying these ribbons,’ he said, tightening the bow on one thigh, then the other.‘I will miss everything about you.You won’t forget me?’
